Light cake is a kind of cake food baked with flour and a little salt. About 6 cm in diameter, with a perforation in the middle. Crispy and delicious. There is also a kind of light cake, that is, salt is replaced by sugar, which is twice as big as salty cake and is called "Zhengdong cake". However, the names of both "Guangbing" and "Zhengdong" cakes are related to the legend that Qi Jiguang entered Fujian to resist Japan. When people in Fuzhou, Ningde and other places pay homage to their ancestors and sweep graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day every year, "light cakes" are indispensable in many offerings, which has become a distinctive regional folk culture for people to remember their ancestors.
Light cakes are deeply loved by Fuzhou people. Ancient literati liked to eat light cakes. When people who went to Beijing to take the exam passed through Fuzhou, they all bought a lot of light cakes to make dry food on the road. Over time, how many light cakes they ate became synonymous with measuring the efforts of weightlifters. Nowadays, people in Fuzhou eat light cakes, and there are many patterns. There are dried seaweed cakes with hot and sour seasoning, spicy vegetable cakes with mustard in them, and patties with rice noodles in them.
In the past, light cakes were street snacks, not elegant. Now, Fuzhou people also put light cakes on the banquet. Fuzhou people should proudly introduce the legend of moon cakes to guests when they invite them from afar to taste them. Once upon a time, light cakes were eaten by ordinary people and were not allowed to be elegant. Maybe things have changed. Nowadays, hotels in Fuzhou also cut light cakes into clams, put them together with rotten meat, steamed meat, snow red and moss, and pour some vinegar and garlic juice as special snacks at the banquet. No one ever thought that light cakes still have such scenery as today.
Textual research on "light cake"
In Gushi, Henan Province, there is also a kind of "baked buns" ("boiled buns") barbecued with charcoal fire. It is to mix the dough, cut it into pieces, knead it round and flatten it, then brush it with water and stick it on a charcoal stove for barbecue. Some are sweet, some are salty, and some are not sweet or salty. The appearance, color and size are exactly the same as those of Fuzhou Easy Cake, except that there is a silk hole in the center of the cake.
Gushi in the Tang Dynasty belonged to Gwangju, and the genealogy of Fuzhou people who moved south from the Central Plains recorded that their ancestors came from Gushi in Gwangju. It can be inferred that since Wang Xun and Wang Brothers entered Fujian in the late Tang Dynasty, there has been a "baked bun" in Fuzhou, which is called "light cake" because it comes from Gushi, Gwangju. "Light cake" is the traditional name of Fuzhou. In ancient times, scholars in Fuzhou often brought "light cakes" to satisfy their hunger. Because it is convenient to carry, eat and store, it has become a cheap "three convenient dry food". In addition, Fuzhou people always put "light cakes" in many offerings when they worship their ancestors and sweep graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day every year, which has become a distinctive regional folk culture for people to remember their relatives and ancestors.
In history, there was a simple "light cake", that is, the so-called dry food that General Qi Jiguang ordered to March to kill the Japanese. Judging from the word "light", it not only refers to the characteristics of cake shape and color, but also includes the "light" from Gushi, Gwangju, and also includes the commemoration of General Qi. The connotation of food culture is rich and profound, with a sense of history.
According to the Records of Fuzhou Prefecture, in the forty-two years of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1563), Qi Jiguang, an anti-Japanese hero, led an army into Fujian to pursue and annihilate the enemy, and it rained for days, making it impossible for the army to start a business. Qi Jiguang ordered to bake one of the simplest biscuits, string them with hemp rope and hang them on soldiers as dry food. Later, this kind of cake flowed into the people, which was not only widely eaten, but also became a necessary offering to worship the ancestors of the gods. Later generations were very sympathetic to Qigong, so they called this biscuit "Jiguang cake". This name is still maintained in Fuan and other places in the province.