The food in Guangxi can be described in three words in my mind: light and pink. They have a light taste, and rice noodles seem to be their staple food. There are rice noodle shops everywhere on the streets. Maybe, as a foreigner, my understanding is not correct and has a certain one-sidedness.

Last week, by chance, a literary friend from Hechi invited me to Dahua to taste the local specialty: Ma Ye Steamed Bun.

Speaking of which, I have no idea about steamed buns. I always feel like they exist like steamed buns. As for the hemp leaves, I don’t even know what they are.

So, when I first talked about trying the sesame buns, I was a little uninterested.

Exploring the alleys

After a bumpy journey, I turned on the navigation system and made several phone calls. It took more than three hours to arrive at this restaurant located deep in an inconspicuous alley. Sister Ning’s Maye Steamed Bun Snack Shop.

The door is completely enclosed with transparent glass. Through the glass window, you can see the steam rising from the stove. I smelled it, and it smelled like rice dumpling leaves. Could it be rice dumplings?

I stood hesitantly in front of the glass window. Upon seeing this, my literary friend said, "Let's go in and have a look!"

Pushing open the sliding glass door, a scent of fragrance rushed into my nostrils in the hot air. It seemed to be a little different from the smell of rice dumpling leaves. So, what could it be? I'm interested.

Looking inside the house, I saw the shopkeepers, Sister Ning and her husband, were busy making buns. Seeing us, Brother-in-law Ning smiled at us and continued busy with his work. Several formed steamed buns have been placed on the table. Sister Ning stood up and greeted us very gently: "Come here, let's eat steamed buns." She greeted us very kindly and naturally, as if we were old friends for many years.

While she was talking to us, she was still working with her hands. There are a lot of banana leaves placed beside the table, and the pieces are cut into square pieces, as if they were measured with a ruler.

"Let's take a look first!" The literary friend picked up his mobile phone and kept taking pictures. He said that nowadays, there are very few souvenir shops that are authentic, clean and hygienic.

I don’t like taking pictures, so I squatted next to Sister Ning and his wife and watched them making buns.

Couple Steamed Bun Shop

Biyingying’s glutinous rice flour is stuffed with peanut and sesame fillings, and each one is wrapped into an oval shape, just like the green dumplings from hometown. However, there is a slight difference. Sister Ning and the others wrapped the wrapped buns in banana leaves before steaming them. Moreover, before taking it out, press it with a towel to remove the water. The dumpling, which was originally round and plump, had turned into a flat piece of glutinous rice cake when it came out of the pot.

Sister Ning said that making this steamed bun requires more than 20 steps. Early in the morning, you have to go out to pick fresh hemp leaves and banana leaves, take them home and clean them first. Then blanch the hemp leaves in boiling water and set aside. Banana leaves are cut into small squares of the same size.

Wash the glutinous rice, dry it, and use a blender to beat it into powder together with the blanched sesame leaves. Add water and knead it into a rice flour ball. Let it wake up for a while. During the waking process, beat the sesame seeds and peanuts into fine powder with a grinder, and mix them with sugar.

Start making buns. This process is not complicated, just like making buns. However, before wrapping it in banana leaves, you need to apply a thin layer of oil on the banana leaves. This is to prevent the buns and banana leaves from adhering to each other and damaging the integrity of the buns.

Sesame leaves and glutinous rice mixture

Peanut and sesame fillings

Wrapped buns

Banana leaf wraps

Packing< /p>

In a blink of an eye, the buns in the pot were ready. Sister Ning hurriedly put down her work and went to the stove to turn off the fire. She squeezed out the water neatly, bagged it, and packaged it. I turned around and saw that there was someone at the door waiting for the steamed buns to come out of the pot!

After the bun buyer left, Sister Ning brought some buns over and warmly invited us to eat them.

Gently tear open the wrapped banana leaves, and the sesame leaf buns appear before your eyes like a rare treasure wrapped in them. Dark green, translucent, with the fragrance of hemp leaves. Take a bite, it's soft with a little bit of elasticity, smooth and sweet. There seems to be a seductive magic that makes people unable to stop talking. Sister Ning said that after getting colder, she becomes more resilient. However, glutinous rice is not easy to digest, so friends with weak stomachs should be careful. Although the hemp leaf steamed buns taste good, please don't be greedy.

It is said that hemp leaves can lower blood pressure and relieve internal heat, making them a rare medicine. Medicine and food have the same origin. Adding herbs to food can not only improve the taste, but also have certain disease prevention and treatment effects.

Steamed and delivered

Sesame buns

Before I could finish a bun, Sister Ning answered the phone and placed another order. She smiled apologetically, bagged it, tied it up, put it in a bamboo basket, drove the battery car, and went out to deliver the goods. It was raining, but Sister Ning didn't hesitate at all and rushed into the rain curtain.

Looking at her thin figure, I muttered: "It's so hard!"

"Yes!" Who would have thought that Brother-in-law Ning, who had been silent, took over the topic .

It turns out that Sister Ning’s family has made a living by making sesame buns for generations. The couple would wake up early and stay up late every day, wandering around the sesame-leaf steamed buns. Picking hemp leaves and banana leaves, grinding flour, and making buns are all processes that are fine and cumbersome. At the end of the day, I was so tired that I couldn't even straighten my back. The two of them could make about 400 steamed buns.

After excluding the cost and expenses, the two of them only earned hard-earned money.

"If it's so hard, why don't you change your career?" I asked him.

"This is a craft inherited from our ancestors! How can we throw it away?" There was a sense of pride in Brother-in-law Ning's tone. It is a craft passed down from ancestors, and it is definitely worth being proud of! However, the second half of the sentence is vaguely sad and self-deprecating. The income gained from their daily hard work did not enable their family to embark on the road to wealth.

In this materialistic world, illegal business practices such as cutting corners and shoddy goods are endless. Sister Ning's family adheres to their own conscience and insists on no added pigments to ensure fresh green color. In their hearts, there is an idea that they must not destroy the sign left by their ancestors.

Perhaps this concept is a cultural inheritance!

In fact, they could have chosen an easier job, but they just couldn't let go of that inheritance. Although it is a bit bitter, my heart is at ease.

Time will not deceive people, and good things can often stand the test of time. Sister Ning’s Ma Ye Steamed Bun is a profound accumulation of time!

When I left, I looked back at the small restaurant hidden in the alley, the restaurant that carried the hopes of generations of people. Surrounded by high-rise buildings, it seems so small and insignificant.

The wave of economic development is sweeping every inch of Guangxi's land. On the one hand, it is about making a fortune, on the other hand, it is a legacy that cannot be discarded. I don’t know how long this small shop can last.