Stands Selling Cakes and Deep-fried Twisted Dough Sticks

In around the Western Han Dynasty, people began to make kernels into different flour products which are generally called “bing” (cake). Those baked in the oven are “lubing” (literally, oven cake), which is also called “dabing” (literally, big cake). In Outlaws of the Marsh, what Wu Dalang (the elder brother of Wu Song – a hero renowned for beating a tiger to death with his bare hands) sells is “chuibing” (steamed cake), which are made by steaming in the steam box. And there are other cakes such “shaobing” (baked cake), “tangbing” (soup cake, in the shape of noodles) boiled in water, “huanbing” (ring cake), “mabing” (sesame cake), and salty “guangbing” (Guang cake) made during the time when Qi Jiguang led his soldiers repelling the Japanese pirates in the Ming Dynasty.

Deep-fried twisted dough sticks, as its name suggests, are made of twisted dough sticks deep fried in the oil boiler. The Hangzhou residents call them “youzha hui” (literally, oil deep fried Hui), in which “hui” refers to Qin Hui, a treacherous court official in the Song Dynasty. As he framed up the loyal official Yue Fei, he was detested by the ordinary people, who could do nothing but pinch the dough into the shape of Qin Hui which then was put into the boiling oil boiler to be deep fried. In doing so, the general public gave vent to their hatred toward Qin Hui. Hence the name “youzha hui”.