Such as Yan Sanmaizi’s ground pork, Gao Hongxing’s fish-flavored liver slices, Qiu Da’an’s fried noodles, Qi Da’an’s noodles, Zhang Ershi’s live noodles, Xiao Porridge’s rice porridge, Zhou Youcha’s camellia, Huang Paojiang’s salted duck

, Xiao Hui Chicken.

Zhihuatang’s white ice cream, Hu Guangcheng’s Guangcheng Restaurant.

Today, except for the relatively recent Guangcheng Restaurant (established in 1987), which changed its name and opened business, all other traditional snacks and cooked foods have disappeared.

As for other famous snacks, they need to be discovered.

Zhang Family Sugar House - Looking back at Zhang Family Sugar House with a long history. Every family should have its own history. Behind every family history there are countless stories hidden, either sweet and happy or cold and desolate.

Whether our ancestors were rich businessmen or poor farmers, we do not judge ourselves for it; our ancestors left behind tens of millions of wealth for us to enjoy, or left only a few acres of thin farmland for us to live in poverty, but we do not feel satisfied or resentful.

Our ancestors are the beginning of our lives, and our descendants are the continuation of their lives.

We should remember our ancestors and even more remember where our roots are!

The photo album of family history has been dormant for decades. When the dust is removed and the photo album is opened again, the photos of the ancestors are ambiguous and dilapidated.

But their figures are still clearly visible and flash in my mind.

The exquisite skills she left to future generations are enduring and passed down from generation to generation. My grandfather Zhang Lixing was born during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty and lived in Diwu Village, Guansheng Town (the original ancient place name was Jishanqiaoshui Pear Tree).

He is an out-and-out farmer, living a traditional life with my grandmother of working from sunrise to sunset, with men plowing and women weaving.

As time went by, traditional farming was not enough to feed his children and make a living. Due to the pressure of life, my grandfather had to find another way out.

One day, my grandfather used some flour and brown sugar to make some simple pastries and candies for his family to eat.

After eating it, my family all felt that this food tasted very good and they liked it very much.

Under the praise and praise of his family, my grandfather decided to sell sweets, which helped subsidize the family's income.

After discussing with my grandmother, my grandfather went to Liujiezi to visit the old candy and pastry chefs at that time in his spare time during the busy farming period. He asked for advice and experience, and learned from the strengths of other schools to make up for his own shortcomings.

After his grandfather’s continuous innovation and experimentation, he finally produced “Zhang’s” candies and pastries with local characteristics.

At this point, he was able to make a living, set up his own business, sell his own goods at home, and started selling candies and cakes.

Not many people bought it at the beginning, they were all from the nearby countryside. Everyone who had eaten it, whether adults or children, praised it and talked about it, and the customers kept coming back.

Gradually, "Zhang's" sweets and pastries spread in the countryside. Because of the reputation of "Zhang's", even outsiders came here to try them regardless of the distance of more than ten miles.

In this way, the name spreads thousands of miles.

Vendors in Dachang towns such as Anlong, Liujie, Daguan, Shiyang, and Zhongxing all need my grandfather to deliver goods.

Every time he went out to deliver goods to merchants, my grandfather would walk dozens of miles, carrying a load, wearing straw sandals, rolled up trousers, an undershirt, and a straw hat, and shuttled through the water network and rice fields in the countryside.

Day after day, year after year, I don’t know how many bamboo baskets I have broken, how many pairs of straw sandals I have stepped on, and I don’t know how many layers of old skin on my shoulders have been erased and expanded.

The "Zhang's" sign was picked out by my grandfather, stepped on, and gained it layer by layer.

The traditional family production model is no longer enough to satisfy the increasing number of diners.

So in order to improve living and production conditions, my grandfather gave up his hometown in Shengli and took my father and seven members of his family to move to Zengfu Street, Yuantongchang, Chongqing County during the middle age of Guangxu.

Because the family's economic conditions were relatively poor at the time, they ended up renting two spare houses from local families.

After the family settled down, my grandfather and his father continued to produce and sell candy.

After several years of hard work, the business is booming and the family fortune is stronger than before.

But as my grandfather got older and could no longer make candy, he passed on the candy-making skills of the past decades to my father, Zhang Qingchang, so that he could inherit the family business and pass on this traditional folk craft.

After inheriting his ancestor's business, his father first used his savings over the past few years to sell the two pavement houses rented by his grandfather and several back rooms of the renter's house. He then pushed the old house to the original site and rebuilt a new back room.

and shop (the house and shop where I live now were renovated by my father at that time and have a history of more than 100 years). After the house was repaired, a variety of new production tools for making candies and pastries were purchased.

Whenever my father was making sweets in the sugar house, my grandfather would also give guidance while making them.

My father inherited his grandfather's superb skills, and the candies and pastries he made were loved by diners from all over the world, opening up a steady stream of sales.

At that time, there would be more than a dozen porters and more than a dozen local vendors, and about 20 people waiting at home every day, waiting for my father to make sweets.

In order not to interfere with the delivery, my father often rushed the goods under the oil lamp in the middle of the night until dawn. The porters helped to catch the goods at night, and during the day they delivered the candy to various towns.

I remember that the places where goods were sold were all in relatively distant counties: Pixian, Guanxian, Pengxian, Xindu, Wenjiang, etc.

The purpose of the Mid-Autumn Festival every year is to eat moon cakes and admire the moon, but the local tradition of eating Zhang's candies has indeed formed, and there is an endless stream of individual customers who come to sell goods in the shop.

During the holidays, my father would take my eldest brother Zhang Xinbing and my second brother Zhang Xinrun to the local gentry’s homes to make sweets and pastries as their New Year’s goods and to give as gifts to relatives and friends.

It was not until 1956 after liberation that my father responded to the country's call and actively participated in a "public-private" joint venture. Under the leadership of the local government, he established a candy factory (originally named Yuantong Candy Factory) and served as technical guidance.