Many people think that "sesame cake" is "sesame cake", but this view is actually incorrect. Specifically, sesame seed cake is a kind of steamed bread, and it is a solid steamed bread. As for the price, it should be around eight pence. Let me explain the reasons in detail!
1. What is a cooking cake?
Before going on a business trip, Song Wu told Wu Dalang that he should stay away from his hometown and go home early to take care of his wife. At first, he made ten fan cages to make cakes, and then he only needed to make five. The "fan cage" here is actually a steamer, so it can be seen that the sesame seed cake is steamed. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the round steamed bread was called sesame seed cake, and the noodles cooked in the pot were called soup cakes or boiled cakes. Therefore, making cakes is us. Cooking cakes will be sprinkled with sesame seeds and some dry coke. It is said that they are amber, crisp outside and soft inside. They are tough and elastic to eat, and they are the favorite staple food of the people in the Song Dynasty. It is said that Song Huizong likes this kind of food very much.
As for the "steamed bun" at that time, it was all stuffed, which is the steamed bun in the present sense. Sun Erniang, a female blade, runs a steamed bread shop, but her steamed bread is "human flesh steamed bread", which is a bit bloody. Some scholars have verified that there are many kinds of steamed bread in the Northern Song Dynasty, including sugar steamed bread, mutton steamed bread, bamboo shoot steamed bread, fake meat steamed bread, bamboo shoot steamed bread, sugar steamed bread, spicy steamed bread, and even fish steamed bread and crab yellow steamed bread.
In addition, sesame cakes are also called steamed cakes. In the Water Margin, it not only appeared in Wu Dalang's story, but also mentioned in Chapter 73, where the word "steamed cake" was used. At that time, Yan Qing and Li Kui jy asked Liu Taigong to "cook dry meat, make steamed cakes, bag the materials, tie them together, and then leave Liu Taigong Zhuang". The steamed cake here is a kitchen cake. It can be seen that in the Water Margin, the heroes don't all eat and drink "cutting two Jin of beef and playing with good wine", but also have corresponding staple foods.
The reason why steamed cakes didn't call this name later was actually because of Song Renzong. Because Song Renzong's name is Zhao Zhen, and the pronunciation of steamed bread is similar to that of Zhao Zhen's "Zhen", it was a taboo in feudal times, so steamed bread was renamed kitchen cake and quickly became popular.
Therefore, Song people used to call those without stuffing "sesame cakes" and those with stuffing "steamed bread".
It is said that on the day when Song Renzong was born, in order to celebrate, some special "steamed cakes" were specially made in the palace to entertain ministers. As a result, ministers opened it and found pearls and gold in it. Only then did everyone know that the emperor wanted to reward them in this way, so everyone stopped eating and took these special "steamed cakes" home in their sleeves.
Before the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, the name of baked wheat cake was very popular among the people, but after the Ming Dynasty, the name of baked wheat cake gradually disappeared and was replaced by steamed bread.
Second, how much is a cake?
In the Song Dynasty, due to the developed cities, prices in many places were set by local authorities. One of the most famous examples is the direct pricing method of Yin Zongrulin, Kaifeng Prefecture in the late Northern Song Dynasty.
When determining the price, Zong Rulin will set the price according to the actual survey results. For example, taking the most common cooking cake as an example, he investigated and studied all the costs of making a cooking cake, including raw materials and labor, which was about 6 pence, and then the profit of each cooking cake increased by 2 pence, so the price of a cooking cake was 8 pence.
Zong Rulin lived in the late Northern Song Dynasty, and the background of the novel Water Margin is very close to that of Song Huizong, so the kitchen cakes sold by Wu Dalang may be eight pence each!
As for the current purchasing power, it is said that someone has verified that a penny at the end of the Song Dynasty is equivalent to a dime now. If this research is reliable, then a cooking cake of about one dollar is actually quite expensive, don't you think?