Unique flavorful fillings

When the cakes are ready, the fillings should be prepared. According to individuals' likes and budget, the fillings may be made up of pork, pork liver, green bean sprouts, scrambled eggs, dried bean curd, potatoes, radishes, shrimps, pomfret, oyster patties (unique to Aohuan, south of Chengnan town in Wenling), eels, wild rice shoots, cuttlefish, mudskipper, pickles, fried noodles and onions. The local people are all familiar with the special roles played by the ingredients.

When eating wheat cakes, one can spread the cake on the table, and select the fillings one likes. A wheat cake is finally ready after it's been rolled up.

As to the Shibing cake eaten by some people at the Duanwu Festival, it is simpler to make with no need to use cudweed or ramie leaves. The housewives put a ball of dough in the pan, spread and bake it. Then a wheat cake scroll is ready with the fillings wrapped in it.

When eating wheat cakes, one can select the fillings one likes. [Photo by Huang Xiaohui/wldaily.zjol.com.cn]

Customs related to wheat cakes

Wheat cakes are daily food for the locals as well as a well-known specialty, and are served by being cut into halves in most of the hotels and restaurants in Wenling.

In the neighborhood festivals held in recent years in Wenling, residents take delight in making and tasting the wheat cakes together.

Actually, it has long been a tradition for the Wenling natives to express affection for each other by presenting wheat cakes as gifts, just as is written in a poem by Huang Huzhou, a Wenling-native scholar in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) under Emperor Daoguang's reign, which recorded that a senior neighbor gave him wheat cakes as gifts and he gave some gifts in return.