Fu Qingguang Cake: The best taste in the world is nostalgia

Packing cakes

Kneading dough, stuffing, sprinkling water, pasting cakes, baking, and starting the oven? At 3 o'clock in the morning every day, in an alley of Yutang Village, Longshan Street, Fuqing City Deep down, Lin Benqing's family started a day of fireworks with the sound of jingling bells.

Guangbing, as the most famous traditional snack in Fuqing, has a history of more than 400 years. In order to commemorate the achievements of the Qi family army in fighting against the Japanese, the local people called this kind of pancake "Guang Pancake" or "Zhengdong Pancake".

Fu Qingguang Cake has a simple selection of ingredients, using only 4 ingredients: water, salt, alkali, and sesame seeds, but it can produce an endless aftertaste. It relies on special production techniques.

To make light cakes, you have to rush early. It takes 5 to 6 hours for the dough to ferment. Pasting cakes and scones are the two most technical processes in the process of making cakes. First, light a fire in a large vat wrapped with yellow mud and burn the walls of the vat white. In the high temperature of 40 to 60 degrees Celsius, Lin Benqing cooperated with his wife. She handed the cake to him, and he took the cake with one hand and quickly put it into the vat with the other. His body stretched, yawned, leaned down, and his movements were smooth and agile. Soon, all the hundreds of light cakes were posted. Then sprinkle water on the cake surface, seal the mouth of the jar and start a raging fire. The smoke and aroma will circulate thousands of times in every square inch. After more than 10 minutes, only the golden, crispy and fragrant cake was baked.

The light cake can be filled with meat, oyster cake, dried bamboo shoots, peanuts, etc. The types include green ti (seaweed) cake, seaweed cake, lard cake, etc. The flavor is unique and can be adjusted by everyone. Guangbing is also a kind of nostalgia. There is a popular song among overseas Chinese in Fuqing: "Guangbing is fragrant, Guangbing is good, Guangbing is our McDonald's." ?

For 30 years, Lin Benqing got up early in the morning to work, making seven batches of light cakes, and was busy until the afternoon. Every time a oven is baked, his wife uses an electric car to tie a bamboo basket and transport it to the market for sale. In the street markets of Fuqing, you will often see pyramid-shaped baked golden light cakes stacked on bamboo baskets lined up in a row, and Fuqing sweet potato-accented shouts of "light cake ballad" can be heard one after another. As an ordinary small noodle dish suitable for all ages, Fuqing people often praise it as "you can eat it from one to a hundred years old".

After years of hard work, Lin Ben Qingguang Cake Shop has gained a wide reputation. Overseas Chinese returning from overseas and fellow countrymen returning home from abroad always come to the shop to take a few pieces with them to relieve their homesickness with local flavor. Lin Benqing said that there are fewer and fewer people making cakes nowadays, and there are less than 20 cake shops left in Fuqing, but he has always persisted and hopes that this craft can be passed down from generation to generation. (Correspondents of Fujian Daily Zhong Ying and Gao Jingjing Text/Picture)

Dancing with Fire ***

Baking

Golden Light Cake