Melaleuca Cake Practice: First, burn plant ash with a little straw, boil it with boiling water, then drain the residue with gauze, leaving grass ash water, and then soak the rice in the grass ash water. Then the dried gardenia is broken and soaked, and when the rice bubbles are made, they are mixed into rice and ground into rice slurry with a stone mill. The next step is to steam in the pot. Use a big stove to steam the Melaleuca Cake, add a small amount of bamboo leaves to the steamed water, then put a big steamer, cover it with thick gauze, then pour a layer of rice paste, cover the lid, open the lid after it is basically cooked, then pour a layer of rice paste, and so on until the steamer is full. After the last layer is steamed, it can be taken out of the pot. (Different places in Jiande may do different things. In some places, bamboo leaves and yellow gardenia are boiled, then the boiled water is used to wash the grass ash, and then the rice is soaked.)
Flavor of Melaleuca Cake: Melaleuca Cake itself does not contain sugar and salt, but it has a very special fragrance after eating because it is filled with Huangzhi and plant ash and steamed with bamboo leaf water.
How to eat Melaleuca Cake: After steaming, you can dip some soy sauce or sugar while it is hot, which is delicious. After cooling, you can also cut the Melaleuca Cake into diced pieces, add some green peppers or other seasonings and fry it, which can be used as a staple food and a distinctive dish. You can also cut into pieces and add seasoning and soup as a special interview.
Legend of Melaleuca Cake: Every year, on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, the new valley appeared, and every household ate Melaleuca Cake and offered sacrifices to the God of Grains. The whole family must eat it, which means getting taller year by year. In the evening, the male host burns incense, candles and paper money on the side of the road or field, and puts on a "thousand-layer cake" to pray that the "God of Grains" will bless the good weather and good harvests in the coming year. After the founding of New China, the custom of offering sacrifices to the "five-grain god" has ceased to exist with the breaking of superstition, but the wind of eating "thousand-layer cakes" still exists. At present, ancestors are still worshipped on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month in Jiande area, and the thousand-layer cake is still the main sacrifice.
custom
Every year, the new valley comes on stage, and farmers celebrate the harvest with steamed cakes made of new rice flour. Although the new rice is fragrant, it is hard, so the farmer will soak the new rice in the water of straw ash. Because the rice straw ash contains alkalinity and has a unique alkaline fragrance, the rice has softened and become fragrant after being soaked in the rice straw ash water, and the steamed cake is delicious and delicious, which is loved by farmers, old and young.
origin
According to legend, Melaleuca Cake began in the early Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Quzhou in those days, and was intercepted by officers and men in Zhushan, Changlin, Shouchang. Just in this do or die, I saw white fog coming from Zhushan Mountain, which obscured the sight of officers and men, and Zhu Yuanzhang was rescued. When Zhu Yuanzhang became Emperor Daming, this strange thing was always in my mind. He decided to go south to Shou Chang.
Zhu Yuanzhang traveled incognito and came to Shouchang Changlin, where he saw the people grinding steamed rice cakes and celebrating a bumper harvest. Zhu Yuanzhang just wanted to go into the farmhouse to have a look, but he was stopped by the magistrate of a county in Shou Chang who visited the countryside. Zhu Yuanzhang made a wink to the magistrate of a county, suggesting that he should not make a sound, so as not to disturb the people. Whispered again: how about we push the mill together? So Zhu Yuanzhang and the magistrate of a county in Shou Chang pushed the mill in a farmer's house, and performed a wonderful "double push mill".
Rice flour and rice paste are like dragon saliva, and rice paste steamed cakes are higher and higher. Zhu Yuanzhang finished grinding and tasted the freshly steamed cake, but he felt full of energy, so he was very happy. Zhu Yuanzhang praised while eating: what a sweet cake, layers of cakes, and thousands of cakes! The emperor is a golden mouth, and the nine floors are high, which means that he has plenty of food and clothing every year. Since then, Melaleuca Cake is famous all over the world.
Conclusion Melaleuca cake is yellowish in color. Although it looks ordinary, it is still rich in content. It is an original ecological traditional food in Jiande countryside. The flavor is unique, and it has the fragrance of vegetation, and it will stay fragrant after eating. If you have the opportunity to go to Jiande, Zhejiang, you must try the delicious Melaleuca Cake.