Because of its fragrant, glutinous and sticky texture, glutinous rice is often used to make various snacks and is loved by everyone. It occupies a unique position in Chinese food culture and has made a huge contribution.

The strong plasticity of glutinous rice meets people's whims and whims, allowing it to manifest various legends, unexpected uses, and rich and colorful production methods, making it transform into porridge, glutinous rice dumplings, dumplings, cakes, pastries, etc.

In addition, there are high-end restaurants and street stalls, enriching people's food experience.

The Buyi people like to live close to mountains and rivers. They occupy the most advantageous agricultural land in the mountainous area of ??southwestern Guizhou, where "no land is even three miles flat" in China. They are good at farming and mainly plant rice. They are known as the "rice nation".

The long history of rice cultivation and rich farming production lifestyle make rice staple food the main ingredient for Buyi people to make delicious food.

Buyi people have an inextricable love with glutinous rice.

At weddings, funerals, festivals, and when welcoming guests, the Buyi people carefully carve the glutinous rice into a variety of delicacies.

Five-color flower rice, gray rice dumplings, glutinous rice dumplings, glutinous rice dumplings, glutinous rice cakes...everything is mouth-watering.

The glutinous rice on the altar conveys the memory and mourning for the deceased, the glutinous rice on the dining table shows the happiness and satisfaction of life, and the glutinous rice in the luggage expresses affection and cherishment for each other.

Among the glutinous aromas that come from the hands of the Buyi people, the glutinous rice cake can be regarded as the most loved one.

The shape of the rice cake is like the ancient cloth rice cake. Buyi people are also accustomed to placing the steamed rice cake on bamboo poles for storage, hence the name.

And because there is one on the left and one on the right, the middle can be folded but cannot be folded. The left and right are connected, which means reluctant to leave. Some people also call it lovers' cakes.

Most of the delicacies of the Buyi people are conceived for festivals, and their primary function is to offer sacrifices to their ancestors, and the cake is no exception.

Every July and a half, every Buyi family will make rice cakes.

Good food is never something that comes without hard work. The process of making rice cakes is very complicated. Just making the dough requires eight steps: rice selection, rice sifting, rice soaking, grinding, filtering, drying, kneading and spreading the dough.

A traditional skill in which the women of the family work together to fight.

When making glutinous rice cakes, fresh glutinous rice should be used. The fresher the better, old rice that has been stored for many years cannot be used.

The viscosity of aged rice that has been stored for a long time decreases and the glutinous aroma is weak, which will greatly affect the taste of the rice cake.

Sifting rice is a technical job.

In my memory, my mother and aunt were not yet home from practicing Qigong, so most of the work of sifting rice at home was done by my grandma.

Grandma is very skilled in Ma Liu, and she can perform a wonderful acrobatic show with just a bamboo sieve.

Scoop a spoonful of rice into the bamboo sieve, shake it up and down a few times, and the rice will run to the middle of the sieve; then turn the sieve first to the left a few times, and then to the right a few times, one left and one right.

, the broken rice and residue fell from the cracks in the bamboo; finally, shake the sieve vigorously, and while shaking, tap the bottom of the sieve with your fingers to let the rice grains jump in the sieve, and the light rice shells and unfilled grains

Rice grains floated out of the sieve one after another.

Wash the sifted rice and put it into a bucket. Then fill the bucket with water and let the rice soak in the bucket for about twelve hours. This process is called rice soaking.

Time is food’s best friend, and time is also food’s mortal enemy. Every delicacy has its own time node in the birth process.

The rice soaking process has the most stringent time requirements in the making of rice cakes. Twelve hours is the optimal time. If the time is too short, the rice grains will not swell evenly and become soft, and the texture of the pulp will be uneven. If the time is too long,

, Glutinous rice is prone to sourness. Once it becomes sour, the production of delicious food will stop here.

Grinding is a physical job that requires the cooperation of at least three people, two of them pushing the grinding wheel and one person adding the rice.

During the pulp refining process, the quality of the pulp depends entirely on the experience of Timmi people.

When adding rice, the ratio of water to rice in the spoon is extremely critical. If there is more rice and less water, the ground slurry will not be fine, and the steamed rice cake will taste stiff; if there is too much water but not enough rice, the ground slurry will be too thin, and it will take too long to filter the water.

, rice milk easily becomes sour.

Therefore, the process of refining the rice pulp is a test for Timi people's eyesight. Timi people must be able to accurately judge the suitability of the rice milk concentration based on the shape of the rice milk flowing out from the cracks of the stone grinding stone in a timely manner, and according to its concentration changes

Adjust the ratio of water to rice as appropriate.

After the slurry is ground, pour it all into a filter bag sewn with Buyi white clay cloth, tie the bag tightly and put it on a suspended stretcher, cover it with a pressing plate, add stones to the pressing plate, and use gravity to pour the rice slurry into the bag.

The water in the filter is filtered out as quickly as possible.

When there are no more water drops dripping from the bag, pour out the rice balls in the filter bag, divide them into half fist-sized pieces, spread them one by one on the bamboo sieve to dry in the sun, and wait until the rice balls can be crushed into pieces after being squeezed.

The flour will complete the drying process.

This announced that the preparations for making dough cakes could come to an end for the time being.

The above steps need to be completed the day before the festival.

On the day of the festival, women get up early and devote themselves wholeheartedly to the preparation of this delicacy.

Washing leaves, rubbing leaves, cutting leaves, ingredients, stir-frying, pounding ingredients, boiling sugar, kneading dough, wrapping and steaming, everyone divides the work and cooperates.

The leaves and fillings were ready, and the noodles were mixed, and the women began to wrap them.

Flatten the leaves and apply lard on the banana leaves in a circular shape. The purpose of applying oil is to increase the lubrication of the dough and the surface of the leaves. The steamed pulp cake can separate the rice leaves, making it easier to eat and also enhances the flavor.