A few days ago, Shanghai Rieter College cooperated with Yexie Town, Songjiang District, to give a unique class to the incoming freshmen. On the same day, the Shanghai intangible cultural heritage heritage "Ye Xie Soft Cake" was introduced to the campus, and the new students witnessed the entire production process from the five processes of sifting powder, dotting pits, squeezing filling, paving and demolding, allowing them to better understand and contact Shanghai's local traditional culture and feel the charm of intangible cultural heritage.
It is understood that Yexie soft cake began in the first year of the Wanli Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty, created by local Shi Maolong, and has been around for more than four hundred years. "Zhang Ze Xiaozhi" contains: "Zhang Youmu guest Hengyang Zhou Cuiyan's house, sent Chengsheng and Jiang's second aunt poems" "Bin Hongfei is white clouds falling, tired of sending a branch to the mountain village. Ye Xie soft cake Zhang Ze dumpling, a few thoughts in the wind." In 2011, Shanghai's rice cake making skills (Yexie soft cake) were inscribed on the list of intangible cultural heritage of Shanghai, and there are currently 1 city-level representative inheritor and 3 district-level representative inheritors.
"Ye Xie soft cake, which began in 1573 and has been passed down for 448 years..." At the entrance of the Rieter Academy cafeteria, Huang Yajun, Principal of Rieter Academy, skillfully made soft cakes while telling the students in detail the history of this traditional pastry. I can't see the famous square square cake, with layers of bean paste filling embedded in the face, which is very ordinary; Take a bite and the feeling comes - the taste is soft and elastic, easier to chew than rice cakes, and fuller than glutinous rice dumplings, and not sticky; That layer of bean paste filling is slightly sweet and not greasy; There is no pompous spice flavor, and the looming rice fragrance is wrapped in the mouth, refreshing and refreshing. ”
According to reports, Yexie soft cake mainly uses local high-quality glutinous rice and japonica rice as the main ingredients, with cotton white sugar, jujube kernels, bean paste, red and green winter melon shreds, etc. as auxiliary materials, and stone mortar, hand mill, machine mill, square steaming, sieve, steamer, etc. as the main production tools. To add to the interactivity and fun, the Rieter Academy has created a variety of exclusive moulds. Among them, there are both molds printed with the Shanghainese language "Nong Hao, Shanghai", reflecting the charm of Shanghai culture, and molds that give blessings to students' studies "Ji Ji Ji Gao", and molds that convey the school motto "loyalty, sincerity, diligence, and harmony".
"The faint rice fragrance, the classic ancient techniques, just one bite will make this unique taste so unforgettable." Huang Yajun said that such activities not only provide an opportunity for new students to understand the local culture in depth, but also benefit the inheritance of traditional intangible cultural heritage.
The inheritor of Ye Xie soft cake also said that the production process of Ye Xie soft cake is relatively complicated, and it is necessary to continuously innovate and improve in order to let more young people feel the charm of the intangible cultural heritage of soft cake, and finally achieve inheritance and development.
Editor-in-chief: Huang Yongdi
Source: Author: Li Chengdong