By Lin Yin and Han Jing
Lou Hongliang, a cooking school teacher in Zhejiang, is trying to restore the ancient cooking and bakery culture in Zhejiang thanks to Wushi Zhongkulu, an 800-year-old ancient Wuzhou recipe he obtained by chance. In his studies, he recovered famous Wuzhou dishes as recorded in ancient recipes.
At this year’s Dragon Boat Festival, he made a long-lost old-style rice dumpling. With the Mid-Autumn Fest iva l quickly approaching, Lou, after a month of research, recently recovered the production process of ancient Wuzhou moon cakes.
What is special about these moon cakes is that they are painted with plum blossoms, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum. In order to keep the original flavor, Lou specially came to the Xingxin pastry factory, which is famous for producing traditional Jinhua pastries. “The moon cake that Lou makes has been vanishing for a long time.
Those tools that were used to make traditional handicraft moon cakes are difficult to locate these days,” said Xu, a pastry maker in the factory. “We all feel very proud we are witnessing a historical moment.” The ancient moon cake that Lou wants to make actually comes from Yong Kang, a county in Zhejiang, and Yong Kang’s “snow moon cakes” were lost for many years. “In ancient times, the process of making this moon cake had a very unique name: painted cakes,” Luo said.
Lou explained that back then, people would always draw moons, jade rabbits, the celestial Chang’e and other patterns on the moon cake for the occasion. “Of course, drawing patterns on the moon cake is mainly for their artistic appearance. The pigment it uses is edible,” Lou said.
Pastry workers say the process of this ancient moon cake is not difficult, but such techniques later vanished because of the lack of painters. Lou specially invited Shengli elementary school art teacher Xu Chansheng to paint some beautiful patterns on the cake.
