It is hard to imagine that in Chaohu, the land of plenty, there is a unique pastry that can always remind people of the taste of hometown. Some people can’t help but ask, aren’t you a land of plenty? All we eat is rice, and also pasta?
The answer is yes. Not only is there a special and delicious noodle, but it also represents a unique local characteristic. As long as you mention the name of this noodle, fellow villagers in a foreign land will definitely ask, are you from Zhegao? ! Now you know how representative this pastry is of local characteristics.
It is an inconspicuous noodle in the ancient town of Zhegao, but it is a household name and an unforgettable pastry - Sanjianzi, also called Chaohu Banzi and Chaohu Banzi. It is also a type of sesame cake.
Sanjianzi is what the folks call it orally. Sometimes people call it Chaohu Banzi in a more playful way. It got its name because its shape is particularly similar to the Chaohu board held by ministers during the previous dynasty. The outside is rectangular, and the baked shape is a rectangle with four pointed corners. The side facing the oven is flat, and the other side bulges like a bun when heated.
At a noodle stall in the morning, you will usually see a couple, or a father and son, working together to make this noodle. The night before, they had risen the noodles. When serving the breakfast stall, they first cut the noodles into pieces and kneaded them into long strips of noodles about 10 centimeters wide and 1 centimeter thick. Spread rapeseed oil on the dough, sprinkle with white sesame seeds, and pat it a few times with your hands to stick the sprinkled white sesame seeds to the dough.
In the round oven, the charcoal flames had burned out, leaving only the red charcoal, which heated the walls of the oven. I saw the oven master dip his palm in some water, pick up a piece of three-pointed noodle, quickly put his hand from the mouth of the oven into the furnace , and quickly put the three-pointed noodle piece against the hot furnace wall. About 30 three-pointers can be attached to one furnace at a time. After three minutes, you will smell a roasting aroma of wheat and sesame wafting out from the mouth of the furnace. The pastry chef used a pair of scissor-shaped iron clips to pinch out the three-pointed buns with sharp corners and a bulging middle from the wall of the furnace.
People who come to the morning market have their own ways of eating the three-tops. For the sake of convenience, businessmen hold a tea cup in one hand and a three-pointed tip in the other. While doing business, they take a big bite and drink a sip of tea. Some people sit at the table of the breakfast stall, make a bowl of tea, buy a fried dough stick, tear the three-pointed stick along the side, fold the fried dough stick in half, wrap it with the three-pointed stick, and then eat it one bite at a time. When biting into it, it tastes like eating pancakes from the north.
The outer surface of the three-tip noodles is charred, and the inside is fluffy. When you bite into it, it is soft and elastic. The mixture of oven-flavored noodles and sesame aroma makes people have endless aftertaste.
With the advancement of urbanization, there are fewer and fewer top-notch masters. Because this kind of pastry is made and baked by hand, which is very labor-intensive, very few young people learn this pastry skill. There are only a handful of grilled tri-tip stalls in the town. With the development of finished products and diversification of pastry types, the "scenery" status of top three is also slowly declining.
However, a kind of delicious food and delicious food should be remembered and passed down. Because it is the characteristic food culture of a place and the food imprint of an era.
