From the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, eating spring cakes became more and more popular, and there was a record that the emperor presented spring cakes to officials when he was in beginning of spring.
Spring cakes are simple in materials, convenient to make, flexible and chewy in taste, and can be eaten in a variety of ways, such as wrapping them as a side dish, eating them as a staple food alone, and eating pancakes.
Spring cake, also called lotus leaf cake and pancake, is a kind of pancake. It is a traditional food in China. It is simple in material, easy to make, flexible and chewy in taste, and can be eaten in many ways, such as packaging it as a side dish, eating it alone as a staple food, and frying cakes.
Spring pancake is a kind of double-layer pancake baked with hot noodles, and it is eaten without cover. Nowadays, restaurants use duck cakes and rolled roast ducks instead. The dish that rolls spring cakes is called "He", and it is made by seasoning, frying or mixing bean sprouts and vermicelli. In addition, it should be served with hot dishes, such as fried spinach, fried leeks and scrambled eggs, as well as cooked meat called "box dishes", such as elbow flower with sauce, bacon with sauce and oven meat (all of which should be shredded).
If you eat at home, these dishes are bought from a "box restaurant" (a store selling cooked meat, such as Xidan Tianfu). When the cooked meat shop delivers the goods, it will put the cooked meat in an exquisite box and put the box on its dining table when eating. After the customer has finished eating the meat, the butcher shop will take back the box. Vegetables are called "box vegetables" because they are packed in boxes, while cooked meat shops are called "box shops" because they are full of spare boxes against the wall.
When eating spring cakes in a restaurant, you can order according to your own taste. If you are alone, you can eat "fried and quilt"-a yellow plate (egg) is covered at the bottom of the plate, which is more vivid!
You can also order some meat, onions, coriander and sweet noodle sauce and roll them up to eat. Very delicious.
The earliest spring cakes were pancakes baked or steamed with wheat flour. When eaten, they are usually eaten with fried vegetables such as bean sprouts, spinach, leeks and vermicelli, or with spring cakes and cabbage. Legend has it that eating spring cakes and all kinds of vegetables wrapped in spring cakes will make farmers and livestock flourish. Some areas believe that eating spring cakes wrapped in celery and leeks will make people work harder, live longer and have a more prosperous family business. With the development of time, the shape and eating time of spring cakes vary from place to place.
In beginning of spring season, spring returns to the earth, and the green onions are tender. Eating spring cakes and rolled onions with sweet noodle sauce is called "biting spring". But Beijingers pay more attention to cooking when eating spring cakes. They want to shred shallots, vermicelli and spinach, fry them, and then mix them together. This is called "Cai He" and spring cakes are rolled and eaten. In addition, there are ways to eat cooked meat such as shredded pork with sauce, shredded chicken and shredded belly. Pay attention to wrapping it up and eating it from beginning to end, which is called "having a head and a tail".
There are many raw materials for spring cakes. If you want to send them into your mouth smoothly, the kung fu lies in the method of rolling them. Add chopped green onion, sweet noodle sauce, chopped sauce meat, scrambled eggs, fried spinach and leeks, yellow bean vermicelli, bean sprouts, etc. Put them on the spring cakes in turn and put them neatly. At this time, you should use an important tool-chopsticks.
Put chopsticks on the spring cake, roll up one side of the spring cake along the chopsticks, wrap the lower end, hold it by hand, roll up the other side, roll it up and put it on the plate, and then take out the chopsticks one by one. Skillful people will roll out spring pancake rolls as big as their mouths for easy biting. This rolling method is also suitable for roast duck.
In terms of eating time, the ancient custom of eating spring cakes in beginning of spring is still popular in most areas, and some areas in Fujian and Guangdong eat pancakes around Tomb-Sweeping Day. In Zhangzhou, Fujian, there is a legend about Tomb-Sweeping Day eating spring cakes: in the early years of Qing Dynasty, Zheng successfully attacked Zhangzhou, causing dozens of deaths. Because there was no coffin to bury, he had to be buried by offering sacrifices, and then he ate pancakes as a souvenir.