In the past, every time I saw other people writing about the delicacies or specialties of their hometown, I felt envious and jealous. Maybe it was because of my sour grapes mentality that I just stopped watching it.

Occasionally, I go to visit relatives in other places, or have classmates get together, search for food, ask questions here and there, and even run around various supermarkets and shops, but I don’t know what specialties from my hometown can be taken out.

Needless to say, the small town in my hometown feels very poor. There seems to be no special food or dishes in the county. Even though I have not tasted a few of the top ten classic Shandong dishes, Just looking at the dishes, I don’t think there’s anything special about them.

After searching three times in my confused mind, I finally remembered the same thing. It has become rare in recent years. In the past, Feng Gao was as famous as mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Mooncakes should be familiar to people all over the country. Feng Gao, I remember when my classmates saw the Feng Gao I brought for the first time when I was in school, they thought it was a big Shaqima.

Indeed, Yishui Feng Gao is a 32-carat paper-sized Shaqima, with a layer of white sugar mixed with a few red and green silk threads sprinkled on top. It tastes soft, glutinous and sweet, and is almost the same as Shaqima without the sugar. If left for a long time and air-dried, it will become crispy and may stick to the teeth, which may be due to poor quality.

When I was a child, my favorite thing was the red and green silk threads on the Feng Gao. Later I found out that the green and red silk on top, which tastes like preserved fruit, is just orange peel, radish peel or carrot or watermelon silk dyed and then candied.

Because of the thick layer of white sugar on top, Feng Gao is too sweet. In addition, there have been rumors in the countryside that its production process is unhygienic. In my impression, it seemed that I had been left out for a long time.

In recent years, various processes have been upgraded, and new healthy sucrose-free products, sugar-alcohol products, and sesame-added sugar products have appeared on supermarket shelves.

Despite several improvements, most Feng Gao still tastes bad. But I still think we should find ways to improve it, or add different flavors, or change the process, so that this unique pastry can be preserved.

I haven’t looked up the information, so I don’t know when this tradition started. The Reunion Festival on August 15th also happens to be the harvest season for various crops. The round mooncakes symbolize family reunion, and the square cakes symbolize the harvest in the fields.

Every Mid-Autumn Festival, every household kills chickens and sheep. In the joy of harvest, life improves year by year. This should be the greatest meaning given to Fenggao mooncakes by the ancients.