Local Snacks: Utilizing Local Ingredients for Authentic Quanzhou Flavors
Spring City, backed by mountains and facing the sea, boasts diverse terrain. Tracing its historical changes, this is a magical land that integrates original culture, Minyue culture, farming culture, and marine culture, producing a variety of agricultural products, seafood, and forestry products. For thousands of years, the people of Spring City have been diligent and capable, skillfully utilizing local ingredients to cook a variety of distinctive local classic snacks, attracting countless tourists to sample and experience. The Spring City Snacks series leads readers to savor local traditional snacks while uncovering the cultural and historical stories behind these delicious dishes…
Mahu (Wheat Porridge)
Perhaps, in your memory, there's still a scene: As a child in the summer, after school, with an empty stomach, you rushed to the table. At the table was a pot of mahu, a bowl was made, and a sip was taken – it tasted slightly sweet, with a rich and delicate wheat flavor. If it was chilled, the mahu would form a gel-like layer on the surface, perfectly combined with the red sweet potato jelly added to it, making it taste like a fruit jelly with fruit pieces, a truly unique texture.
At the back kitchen of Zenye Vegetarian Restaurant, we met Xiao Cong Ying who was cooking mahu. She introduced to us that the raw materials for mahu were very simple, usually made directly from wheat flour, light and refreshing, and very suitable for summer consumption. "When cooking mahu, it is important to control the heat. The heat cannot be too large, and you must always stand guard by the pot. If you are not careful, mahu is likely to spill out. If the heat is not controlled well, it may also produce a burnt taste when the mahu is cooked, affecting the taste," Xiao Cong Ying said.
Pot Head Cake (Sweet Potato Cake)
The name 'Pot Head Cake' sounds very fashionable, but after learning about it, you'll discover that its raw materials are sweet potatoes, also known as yams. As Spring City is known for its abundance of sweet potatoes, 'Pot Head Cake' is one of the ways to 'playfully eat sweet potatoes'. Originally, the sweet potato powder produced was directly used to feed pigs, which seemed a waste in the era of food shortages. So, the people of Spring City came up with the idea of making 'Pot Head Cake', which was surprisingly popular and became a famous local snack. "The birth of Pot Head Cake also reflects the ingenuity and creativity of the people of Spring City during early periods of material scarcity."
Traditional methods of making Pot Head Cake involve washing and peeling sweet potatoes, grinding them into a sweet potato paste using a whetstone (a stone covered with shellfish), and then adding various seasonings. In the early days when living conditions were poor, they usually added a little peanuts and scallions and garlic, and now Pot Head Cake also contains various seafood, preserving the traditional taste memory while also meeting the needs of modern catering development.
Mechen (Wheat Pancake)
When you smell the familiar taste of freshly baked mechen, many people in Spring City feel like they've returned to childhood. "During difficult times, the people of Spring City had a relatively poor material life, and not every household could afford rice. However, barley has always been an important food for the people of Spring City. So, clever people in Spring City came up with ways to transform barley into various dishes. They first ground barley into flour and then used barley flour to make mechen. Therefore, mechen is a 'upgrade version' of barley eaten by the people of Spring City."
Mechen, as a local specialty snack, still appears frequently on the menus of many Spring City restaurants. Reporter found mechen at Zenye Vegetarian Restaurant located next to Li Xiang Temple. It was seen that the head chef of the restaurant first added barley flour to water with sugar, making a thick paste, and then attached it piece by piece to the hot pot wall, gently pressing it flat, and using low heat to slowly stir-fry. Properly baked mechen is usually golden yellow, and a bite reveals a fragrant and sweet taste, which is not only chewy but also has a good texture.
Source: Southeast Morning News
