sesame seed cake and fire

Beijingers have probably eaten sesame seed cake and fire, which are mostly made of wheat flour and baked or baked.

There are many kinds of baked wheat cakes in Beijing, and they are very distinctive. For example, in Tianqiao Zayong, it is said that "crisp sesame cake" is "dry crisp sesame cake tastes salty and sweet, with a round shape and a full basket, which is thin and crisp and fragrant, and fresh food is said to be Xuannan", and it is said that "baked sesame cake is round when it enters the stuffy furnace, and it is divided into assorted pastry, and Jintai is famous for a long time, but it is not as good as filling in different places"; It is also said that "pancake" is "it is said that pancake is the most mellow, wrapped with twist flavor, improved and improved today, and aged all year round". There are also different ways to make baked cakes and burn them. According to Mr. Zhang Cixi's book Tianqiao Snacks, "There are two kinds of baked cakes in Beijing (donkey's hoof, horseshoe, salt water and rotten stove are not in this case): one is sesame paste, and the other is hanging stove. Coal is used for sesame paste, and firewood is used for hanging furnace. First, it's burnt; second, it's crisp and tastes different. There are not many hanging stoves, just because chopping wood is too expensive, only sesame sauce is everywhere, and there are many coal fires. "

why isn't the fire called sesame seed cake? It turns out that they are based on whether there are sesame seeds on the cake surface. "Mo E Xiao Lu" interprets burning as cake, but sesame seeds are not used on the surface. This habit has been called for a long time (but some varieties are called burning because sesame seeds are stuck on the surface, such as fork burning). There are also many names of fire, such as burning with money, burning with shredded pork, burning with sugar and burning with meat.

according to historical research, sesame seed cake came from Ban Chao in the Han dynasty when he was with the western regions. There is a record in the Book of Continued Han: "Lingdi loves Hu cakes." Hu cake is the earliest sesame cake, which was popular in the Tang Dynasty. "Zi Zhi Tong Jian. Xuanzong" records: During the Anshi Rebellion, Xuanzong and Yang Guifei fled to Jixian Palace in Xianyang, and Yang Zhongguo, the prime minister, went to the market to buy Hu cakes and presented them. At that time, Chang 'an was famous for making sesame cakes, and it was the first to promote a shop called Fuxingfang. For this reason, the poet Bai Juyi wrote a poem saying: "Sesame cakes are like Kyoto, and the noodles are crispy and oily." I sent it to Ambassador Hungry Yang, and the taste of incense seems to be auxiliary. " It is said that buying cakes in Xianyang is not like sesame cakes in Chang 'an Fuxing Square. The method of sesame cake is to take clear flour, sesame spiced salt noodles, clear oil, alkaline noodles, sugar and so on as raw and auxiliary materials, ferment the dough, add crispness to taste, pull the agent to shape, brush the sugar color, stick sesame seeds, and bake in the furnace, so Bai Juyi said that the noodles are crisp and oily. This practice is similar to modern sesame seed cake. In the Song Dynasty, Tao Gu's book Qing Yi Lu recorded: "Nuo people were lucky for the food in Sichuan. Some imperial palace officials offered square towels and wrapped flour to raise a promise, and the villagers offered wine. They used wine to soak the noodles and put cakes on them, and they sobbed and said,' This disaster-relief cake.' Begging for half a piece. "Said in August 88, Huang Chao peasant uprising, soldiers forced changan, Tang Xizong fled, didn't eat, maid-in-waiting with a little flour out of the palace, with the wine sent by the villagers, dough together, first branded in the pot, then baked in the furnace, and showed it to him, saying it was a cake to eliminate evil. Nuo zong barely ate half a piece. This method of baking first is the same as now. The "disaster relief cake" does not need sesame seeds, which is probably the fire now. Jia Sixie's Qi Min Yao Shu in the Northern Wei Dynasty already had "baked wheat cake practice", which was almost the same as that in the Tang Dynasty.

Beijing's baked wheat and baked wheat should be said to have inherited the tradition of the previous generation and developed. Of course, compared with the previous generation, the varieties are far from the same. First of all, there are more and more baked cakes with foreign characteristics introduced into Beijing. These "outsiders", such as Shandong pot cakes and Tianjin pancakes in history, have been accepted by Beijingers and become "naturalized" Beijing snacks. This shows that Beijing snacks will be further developed and enriched in the historical trend of reform and opening up. Secondly, with the development of the times and the progress of science and technology, the emergence of new cookware such as electric oven, electric baking pan and microwave oven will inevitably lead to the reform of the old technology. But no matter what changes occur, quality should be the first. For example, some people say that the traditional baked wheat cake in Beijing no longer smells like baked wheat cake, which is caused by cutting corners and not making enough craftsmanship. Therefore, it is necessary to advocate the business ethics of meticulous work, so that Beijing can truly become the food capital of "all directions gather in Beijing".