Snacks are actually a window into a place’s local customs. Snacks are also one of the most popular ways of eating. The various regional cultures and the temperament of the local people are fully exposed through the window of snacks.

For thousands of years, on the unobstructed plains of southwestern Shandong, the combination of the tradition of agricultural society and the Confucian concept of emphasizing Taoism over utensils has given rise to numerous handmade snacks with different flavors. I have always been fond of hometown snacks since I was a child.

When I returned to Jinan a few days ago, I actually ate Heze’s Lijia hanging stove biscuits at the food stall near the civil air defense! This hanging stove biscuit is usually not baked in a furnace, but a pan is turned upside down on the stove, and the mixed dough is placed on the surface of the pan and baked through charcoal fire. The baked biscuits are crispy on the outside and milky yellow in color; soft on the inside and taste salty. Young people with good teeth can also bake the sesame cakes on a low fire to evaporate all the moisture inside and outside to become "dried banger", which can be broken into pieces by clapping it with your hands. It tastes crispy and crispy, and has a unique flavor, and the sesame cakes are also delicious. Big and thick, one sesame seed cake can make your stomach half full. When eating, you have to hold it with both hands to prevent the sesame seeds from falling to the ground. You may not know that there is almost no Heze person who has not eaten sesame cakes, and almost no Heze person does not have a sesame cake complex. The round sesame cakes, exuding the aroma of sesame, have influenced generations of local people. "Water Margin" tells the story of Wu Dalang, who hawked "cooked cakes" (similar to today's sesame cakes) along the street. "Water Margin" is actually a history of snack culture in southwestern Shandong. If someone who doesn’t climb the Great Wall is not a hero, then the Heze people whose teeth can’t tear through frozen beef tendons and whose tongue can’t stir the dried sesame cake tops aren’t the descendants of heroes either.