Origin of Blind Cake

Blind Gong Cake is one of the specialties of Foshan City, Guangdong Province, which is named after a blind man who made it in the late Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty (1796-1820).

The blind man's name was He Shengzhao, and at the age of eight, he lost his eyesight due to his family's poverty and illness, and he had no money to pay for medical treatment. At the age of ten, he began to learn divination, after learning, in the city to teach the mouth of the good Square to open the "Qian Qian Hall" Gua Life Museum, quite a number of people at the time the faith. He had two sons, the first son was named Fenxing, Yuzai, and the second son was named Yinyuan; Yuzai grew up and served his father in the hall. As many people ask for divination with children, noisy crying, affecting the work. Yu Zhai is to come up with a method: with the rice dry ground into rice flour, plus sesame seeds, peanuts, with raw oil and even, made of rice cakes, called "meat cake". Blind Gong cake is not actually blind Gong created, but his son created, because the buyers are accustomed to the blind Gong to buy cakes, and will be called "blind Gong cake". (Now the word "meat cake" is still on the seal of the cake.) This can be sold to people who ask for divination to feed their children, but also earn some extra money to subsidize the family's budget. Because of their unique production, sweet and delicious flavor, and cheap price, the number of buyers increased day by day. Neighbors in order to profit, also copied the sale, but the quality is not as good as the "real goods", people are crowded to the He Shengzhao place to buy to the blind people to buy cakes are called meat cakes for the "blind cake", passed from one to the other, the blind cake was thus named. In feudal society, the blind most jealous of others called him blind Gong, so more than a hundred years, the market blind Gong cake has been known far and wide, but his children and grandchildren, not to take the "blind Gong cake" as a signboard, but to the Hutchinson meat heart cake for the name. Until 1952 after the liberation of the city to participate in the South China Material Exchange Conference, in order to promote Foshan specialties, before the formalization of the trademark for the blind public cake.