Some people say that the so-called nostalgia is not due to greed.

In a sense, this sentence is indeed correct. At least, every time I think of my hometown thousands of miles away, apart from the rolling mountains, there are all kinds of things. Food, especially authentic food that can only be eaten in my hometown, such as glutinous rice cake.

Ciba can be found in many places, but each place makes it differently. I have eaten glutinous rice cakes from many places, but my favorite is from my hometown.

My hometown is Shaoyang, Hunan, close to western Hunan. The cooking and eating methods of glutinous rice cake are similar to those of the Tujia people in western Hunan. Generally, glutinous rice cake is pounded around the 28th of the twelfth lunar month.

When I was a child, I especially liked to pound glutinous rice cakes because I liked to eat freshly steamed glutinous rice. At that time, the rice our family ate was all grown in our own fields. In order to ensure a year's supply, we would only grow glutinous rice in a small field, so we could hardly eat glutinous rice. We could only eat glutinous rice when we were pounding glutinous rice cakes. Eat enough.

I vaguely remember that every time we pounded glutinous rice cakes, the whole family mobilized.

First, the ladies go to battle. Wash and drain the glutinous rice. Add an appropriate amount of water to the largest iron pot at home. Place a wooden steamer on the pot. After the water boils, pour the rice into the wooden steamer. Steam the glutinous rice over fire, and then you can eat fragrant glutinous rice (unfortunately, my mother doesn't let me eat more every time, of course I will secretly eat more every time), and then put the steamed glutinous rice into the washed In a stone mortar (you can also add other ingredients such as sweet potatoes and red beans to make glutinous rice cakes with different flavors).

Then, it’s time for the men to show off. Each one has a mallet. You push me and I push hard to mash the glutinous rice in the stone mortar while it is hot. From time to time, I use the mallet to pry up the glutinous rice and turn it over. Finally it becomes a ball of cake. This not only requires good physical strength, but is also a technical job, and it also tests the tacit understanding of the two people.

Finally, it was the whole family making glutinous rice cakes. Pour the pounded glutinous rice out of the stone mortar and put it into a bamboo container. The family gathers around the square table and each person pulls a piece of glutinous rice cake and pinches it. After the glutinous rice cake is kneaded, it is placed in a wooden mold and buckled. Put a red stamp on the table and the glutinous rice cake is completed.

Of course, making glutinous rice cakes is a technical job. It is easy for adults to do it, but after learning for a long time, children not only cannot make them round, but also cannot make them well in a long time. What left the adults speechless the most was that the gluttonous children always took advantage of the adults not paying attention to eat the warm and soft glutinous rice cakes that had just been squeezed out. I remember one year my brother ate several of them in one go, shocking the whole room.

The soft and glutinous glutinous rice cake will harden after a few days in a ventilated room, and then it can be eaten.

There are many ways to eat glutinous rice cake. It can be grilled directly on charcoal fire, cut into small pieces and cooked with sweet wine, or fried into pancakes.

Grilling directly on the charcoal fire requires patience. The fire should not be too high, and you have to turn it over from time to time, otherwise it will easily burn.

It is easiest to cook it with sweet wine, and you can add eggs as appropriate.

Frying in oil will be greasy, so fry over low heat and turn over frequently.

Actually, my family has not pounded glutinous rice cakes for more than ten years, but every year relatives always send some to me, and I also buy some at the market, so I always eat them every time I go home. A few, and I will also take a few out to relieve homesickness, oh, no, it should be more suitable to satisfy cravings.

——2016.3.9, Shenzhen