In my hometown in the south, cake is a kind of food with a beautiful meaning, so that the delicious food with temperature feels warm every time I eat it.

1

How time flies! It has been more than a month since I came back from Fujian.

During this period of smog, I often unconsciously think of the clear Wan Li in the south and the sweet air that I always feel that I can't breathe enough.

Zhou Shiqiang and Shen Shaoqun are a couple born in 1981s. Their hometown is in northern Fujian, and they are engaged in white tea and celadon business in Zhengzhou.

It's been a few years since I left my hometown, and the young couple's shop is also doing well, and they have become friends with many customers in Zhengzhou.

Besides celadon and white tea, Zhou Shiqiang has another hobby, which is cooking.

The northern part of Fujian is beautiful. In such a good place, both plants and animals are moist, so good ingredients are naturally available.

Every once in a while, Zhou Shiqiang and his wife always ask relatives and friends in their hometown to send them some delicious food from their hometown, and then they make a table in the shop and invite local friends in Zhengzhou to have a meal.

As the New Year is approaching, Xiao Zhou's shop will receive some winter bamboo shoots, dried prunes, dried sweet potatoes, bacon, rice wine and fresh bamboo wine every few days.

Zhou Shiqiang said that the Chinese New Year is coming, and these are all New Year gifts for friends in Zhengzhou.

At noon today, Zhou Shiqiang suddenly called and hurriedly called me to the store.

He said that fresh winter bamboo shoots had just arrived from his family, and there was a good meal at noon.

The last interview about Fujian cuisine was a bit lacking, so I decided to go to dinner in this foggy day.

2

When you enter the first floor of Beihuan Strait Tea City, you will smell a familiar smell at the entrance.

that's right. I often smelled this fragrance in those days in northern Fujian last month. It must be "burning meat with winter bamboo shoots".

as soon as I entered the store, I saw some local friends here. The good meal was served and everyone was full of praise.

We talked about those days in northern Fujian.

I remember our first meal in Songxi, and our local friend floret arranged for us to have a sumptuous lunch at a farmhouse in the suburbs.

full of food and wine, curious, I ran to the kitchen to interview Xiaojiao.

The chef got off work early, and just happened to meet some aunts cooking a kind of rice cake there.

in the dim kitchen, there is a round cake on the big board, which is still steaming hot.

Seeing our surprise, my aunt cut a piece for us to eat. She said, "This is our seven-layer cake. An acquaintance in the village wanted to eat it, so she specially took rice and asked me to make it."

This freshly steamed seven-layer cake is soft, and there is no imaginary Q-bomb. It is sticky and a little hot in your hand.

If you count the vertical sections of seven layers of cake, you can count seven layers, the bottom two layers are red, the third layer is white, the fourth layer is red, the fifth layer is white, and the sixth and seventh layers are red. The red and white seven-layer cake is not only beautiful in appearance, but also not inferior in taste.

I gently took a bite of the seven-layer cake, which was soft and moist beyond description. It had a slight sweetness and a strong rice flavor, and the taste was waxy and sticky, giving people a plain feeling. Anyway, one bite at a time was quite addictive.

Aunt said: This seven-layer cake is actually the best when it is cold, so it won't stick to your mouth, but it feels like a Q-bomb.

Because of the gap of local accent, my aunt explained the story of seven-layer cake to me, but I still heard it in a fog.

with regret, we left in a hurry.

3

When I came to Zhou Shiqiang for dinner this time, I accidentally talked about the seven-layer cake, and the more we talked, the more excited we became.

Shen Shaoqun said that she especially likes seven-layer cakes, and she pesters her mother to cook them every time she goes back.

In those days, when Shen Shaoqun and Zhou Shiqiang were in love, Zhou Shiqiang always bought seven layers of cakes for Shen Shaoqun. Shen Shaoqun feels that this sweet taste is like their lingering love, one layer is glued to another, especially with brown sugar and white sugar, which is sweet, just like the taste of love.

Later, Shen Shaoqun and Zhou Shiqiang got married.

When they were newly married, they went to visit their grandmother. When they left, grandma wrapped them a bag of seven-layer cakes and said that they hoped their life would be promoted step by step. There are also red envelopes wrapped in black and white lines, which mean to grow old together, and a few oranges represent good luck.

when Shen shaoqun's first child was born, her mother came to see her grandson at the full moon wine, and she also brought a pack of seven-layer cakes.

Shen Shaoqun said, "In our place, when a woman gives birth to a child, she will be given seven layers of cakes when her parents visit her at the full moon."

Seven-layer cake is a delicious food that both of them love.

Zhou Shiqiang said: "When I was a child, my mother would soak a large pot of rice the night before, and the next morning, she would take it to grinding bean curd's house and spend 51 cents on processing fees to grind it into rice slurry."

Then, Zhou Shiqiang's

mother came home and divided the rice slurry into two parts, adding brown sugar and white sugar respectively; Boil water in a large iron pot, pour rice slurry layer by layer in a flat pot, and seven layers of cake will be made.

The rice paste with brown sugar will be the red part after cooking; The white layer is cooked with rice paste with white sugar, so that the seven-layer cake is clearly layered.

Since the seven-layer cake is cooked with rice paste, you don't have to worry about getting fat if you eat too much.

4

In northern Fujian, seven-layer cakes were once a necessary gift for visiting relatives and friends. At that time, many families had stone mills, so they could make them easily.

Later, there were fewer and fewer stone mills, so people would find someone to process the seven-layer cake.

Now, seven-layer cakes are less and less common.

Modern people pay attention to efficiency and simplicity, and get rid of a lot of "red tape", but what goes with it is the sense of ritual in life.

Gifts with temperature like seven-layer cakes are really getting less and less.