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source: authentic scenery

between friends from the north and south, there may be such avery ambiguous chat：

“come on, i'll treat you to some cake.cake!”“what are you treating me to?”

in fact, this baba is not that baba. compared with the three-tone "baba" familiar to northern friends, the "baba" in the south is pronounced with one tone, which reveals morecoquettishin various parts of the south, this is a general term for a kind of rice-based delicacy made from mashed glutinous rice. just the name and the soft, sticky and sweet taste are enough to arouse the appetite of many southerners.

mugwort baba is one of the most familiar flavors for hunanese people.

if you had to pick a province that is most obsessed with poop, it would behunanwalking on the streets of hunan, signs with the word "baba" are everywhere, vying for people's attention:pozi street, taiping streettourists on the roadsidesugar-coated cakethere was a long queue in front of the stall;xiangxi picklesin the store, the grandmother used scissors toblood cake, fern cakecut into small pieces and mix to get a sour and refreshing taste; in the rice noodle shop downstairs, fried goldenscallion oil babahunanese people's love for baba is embedded in their language system. anything that is in a ball shape is affectionately called baba. there is a popular folk song that calls the moon "moon baba":

“moon baba, with a baby sitting in her belly, the baby comes out to buy groceries, with a grandmother sitting in her belly, the grandmother comes out to embroider, embroidering mixed glutinous rice cakes...”

deep-fried scallion oil cakes until golden and crispy.

the food of baba has also blossomed with great creativity in the hands of hunanese people. not only can it be mixed with sugar and oil to make sticky sugar-oil baba, but it can also be mixed withwild vegetables, whole grains, or evenpig blood, made into various stir-fried dishes, pickles, and snacks, forming an extremely rich "ba universe”——if you don’t eat baba, your trip to hunan will be in vain!

01

pig blood cake, fern root cake...

in hunan, you can have "ba" for three meals a day!

hunan localrice farming has a long historyhunanese people are so skilled at making rice that they can’t live without a bowl of it for their three meals a day.rice flour，ba next to the character "米"it is also an extremely familiar taste memory. in the difficult times, the mountain people invented this easy-to-store and easy-to-carry dry food to fill their stomachs. although they have no worries about food and clothing now, people's attachment to this soft and glutinous food remains. in hunan, the soft and glutinous baba is delicious and even more sacred. the tujia and miao people make it before offering sacrifices.vegetarian cake, to give the bridedowry cakewhen guests come to visit, they should be given a few pieces of homemade cakes to show their sincerity in hospitality.

the new year's cakes made at home are the most delicious!

these cakes are round, soft and glutinous, with a hint of sweet rice aroma, but making them is a laborious task - everydecember, the people of hunan in the mountains and fields are busy. if there is a thudding sound from time to time in the yard next door, there is no need to guess, it must bemaking poopeven in winter, you can’t help sweating, but only by constantly pounding can the steamed glutinous rice becometender and soft, so that people can make round, soft and sticky baba. of course, you can buy ready-made baba in the vegetable market and supermarket nowadays, but thosehometown colthe texture of handmade baba is incomparable to that of baba produced on a factory assembly line.

the handmade cakes made with molds have very beautiful appearance.

of course, baba is not only about rice, but also about other foods that the clever hunanese people have incorporated into it, especially thexiangxi mountainsthe mountains are rich in products, and the local indigenous people also incorporate various wild vegetables and coarse grains into the baba, focusing on aeverything can be "baked"：

the most vigorous baba is no different frompig blood cake, the remaining after killing the new year pig in winterpig blood, all of which are treasured by every household. they are collected in several large basins and made into large dark pieces of pig blood cake. although the appearance is dark, you can see the pink texture of the blood cake after cutting it. the taste after steaming is very similar to pig liver. it is very dense and has no fishy smell when chewed. it is even better to eat it fried.side dishes。

fried pig blood cake with bacon is so delicious!

made from wild vegetableswild vegetable babait is a frequent guest on the dining table. in winter, mothers are busy pounding the fern roots they picked into powder, which can be made into chewy dishes.fern cakewhen the temperature gets warmer and the mountains are covered with greenery, i go up the mountain to pick some fresh mugwort, wash it, pound it, and mix it with glutinous rice flour to make delicious cakes.artemisia babaafter biting it, the freshness of the wild vegetables fills the entire mouth, as if swallowing the whole spring; in addition, coarse grains such as sorghum and corn can also be ground into powder to make cakes, and corn cakes can also be made into cakes.corn cakesoft and tight,milletthe baba made is rough but tender...

soft and delicious corn cake.

in addition to the round baba, many baba are also dressed in outer clothes, some are wrapped in tung leaves.tung leaf baba, the fragrance of leaves permeates inside; there are also dumplings wrapped in the shape ofpillow poop, small and cute. mothers make baba in different ways every day, and children never get tired of eating it. unfilled baba can be eaten with sugar after steaming, or fried in a pan to make a crispy crust; or made into a stuffed version - stuffed withdiced bacon, a few can fill you up...

in hunan, baba is not only a staple snack, but also a dish. for example, in this xiangxi pickle shop, baba is the most popular.blood cakeandfern cakethe most expensive, usually priced separately, the baba dipped in chili oil is very fragrant when chewed, and is the soul of a bowl of kimchi;sorghum cake, sweet potato flour cake, you can also show your skills in the wok, release your tenderness in the grease of the wok, and stir-fry with peppers until it is well-flavored, it is even more fragrant than meat; and in the winter in the mountains, a bowl ofnew year's evethe soup made from it warms the stomach and the heart... dishes made from baba always retain the purest taste.

blood duck is a hot and spicy delicacy that you must try when you come to xiangxi.

02

sugar-coated baba, scallion-coated baba...

the guilty happiness of the street

hunan's baba is not only common in three meals a day, but also the most tempting calorie bomb on the street.stinky tofuin fact, i didn’t know until i got here that stinky tofu is the favorite of tourists.sugar-coated cakesmall stalls are the real overlords occupying the streets and alleys of residential areas. every two steps you can see a sugar-oil cake stall, vying to emit the aroma of sugar and oil mixture. the children can't move just by smelling the sweetness, until the grandmothers pull people away by their ears:my dear, go home quickly and have a meal!

the real king of hunan’s roadside stalls - sugar-coated baba.

besides being good at eating spicy food, the sugar-coated baba also reveals hunanese people's love for spicy food.sugarmany friends from other places cannot eat this sugar-oil baba because it is too sweet. the sticky sugar oil used to fry the baba is made bybrown sugar, white sugar and honeyafter all the sugars are dissolved in the oil pan, just roll the round glutinous rice balls into the boiling oil pan. it won’t take long for the temperature to rise and a golden crust will form on them. the sugar-coated rice cakes floating in the pan are like round balls.golden bombthe experienced chef will tap the surface with a spoon to know whether it is cooked enough. when the surface is fried to a crispy shell, he will scoop it up and sprinkle somesesameit's done. the sugar-coated glutinous rice cake must be eaten while it's hot. when you bite the outside and touch the soft inside, the layers blend together in your mouth. how sweet it is!

no one can resist a freshly-fried sugar-coated cake.

the most common street vendors in changsha sell this kind of crispy sugar-coated glutinous rice cakes.restaurants, it is another look: the dumplings cooked with brown sugar are squeezed obediently at the bottom of the bowl, like a bowl ofcooking glutinous rice balls, with a soft and tender taste; in the "city of stir-fry"hengyang, the sugar-coated glutinous rice cake became a "cake";existyongzhouin addition to the hot sugar-coated cakes, there is also acold cakethe unfried cold cakes are sweet and refreshing. if you are lucky, you may meet old ladies selling them on the roadside with their shoulders on their shoulders. take a bite and chew it carefully. the aftertaste is lightly minty and not greasy at all.

the sugar-coated glutinous rice cakes in hunan restaurants are as soft and cute as glutinous rice balls.

in the breakfast map of hunanese people, baba also occupies an important place. when diners who come to changsha sit down in a rice noodle shop, they may notice the oil pan next to the soup pot, on which some golden "baba" are neatly stacked.swimming ringif you ask the boss how much is this guokui, he will say, it's not a guokui,it’s scallion oil cake!

this hollow baba has different names in different regions. people in changsha call it scallion oil baba, while people in changde call itcircle-eyed poop......the tempting crispy skin is crunchy when chewed, and it is given a stronger flavor when dipped in the red oil rice noodle soup. it is a good partner for hunanese people to slurp rice noodles.

scallion oil cakes paired with a bowl of noodle soup are the perfect start to the day for hunanese people.

in addition to scallion oil baba, there are more baba to choose from, such as sweet potato and radish wrapped in rice paste and fried.sweet potato cake, shredded radish cake, they are very firm when you bite them, and you can even pull them into filaments... push the door and walk into the rice noodle shop, say hello to the boss, "two taels of flour plus a cake!" is the most common and happiest daily life of hunan natives.

baba is filling and all-encompassing. for hunanese people living in a foreign land, it is the purest taste memory of their childhood in the countryside, and it is also the beauty that urgently needs to be protected in this fast-paced world.

the various baba on the streets of my hometown are always the best comfort for hunanese people.