In my opinion, Funing cake is quite good.
I'm from Wuxi, Jiangsu, and I've never seen Funing pie before. 1968, I responded to Chairman Mao's call to go to Yancheng to jump the queue. It was at that time that I was lucky enough to taste the "Funing pie". In the next eight years, I fell in love with the "Funing pie" in northern Jiangsu.
At that time, Funing pie was 20 cents, with a long handle, five centimeters thick and ten centimeters wide. Open the paper towel, and layers of cakes are cut very thin and arranged closely. Gently tear off a piece with two fingers, soft and loose. Put it in your mouth, it's sweet and soft, and it melts in your mouth. It is really human food.
In fact, there were also this type of cakes in Wuxi at that time. It's called "Snowflake Cake". It's wrapped in red paper. It is only half the size of Funing cake. Open the paper, just a small and hard rice cake. It is impossible to tear off a piece completely. Bite a piece with your teeth, and maybe you can bite off the next piece. The old man didn't eat delicious food at all, just looked at the ocean and sighed.
At that time, I didn't understand. Wuxi was fine, but this kind of cake didn't dare to compliment, and it was not at the same level as Funing cake in northern Jiangsu.
Times have changed, and decades have passed. Although Wuxi can now see small merchants in northern Jiangsu making big cakes, there is always no taste of "Funing big cakes".
Last year, a student who made a lake in northern Jiangsu, knowing that I liked it, sent me a "Funing pie" from my hometown. Now Funing cake has been improved, instead of whole cake, it is made into several small packages. The inside of the cake was also changed a little, adding walnuts, shredded red and green melons, sesame seeds and so on. The color is good, but the taste is always worse than before.
Maybe it was in that poor age that the taste was better. And you're old.
Funing is of course a big cake and a local specialty with a long history.