When you come to Tongli, a thousand-year-old town known as "the water town of Zheng Chun, the old south of the Yangtze River", you have visited the old streets and alleys of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and visited the private gardens of the world cultural heritage. The next step is to pay attention to the dazzling array of local products in Tongli. Tongli is a big market town. Since ancient times, it has been said that eating in Tongli. Take the tea and cakes in Tongli for example. Gu Xiang Village, which opened in Zhu Xing Street in ancient times, is the most famous. It was founded in Xuan Tong period of Qing Dynasty. The founder of Gu Xiang Village is Lv Jianqing. When I was young, I was an apprentice in Suzhou Daoxiang Village candy store. After starting his career, he opened a small-scale tea and candy stand on the Dai Dong in Tongli. Later, the business expanded. In the middle of Zhu Xing Street, a facade room was rented in the south street of the post office in Yaowan, Daqing, and it was named Guxiang Village to inherit the traditional meaning of Daoxiang Village. Tea candy made in Gu Xiang Village has Suzhou flavor; Enterprise management is famous for its diligence and rigor, and product quality is famous for its accuracy and constancy. The refreshments produced in Gu Xiang Village pay attention to workmanship and quality, especially lard rice cakes. After the founding of New China, Gu Xiang Village was renamed several times. In the late 1980s, the original name was restored; Today, the name of Gu Xiang Village has been included in Suzhou Dictionary. In the memory of the old Tongli, there was once a Yicong Hefeng firm near the Yejiaqiangmen in the east of Ming and Qing Street, which was also engaged in tea candy business, and its reputation was even louder than that of Gu Xiang Village. Unfortunately, it was closed because of the war. This happened in the early days of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Hefeng Commercial Bank, located next to the wall door of Ye Jia, still opens a shop to do business; One day, a patrol of Japanese soldiers passed by Hefeng Commercial Bank. The devils smelled a wisp of wine coming from the shop and surrounded them one by one. Seeing the steaming wine cakes in the tray is really mouth watering, and you will grab them one by one and eat them right away; They are not satisfied after eating, and they want their master Chen Wenxi to help them cook another pot. The proprietress who was busy kneading dough in the back room suddenly panicked. In her panic, she actually rubbed a gold ring on the table into the dough. The Japanese have always been suspicious. A ghost soldier ate a gold ring and suddenly flew into a rage. He put a gold ring on his hand and stabbed it with a bayonet without asking indiscriminately; Only three times and twice, the master Chen Wenxi was stabbed to death; Not to mention, even the guy who carried the plate was hit hard by him; Everyone else was too scared to move on the ground; When the devil is gone, he will return to God. After the funeral, the property was counted, and the family fled everywhere, and Hefeng Business was lost from then on. Now there are more than ten pastry shops listed on the market. Gu Xiang Village and Lin Jiapu in Zhu Xing Street are actually descendants of the same clan; They used to be pastry chefs in Gu Xiang Village, and they made similar cakes. The sock-bottom cakes produced by these shops are one of the traditional teas in Tongli. According to legend, the pastry at the bottom of socks was made by the imperial chef in the Southern Song Dynasty after imitating the court refreshments, and it has a history of hundreds of years. The main materials of sock bottom crisp are flour and lard, as well as sugar, salt, sesame and chives. The preparation method comprises the following steps: mixing flour, boiled water and oil to make oil noodles; Then mix the oil and flour to make cakes; The oil surface is wrapped with points, rolled into long strips, rolled with sesame seeds, wrapped with stuffing, divided into small pieces with uniform thickness, and finally rolled into the shape of sock soles with a rolling pin, and the blank can be formed; Take the green body to the pot for baking. A few minutes later, a delicious, golden crisp and delicious sock bottom crisp was baked. Because of its fresh, crisp, sweet and salty taste, sock bottom crisp has become a special food that people are scrambling to buy. Jujube mashed sesame cake, cloud cake, peach cake, rose lard cake, Euryale seed cake, ear cake, snow dumpling, etc. They are all traditional and exquisitely made. Before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, wild vegetables and grass heads picked from the countryside were the coloring materials for making cakes, and green jiaozi "occupied" all the cake shops in the streets. Glutinous rice flour mixed with green grass head and bean paste as stuffing; Steam in a steamer for ten minutes. After opening the steamer, the green jiaozi is ready. Taste it, the bean paste is slightly sweet, soft but not sticky, with a touch of grass flavor; Green jiaozi is also a sacrifice used by fellow villagers to sweep graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day, which means "green (clear) white". Nine niang cake is one of the seasonal foods in Tongli in spring. According to Lin Debiao of Linjiapu, it is a special cake made of fermented wine and flour, which is baked and wrapped with sweet stuffing. Add fermented grains, bean paste and lard to the cloth. In the season of nine niang cake listing, the forest shop in Tailaiqiao is full of customers; Stores are baked and sold, and customers buy and eat now; Take a piece of freshly baked nine niang cake and take a bite. A sweet bean paste, with a bouquet of wine, flowed down from my mouth. Take a sip with your mouth, and a piece of fat pig oil in the cake will make the oil and water run straight; Nine niang cake, because of its excellent quality, has attracted people from far and near to buy it. Malt cake is also the seasonal tea in Tongli town. This kind of tea with strong local flavor can be made by almost all skilled daughters-in-law in rural areas; In spring. As soon as they are free, they will go to the fields to pick Malantou, dig wild vegetables and occasionally pick grass heads to go home; Straw head, one of the raw materials for making malt cakes, is mixed with malt and flour after being crushed; People who pay attention to it will also put walnuts in the malt cake and sprinkle sesame seeds on the outer layer of the cake; When the blank is ready, put the cake in the oil pan and fry it slowly; Just ten minutes, when you see the cake "bright and fragrant", you can start the pot; Taste one with chopsticks, sweet, fragrant and oily; It's just that malt cakes are only sold in spring. From the long summer to the autumn, Tongli's wine-making is also very famous, and most locals can brew it. Fermented wine is made by mixing glutinous rice and medicinal liquor. "Glasses", who lives in Hougang, can not only make all kinds of cakes, but also fry fish to make wine. Every day, he pushes a scooter to transport dozens of pots of wine from home and sells them all the way in the old street; Zhongchuan Bridge often stops. Three yuan a box of wine, let you taste and think; Buy and eat now, it's hard to keep. Minjiawan, west of Zhu Xingdai, first produced Tang Ben Jaime cake. According to historical records, it is a famous traditional cake with a history of more than 400 years. In the Qing dynasty, Fujian cake was once listed as a tribute of the court. Min Bing, a kind of green jiaozi, is made by taking rice flour as the skin, kneading white ramie, adding bean paste, walnut kernel, sugar-stained lard and so on, and steaming. It has the unique flavor of fresh indigo, smooth and fragrant, oily but not greasy, and fragrant after eating. In the early years of the Republic of China, Tongli people founded Dafugui Min Bing Company in Shanghai, and their products were exported overseas. Tongli Min Cake is called Min Cake because it is only made by Min family and passed down from generation to generation. In spring, it is sold in this Tang Zhai on Ming and Qing Street. There is an old saying in Tongli that "a greedy daughter-in-law is diligent in offering a stove". As long as a smart woman has a handful of noodles in her hand, she will rub it and rub it, and a very delicious snack will be ready. Most of the cakes sold in the market are traditional cakes, such as "Tuogao", cake dumplings, bumps, zongzi, rose cakes, Osmanthus Jelly, begonia cakes, steamed dumplings, square cakes, sugar cakes and muffins. In addition to these teas and cakes, hooves are the main dishes of holidays and wedding banquets for colleagues. As the saying goes, "no hoof, no seat" means "reunion and self-improvement" There are several shops selling hooves and shoes on Tongli Street. On the newly filled street opposite the ginkgo tree, there are several houses, such as Jinbang Zhuangyuanfang, Tongshi and Haozailai. Speaking of the hooves in Tongli town, there is really a history: it is said that Song Chunyou was the top student of Wei Ruxian High School in Tongli for four years. Wei Zhuangyuan especially likes to eat braised hooves. During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, Ren Lansheng, the owner of the retreat garden, admired the champion Wei and hired a famous chef to cook braised hooves as the main course of the family banquet, nicknamed the champion hooves. Hong Jun, the top scholar at that time, and his concubine Sai Jinhua often came to taste it; Although today's champion hooves are slightly different in practice from the past, they taste better. According to the proprietress of Jinbang Zhuangyuanfang, the top hooves they produce are all selected from the hooves of regular manufacturers, and the specifications are all above one kilogram; "Boil hooves in water first, remove hair, add 18 Chinese herbal medicines to boil, and then simmer with slow fire; A large pot can cook 80 hooves at a time, which takes about four hours "; When cooking the champion's hoof, you must use an iron pot. The iron pot can absorb the moisture produced in the cooking process, and in addition, it can evaporate the fat in the hoof, so that the cooked hoof is fat but not greasy, crisp and not rotten. It is said that those eighteen Chinese herbal medicines can also play an antiseptic role! How to eat the champion hooves in vacuum packaging? The enthusiastic proprietress said that the champion hooves in vacuum packaging can be boiled in water, so that the soup is not easy to dry and more delicious. Champion's hoof, soaked in Chinese herbal medicine and baked in thick oil red sauce, is a specialty of Tongli town, and its quality is equivalent to that of Zhouzhuang's three thousand tigers. In addition to these local products, Tongli also has cooked lotus roots, yellow pickles, Euryale ferox, Wuling and goose eggs to buy; As long as you like, you can take some home to share with your family. Text/Yao Hongxi