Almost everywhere in Guiyang, you can see a snack that, at a glance, looks like a newborn baby wrapped in "swaddling clothes" in the maternity ward, which Guiyangese figuratively call "silk dolls". Silk doll "swaddling clothes" is made of flour pancakes, thin as paper but there is a palm so big, with its wrapped vegetables crispy and crisp, sour and spicy taste, with the effect of appetizing the spleen.

And two thousand miles away in Beijing, there is a kind of pancake rolled vegetables and food snacks, the shape of its big one or a few big silk doll, but not called silk doll, Beijing people have made it an imaginative name - spring cake.

Silk dolls are mainly found in Guiyang, while spring pancakes are actually found in the northeast, Fuzhou, Chaoshan and other regions. Some people even say that spring cake, as the traditional name of Chaozhou snacks, is evolved from the ancient folk snacks in Chaozhou, but I don't believe it. Some people say that Beijing's spring pancakes are the most delicious, I believe, so this article in front of the spring pancakes, add the word "Beijing".

Spring cake is the earliest five Xin plate development into spring plate, and then evolved from the spring plate, the ancients will be five kinds of dishes in a plate, called "five Xin plate". On the five Xin plate records, can be seen in the Zhou Chu, "the land and customs": "the day of the ordinary people to worship life, on the five Xin plate. Wuxin, so the five organs of the gas also." Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty explained here five Xin plate said: "to onion, garlic, leek, polygonum, artemisia, mustard, pungent and tender vegetables and food, known as the five Xin plate."

Zhou lived in the Western Jin Dynasty, when the five Xin plate is generally used to worship, to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, after the five Xin plate has become a spring day necessary food, renamed "spring plate". At that time, the spring plate has no pancakes, only vegetables.

Spring plate evolved into spring pancakes, there is a cozy story: according to legend, there is a scholar, his wife is very wise, the two have deep feelings, love. The scholar concentrated on reading, but often forget to eat. This can be anxious wife, she thought, finally in the spring this day, by eating spring plate came up with a way to do the spring cake, spring cake can be a meal, but also as a dish. Scholar while reading and eating spring pancakes, meals to eat, reading more vigor. Soon, the scholar went to Beijing to take the examination, his wife again made spring cakes and fried them in oil to give her husband as dry food. As a result, Chen Hao won the first prize, so happy that his wife to do the spring pancake dry food, given to the examiner to taste. The examiner ate, full of praise, immediately wrote a poem and essay, called "spring rolls". From then on, not fried called spring pancakes, fried called spring rolls, a moment of fame, spread to the folk households, the formation of every family to eat spring pancakes or spring rolls of the custom.

The age of this story has no way to prove, but from the scholar participated in the imperial examinations to analyze this matter, at least should occur after the Sui emperor, because the imperial examination system in the era of the Sui emperor began to rise. And about the spring cake records, the earliest out of the Tang Dynasty's "Four Seasons Treasure Mirror": "spring day to eat rococo, spring cake, lettuce, the number of spring plate." That is to say, in the Tang Dynasty, spring cake in the spring plate, has been singled out.

In terms of development history, silk dolls and spring pancakes, compared to the spring pancakes, is too young, spring pancakes is simply silk dolls ancestor of the ancestors. Silk doll on the stage of history less than a hundred years, and spring pancakes, there is also a story. In the Guizhou dialect, the silk doll is the same as the private doll, meaning illegitimate children. According to legend, during the Republican period. Guiyang has a childless old couple, one day the two picked up a baby girl on the side of the road, the crowd called it a private doll. The old couple's family was poor, and now there is an extra mouth, the livelihood is even more difficult. Fortunately, the husband occasionally in a flour mill to help casual labor, can be exchanged for a little flour, these flour has become the family of three staple food. There wasn't much flour, so we couldn't let it go unchecked. Husband had seen the spring pancakes, so he instructed his wife to refer to the practice of spring pancakes, a little bit of flour and water and dilute, put into the pot spread into a thin crust, and then some vegetables shredded, wrapped in crust, because the family is poor, there is no seasoning, can only put a little bit of their own brewing of sour water, so that the girl to eat it. Because of the skin wrapped vegetables shredded like swaddling clothes, so called "silk doll". The girl very much like, never get tired of eating, almost rely on eating silk dolls grow up. The stars have changed, the girl has become as beautiful as a flower. Villagers probed the cause, the girl laughed and said: "all because often eat silk dolls." People laughingly said "private dolls to eat silk dolls, eat the beauty of flowers," thus, "silk dolls," widely spread, love the beauty of young girls especially favorite. But silk dolls in Guiyang once fell, and even disappeared for decades, until the 1970s, only to re-emerge.

Development to the present silk doll, the production has been very careful, used to wrap the pancake must be as thin as a cicada wing, the largest but the palm of the hand. When making the crust, with flour and water and salt a little kneaded and moved through (water and flour ratio of 1:6), the pan is hot, brush oil, wipe dry, and then the left hand grabbed the dough flung round and to the bottom of the pan pestle a little to become a diameter of 9 centimeters of the round thin skin, the right hand immediately rounded pancakes unveiled, dozens of production, put into the steamer to make it soft, easy to wrap the food. Some families also use an electric iron to make pancakes, so you can make one by placing the dough in the bottom of the iron with the pestle. Then mung bean sprouts, kelp, celery, fern section blanch in boiling water, materials, if rich, you can set dozens of plates, cold noodles, vermicelli, sour rakkyo, pickled radish, carrots, crispy whistles, folded ears, lettuce, cucumber and so on, respectively, into a small plate, a small bowl of soy sauce, vinegar, monosodium glutamate, sesame oil, ginger, green onion, burnt chili pepper blended into a dipping sauce. In the pancake into a variety of shredded vegetables wrapped into the upper large and lower small pocket shape, into the crispy soybeans, and then elegantly poured a spoonful of dipping water that is, at this moment, the dipping water will run through the entire body of the silk doll, chewing up the crispy and delicious, complex flavors, spicy and pleasing to the eye. Silk doll side dishes are all vegetarian, not a little meat, so also called "vegetarian spring rolls", its core competitiveness lies in the bowl of dipping water, each silk doll store has its own secret recipe, dipping water determines the business of good and bad.

The spring rolls are not as elaborate as the pancakes, which can be as big as a fan or as small as a lotus nail. Side dishes, depending on personal preference, need to be stir-fried first, without dipping water. Spring pancake side dishes can be meat and vegetarian, authentic spring pancakes will generally put a little spring onion shoots, when possible, it is best to put a little bit of chestnut, so that the spring pancake texture tendon, crispy, soft, salty and fragrant, and the "bite spring" two words coincide with. In short, the fried side dishes, is the core competitiveness of the spring pancake, each store is different. The taste of the side dishes determines the success and failure of the spring pancakes.

Tasting the silk doll, you can see a few real temperament of the taster. Character delicate people generally eat better, they will be silk doll wrapped tightly, before swallowing a mouthful, into the mouth after the mouth closed chewing, slowly taste, like tasting life in the sweet and sour. Personality slightly impatient, eating more lousy, such as eating dumplings like a mouthful, half of the silk doll in the mouth, half in the outside, the hands of the remaining remnants of the skin leftovers a mess, dipping water flow out, along the five fingers, flowing all over the palm of the hand, it is indeed embarrassing. But some people do not care, simply use their tongue to flow in the palm of the dipping water licked clean, and then also do not care about the bystanders surprised eyes, continue to use the pancake wrapped vegetables, repeat the last round of things. In this person's opinion, life was just like that, no matter when or where one could encounter embarrassment, if one cared about the gazes of the bystanders, even if there was a huge hole in the ground under one's feet, it would not be enough to hide. In that case, it's better to live like no one else.

And eat spring pancakes, at least in the eating appearance do not have to worry about embarrassment, because it does not have to add another dip, so you want to eat how elegant can be how elegant, do not want to pretend to be civilized, but also can be chewed, gobbled up. For many people, spring pancakes are a delicious way to eat and feel affection. But for me, the eating is not embarrassing, but the heart is a little embarrassed. I am a southerner, but stayed in the north for many years, my wife is a typical career woman, usually very little cooking, and will not cook, to the north, but learned to do spring pancakes. Whenever the weekend, my wife will always be excited to make spring pancakes, but she does not know how to cook pancakes, so she went to buy dumpling skin or tofu skin instead, anyway, can be wrapped on it. When stir-frying, sometimes it's so salty that it's hard to talk about it, and sometimes she doesn't put a pinch of salt in it. Whenever I started eating, she would stare at me and ask, "How is it? It tastes so good, doesn't it?" At this time, I will always hold back tears, will eat a spring cake, and then against my will boasted that "simply delicious", and inwardly thinking: perhaps Lu You's phrase "spring cake, I do not suffer" the correct note, not to say that my wife's spring cake, right?

At this time, often do not allow me to think too much, my wife picked up a hand over, showing a Mona Lisa smile, "Then another one!"

So, happiness grows against the odds in the midst of trials and tribulations.