Qiyang traditional gourmet snacks

There is a traditional snack called Liangba in Wenmingpu Town, Yongzhou, Hunan Province, which is pronounced as "Balang" in Qiyang dialect and Liangba in Qiyang, Yongzhou, Hunan Province. This kind of dim sum is made of glutinous rice and tastes sweet and cold. However, due to the complex production process, it can't sell the price, and there are fewer and fewer vendors selling Liangba, and the authentic production method of Liangba is facing extinction. Many people have stopped eating since the 1990s, and Liangba has been promoted to a legendary snack, which is on the verge of extinction. Unlike other snacks, there are fewer and fewer people making cold bars now. However, Wen Xiang, the heir of the ancestral craft in the town, and his wife have been making cold bars for decades. No matter spring, summer, autumn and winter, they all took Liang Ba through the streets of Wenmingpu ancient town.

"Sell Balang, sell Balang, Balang is coming ..." In Wenmingpu ancient town, as long as you hear the hawking, most people, from children over one year old to people in their seventies and eighties, will stop the market and buy this unique local traditional snack to take home and share this delicious snack with their families.

Wenmingpu ancient town, full of traffic, is one of the earliest three towns established in Qiyang County. According to legend, in the Ming Dynasty, an old man named Wen Yi did business here in a civilized way and was kind to others. Later, the number of people who became neighbors with him increased and gradually developed into a town, hence the name "Wenmingpu Town". Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang, who are in their forties, are the inheritors of the ancestral craft Liangba, and they will appear on this ancient street on time every morning to noon. Boxes of cold cakes, coupled with constant hawking, have formed the unique scenery of the ancient town.

"Liangba" is called "Balang" in Wenmingpu Town. It's made of glutinous rice, with peanuts, sesame seeds and peppermint oil. It tastes sweet and cold. It is the most regional snack in Qiyang County.

Balang snacks have a long history, low prices and are deeply rooted in people's hearts. In Qiyang, three generations of grandparents and grandchildren can deeply recall the wonderful taste of having a few cents to buy a cold food when they were young. The author also grew up in Wenmingpu Town. During the eight years he worked in Shenzhen, he never forgot to buy some Balang to take back to Shenzhen every time he went home, because he often ate this Balang snack when he was a child. When I work outside, I always think about the smell of Balang, and I always want to go back to my hometown to buy some, so every time I go back to my hometown, I have to bring more flavor of my hometown to have a deep look.

Due to the complicated production process of Balang, it can't be sold at a price. Now, few people inherit the traditional process of Balang, but Wen Xiang and his wife persisted for more than 20 years. Speaking of their craft, I learned it from his old man's house. Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang said, "This special snack is only available in Wenmingpu Town, and Balang is also made of it.

Wen Xiang and his wife insist on making every process in the traditional way. From the soaking of glutinous rice to the shaping of Balang, it takes more than ten hours to go through eight processes. The first step is to select glutinous rice with good toughness and soak it in well water 12 hours. In order to sell it at the market time in the town, we got up at 2 o'clock in the evening to grind the glutinous rice slurry with stones, filter the precipitation with sandbags, remove excess water and steam it in a steamer for one and a half hours. The secret of this time is that the heat is too strong, the glutinous rice flour will be too hard and the heat is not enough, and the glutinous rice flour will be too soft. Only when the hardness is moderate, the prepared Balang will be elastic and will not collapse. Steamed glutinous rice flour, hammered while Wen Xiang and his wife were hot, and pounded with a mortar. This primitive technology is very laborious, but Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang stubbornly insist on not replacing it with machines. He thinks the original glutinous rice is much more delicious than the machine-made glutinous rice, and Wen Xiang and his wife alternate with each other.

Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang: "I think the longer his viscosity, the better." Grinding and boiling, it will be dawn at 5 am, and there is no time to rest at all. We have to prepare dough and make sandwich stuffing. Lao Wen and his wife make 500 balang at a time, mash them into balls, squeeze them, plug them and dip them in butter. They must be busy from five to eight before they can make Balang and sell it in the market. Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang's Balaam is real, and so are people. They are three dollars and two dollars, and they never bargain.

Liangba-fresh is the best.

The best tasting time of Balang is 12 hour, which is not easy to preserve during transportation. At the same time, there are very few people who really pass on the cold baking technology. It would be a blessing if we could taste Mr. and Mrs. Wen Xiang's cold dishes!