Chapter 27 Yangzhou famous honey cake

Recently, Yangzhou cuisine seems to be very popular in Taipei. Restaurants featuring Huaiyang cuisine and snack bars serving Yangzhou cuisine have opened up one after another.However, I have traveled all over Taipei City, and none of those restaurants or snack bars serve honey cakes (in Yangzhou, only tea shops sell honey cakes). Although Yangzhou's noodles are famous, nine out of ten of them are passed down from other provinces. For example, Yangzhou Qiansi is famous all over the country, but to make Qiansi's dried tofu, we pay attention to the use of dried tofu.As the name suggests, the method of making Huigan was passed down from Anhui.Melaleuca oil cakes and jadeite siu mai, it was in the last years of Guangxu, a Fuzhou native named Gao Naichao came to Yangzhou Jiaochang and opened a Coco House, which was famous for selling thousand layer oil cakes and jadeite siu mai. Later, teahouses and restaurants followed suit. Over time, it has become a Yangzhou snack.

When it comes to bee sugar cake, its origin is very ancient, but it is indeed Yangzhou dim sum.It is said that bee sugar cake was originally called "honey cake". During Tang Zhaozong's reign, Yang Xingmi, king of Wu, was the envoy of Huainan Jiedu.People in Jiangdong, Huainan, are grateful to Dade. In order to avoid the taboo of his name, because the cake grows like a honeycomb, it is called Fengtang cake.Later, someone wrote it as Fengtang Cake, so it doesn't make sense.The bee sugar cake is not as soft as the Guangdong Mala Cake, and it is not as soft as the cream cake, which is thick and greasy.There are two kinds of bee sugar cakes: meat and vegetables. The meat one is added with almond-sized lard cubes, light yellow and thickened fat, with a delicate fragrance.

In the 21st year of the Republic of China, the author went to Yangzhou to attend the meeting of the Huainan Salt Shore Merchants Association. After the meeting, Brother Hu Bijiang, the president of the Central South Bank, asked someone to buy some honey cakes at the Qilin Pavilion on Yuanmen Bridge, and prepared to bring them back to Shanghai as a gift. , I also plan to buy a few pieces to bring back to Beiping, so that relatives and friends can taste what Yangzhou's famous bee sugar cake is like.Xu Shaopu, the manager of Qianyiyong Salt Co., Ltd., said: "Wuyun Zhai on Zuowei Street makes the best bee candy cakes. Later, the Dong gang made a complaint and closed down, and Qilin Pavilion's bee candy cakes were unique. At that time, their masters were all handsome in the salt store It was taught by the chef's apprentice. Although the handsome chef is old now and goes home to take care of the elderly, if you let him make a few pieces of bee sugar cakes, he will be willing to help his old club. The chef used by the official Subei)."

Sure enough, when I returned to Beiping after the meeting, Chef Shuai made several large pieces of bee sugar cake and sent them to me. Because I couldn't carry them, I gave two pieces to Chen Hanguang's in-laws to try.Han Lao is good at drinking and food. He said that in the past, "Zhusheng" in Yuanmen Bridge and "Datong" in Duozi Street made honey cakes that were better than Qiphos Pavilion. Unfortunately, the prices were high, and the two closed one after another. For several years, I heard that Master Shuai’s bee sugar cake is the only one in Yangzhou, but it is a pity that I failed to taste it.Yuan Lao's long-cherished wish was fulfilled, and indeed the taste was gone again, it tasted different from the bee sugar cakes sold in the market nowadays, so happy, he immediately wrote a seal couplet as a gift.If it weren't for the merit of the bee sugar cake, if you want to get this old calligraphy, you may not be able to get it in three to five months!

Before the Anti-Japanese War, one autumn, I had tea at the Fuchun Flower Bureau in Yangzhou.Chen Buyun, the owner of the flower bureau, has a lot of research on tea blending. He uses several kinds of tea blends for Fuchun tea, which can be brewed four times without changing the color and diluting.I was asking for advice from him when suddenly a pair of fashionable tea guests came. It was Li Ying who accompanied Gu Lanjun to take advantage of the filming location in Jiaoshan and cross the river to Fuchun to eat Yangzhou dim sum.Li Ying and Chen Buyun were also acquainted. Gu Lanjun wanted to eat bee sugar cake as soon as he sat down, but bee sugar cake was only sold in tea shops in Yangzhou. Teahouses sold dim sum, but never sold bee sugar cake.Chen Buyun knew that the handsome cook was the best at bee sugar cakes, and I was the only one who could bother him, so Chen and Li whispered to each other that the handsome cook had to make two extra pieces and bring them back to Shanghai to satisfy their gluttony.As soon as this was mentioned, it was more than forty years ago.When I came to Taiwan, although some relatives and friends in northern Jiangsu knew how to make bee sugar cakes, I always felt that the sweetness was not enough after eating.

During the Anti-Japanese War, people were marching far away. One day, on a whim, I suddenly remembered the jade-faced bee cake sold at the snack shop in Dongsi Pailou, Beiping.When Victory conquered Beijing and demobilized Beiping, that dim sum shop had already closed down, and the jade noodle bee cakes from other shops tasted specious, far from what it used to be.I hope to have the opportunity to return to the mainland in the future. Not to mention the bee cakes like Beiping, but the bee sugar cakes like the Qilin Pavilion on Yuanmen Bridge in Yangzhou, I will be satisfied.