There is a traditional snack called Liangba in Wenmingpu Town, Yongzhou, Hunan Province, which is pronounced as "Balang" in Qiyang dialect, and there is Liangba in Qiyang, Yongzhou. This snack is made of glutinous rice and tastes sweet and cool. However, due to the complex production process, it can't be sold at a high price, and there are fewer and fewer vendors selling Liangba, and the authentic production method of Liangba is facing loss. Since the 1990s, many people have not eaten Liangba, which has become a legendary snack and is on the verge of extinction. Different from other snacks, there are fewer and fewer people who are cool tyrants now. However, Wen Xiang, the heir of the ancestral craft in the town, and his wife have been cool tyrants for decades. Whether it is spring, summer, autumn and winter, they all walk through the streets of Wenmingpu ancient town with Liangba.

"Sell Balang, sell Balang, Balang is coming ..." In Wenmingpu ancient town, as long as you hear shouting and selling, most people, from children over one year old to elderly people in their seventies and eighties, will stop the market, buy this unique local traditional snack and take it home to share this delicious snack with their families.

Wenmingpu ancient town is full of traffic and is one of the earliest three towns established in Qiyang County. According to legend, in the Ming Dynasty, an old man named Wen Yi did business here in a civilized way and was kind to others. Later, more and more people became neighbors with him and gradually developed into a town, hence the name "Wenmingpu Town". Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang, who are in their forties, are the inheritors of the traditional craft Liangba. They will appear on this ancient street on time every morning to noon. A box of cold cakes, coupled with constant shouting and selling, has formed a unique landscape of the ancient town.

"Liangba" is called "Balang" in Wenmingpu Town. It is made of glutinous rice, made of peanuts, sesame seeds and peppermint oil, and tastes sweet. It is the most regional snack in Qiyang County.

Balang snacks have a long history, low prices and are deeply rooted in people's hearts. In Qiyang, three generations of grandparents and grandchildren can deeply recall the wonderful taste of having a few cents to buy a cold food when they were young. The author also grew up in Wenmingpu Town. During the eight years he worked in Shenzhen, he never forgot to buy some Balang to take back to Shenzhen every time he went home, because he often ate this Balang snack when he was a child. When working outside, I always remember the smell of Balang. I always want to go back to my hometown to buy some, so every time I go back to my hometown, I have to bring more flavor of my hometown to Shenzhen.

Because the production process of Balang is complicated, it can't be sold at a high price. Now few people inherit the traditional process of Balang, but Wen Xiang and his wife have persisted for more than 20 years. Speaking of their craft, they learned it from his old man. Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang said, "This special snack is only available in Wenmingpu Town, and Balang is also made from it.

Wen Xiang and his wife insist on making every process in the traditional way. From the soaking of glutinous rice to the shaping of Balang, it takes more than ten hours to go through eight processes. The first step is to select tough glutinous rice and soak it in well water 12 hours. In order to sell it at the market time in the town, we got up at 2 pm to grind glutinous rice slurry with stones, filter the precipitate with sandbags, remove excess water, and then steam it in a steamer for one and a half hours. The secret of this time is that the heat is too high, the glutinous rice flour will be too hard and the heat is not enough, and the glutinous rice flour will be too soft. Only when the hardness is moderate, the prepared Balang will be elastic and will not collapse. Steamed glutinous rice flour was hammered while it was hot by Wen Xiang and his wife, and beaten with a stone mortar. This primitive technology is very laborious, but Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang stubbornly insist on not replacing it with machines. He thinks that native glutinous rice is much better than machine-made glutinous rice, and Wen Xiang and his wife eat it alternately.

Wen Xiang and his wife: "I think the longer his viscosity, the better." Grinding and boiling, it will be dawn at 5 am, so we have no time to rest. We have to prepare mashed dough and brew sandwich stuffing. Lao Wen and his wife make 500 Balans at a time, mash them into balls, squeeze them, fill them and touch the butter. They must be busy from five to eight before they can make Balang and sell it in the market. Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang's Balaam is real, and so are people. They are three dollars and two dollars, and they never bargain.

Liangba-freshness is the best.

The best tasting time of Balang is 12 hour, which is not easy to preserve during transportation. At the same time, there are very few people who really pass on the cold baking technology. It will be a blessing to taste the cold dishes of Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang!