The origin of rice cakes

According to legend, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Fu Cha, the king of Wu, made Suzhou his capital and indulged in debauchery all day. General Wu Zixu had a premonition of future trouble. So when Wu Zixu built the wall of Suzhou, it was made of glutinous rice and buried underground. When the king of Wu gave him a sword and forced him to commit suicide, he said to his relatives, "After I die, if there is a famine, I can dig three feet under the city to satisfy my hunger."

After Wu Zixu's death, war broke out in wuyue, and the city was short of food. At this time, it's time for a new year. The villagers remembered Wu Zixu's instructions before his death and fought for three feet to dig. Since then, Suzhou people have made brick-shaped rice cakes every New Year to commemorate Wu Zixu. Gradually, they make and eat rice cakes during the New Year, which is very popular all over the country.

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Eating rice cakes during the Spring Festival means good luck: During the Spring Festival, many areas in China pay attention to eating rice cakes. The rice cake, also known as "rice cake", is homophonic with "high year after year", which means that people's work and life are improving year by year. You must eat rice cakes during the Spring Festival, and the wind is the same in the north and south. Eat rice cakes and wish life "high year after year"

The rice cake is mainly made of steamed rice flour through mashing and other processes. It was named because it was made before the Chinese New Year. China has a long history of making rice cakes.

Nowadays, the raw materials and practices of rice cakes in different places have their own characteristics and different flavors. In Saibei, farmers used to grind millet into powder and steam it into golden rice cakes. In the south of the Yangtze River, people like to grind glutinous rice into rice slurry with water and steam it into strip or brick-shaped water mill rice cakes.