Among the hundreds of local snacks in Fuzhou, Guangbing is the thickest and cheapest.

Its raw materials are only flour, alkaline flour, salt, and a little sesame. It is shaped like a silver dollar.

Compared with Beijing sesame sauce biscuits and Jiangsu Huangqiao biscuits that are oiled and seasoned, they have neither class nor taste.

However, don’t underestimate it, this light cake still has a lot of potential.

According to the records of Fuzhou Prefecture: In the 42nd year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1563), the national hero Qi Jiguang led his army into Fujian to chase and annihilate the Japanese pirates. Unwilling to keep rainy days and the army could not lift the stove, Qi Jiguang ordered him to bake the simplest snack.

The cakes were strung up with hemp ropes and hung on the soldiers' bodies as dry food, which greatly facilitated the battle to annihilate the enemy.

Later, this small cake became popular among the people and was not only widely eaten, but also became a necessary offering for worshiping gods and ancestors.

Later generations, in memory of Qi Gong, called this kind of cake "Guang Cake".

In Fuzhou, people usually call cakes without sesame as "guang cake" and those with sesame as "Fuqing cake".

But in Fuqing City, 60 kilometers away from Fuzhou, people call cakes with sesame on the surface "guang cake".

When it comes to "deliciousness", in comparison, the light cake made by Fuqing people is slightly better.

Fuzhou people used to use charcoal ovens to bake cakes, but now they mostly use electric ovens to save time.

The Fuqing people still retain their own way of making light cakes. It is not only fresh, but also interesting. To exaggerate, it can be called a labor art that combines music and dance.

They use a large clay-covered vat nearly two meters high and about one meter in diameter to bake the cakes.

First use bundles of pine branches to light a huge fire in the vat to burn the walls of the vat "white", leaving only embers at the bottom of the vat. Then, two people work together to put the prepared cake embryo into the vat, and quickly and accurately stick it on the vat.

On the wall, if he were a little slower, he was afraid that his bare arms would be blistered.

Since they were facing a large fire pit when baking the cakes, both of them were shirtless regardless of winter or summer.

One by one, they passed the embryos, and one by one, they put the embryos into the tank. They stretched, yawned, leaned down, moved quickly, and cooperated with each other tacitly. Together with the crackling sound of pasting the cakes, it was like a musical accompaniment, with a strong sense of rhythm.

In less than ten minutes, all the hundreds of cakes are pasted and then slowly cooked over charcoal fire. It is really eye-opening.

The light cakes baked in this large vat are golden and very crispy.

The small shops that sell out all the cakes in downtown Fuzhou are all shops and workshops mixed together.

Fuqing's light cakes are made by workshops and distributed to vendors for sale.

Therefore, in Fuqing, you can see stalls selling out pancakes everywhere along the streets.

The pile of light cakes on the stall was like a hill, which turned into a street scene in Fuqing.

In the past, bare cakes were eaten by the common people and could not be used in elegant places.

Maybe it's because of the change of fortune. Nowadays, big restaurants and hotels in Fuzhou also cut the cake into clams, stuff it with minced meat, steamed pork with rice flour, porridge, and green vegetables, and pour some vinegar and garlic sauce on it, and serve it as a banquet dish.

A special snack is served to guests.

No one would have thought that Guangbing would be as prosperous as it is today.