The cao-a-kue (herbal rice cake) handmade by Grandma is the most traditional flavor in my memory.
Last week, my colleague Jingru brought some caozaiguo (mugwort rice cakes) to the office to share with everyone, saying she had made them herself. Jingru has always been a skilled cook. Compared with me, who rarely cooks and often fails to cook things through, her lunchbox always features home-made pickled long beans, curry, mian geda (flour dumplings)... which fills me, someone of a similar age, with admiration.
But caozaiguo! Such a traditional, labor-intensive, and always unforgettable delicacy, and she could actually make it, which was truly astonishing! So everyone put down their work and scrambled to ask her how she made it. Below is her explanation: (the following is dictated by Jingru and compiled by Yayun)
The caozaiguo my grandmother taught me
Hakka people make rice cakes to worship their ancestors when they sweep the tombs. The cakes come in red and green. The red ones are sweet, filled with sesame or peanut, and the green ones are savory, filled with preserved radish.
This year, because my maternal grandmother was not feeling well, I made the cakes for the ancestor worship, and my grandmother taught me the whole process. Making these cakes requires great attention to detail. When I was making them, my grandmother watched from the side, and if I accidentally skipped a step, she would correct me immediately. There really are many steps in the process, but only by doing it this way do the cakes turn out delicious.
The glutinous rice is first ground with water; the amount of water determines how chewy the cake will be, and my grandmother decided that amount. The ground rice slurry flows into a very large bucket; after filtering, it is wrapped up, placed on a long bench, tied down with stones on both sides, and pressed overnight. That is why our cakes harden when left out for a long time, but they are very chewy to eat, and of course they must be steamed before eating.
After the water is pressed out, we start making them the next morning. First, the glutinous rice dough, which has been pressed very, very dry, is shaped into small round balls, called "cake mothers." Then a small piece is cut off, put into water and boiled, and once cooked, returned to the large dough, and while it is still hot, the dough is kneaded evenly by hand. This step requires great heat tolerance, because once the cooked glutinous rice dough cools, it can no longer stick to the dry dough, so while kneading, the hands get very hot and painful. My grandmother is amazing and is not afraid of the heat at all, so this step is done by her.
While my grandmother kneaded, I went into the kitchen to boil the herb water. The herb is the one my grandmother grows under the lychee tree. I do not know its name either; all I know is that every year we go pick it to use. Besides my grandmother, only my aunt by marriage and I in our family can recognize that herb. After the herb is boiled in rolling water, it is drained, then cooked with sugar water; during this step you must stir constantly so the sugar and herb blend together, and only after it becomes very thick is it poured into the dough. Add a little sugar and oil, and stir until the whole thing is soft and smooth.
Next, the mixed dough is steamed, and only afterward is the filling wrapped inside. We use a large steamer; it must be greased first, then the pieces of dough are laid out flat one by one, and during steaming the heat must be kept on high the whole time so it steams evenly. My mother did not know this, and as a result her cakes came out grainy.
The filling is made with shiitake mushrooms, peanuts, preserved radish (shredded radish), and the like, stir-fried over high heat with a little oil until very dry, then combined with the dough. The dough is broken off piece by piece by hand, placed in the center of the mold, and the mold is closed. The person breaking off the pieces must be very heat-tolerant, so my grandmother does this too, and each piece she breaks off is the same size; she even complains that ours are not "daban" enough (Taiwanese for presentable). My grandmother is eighty-five years old this year. She says this mold is about one hundred years old, yet the carvings on it are surprisingly still perfectly intact.
There are two kinds of molds, one with the character for longevity and one with a turtle. You must distinguish them clearly: the turtle is used to worship the gods and represents having both a beginning and an end; the longevity one is for worshipping ancestors. For Qingming worship, we also make cake strips, which also come in red and green. My grandmother loves things to look pretty, so when she worships, she insists on arranging them with red and green alternating. The number of cake strips also has its rules. In the past, one more strip was added every year after a relative passed away. Later, my grandmother said that this would go on endlessly, so it was changed to twelve strips for all, and thirteen strips in a leap year.
This time, making caozaiguo, I felt quite a lot in my heart. Because no one among the paternal grandchildren wanted to learn, it fell to me. In Hakka custom, the distinction between paternal and maternal relatives is very clear; for example, grandchildren through daughters may not worship the ancestors. I still remember one year when I was little and went along to worship, and when it came time to throw the divination blocks, there were no "divine blocks" at all; but as soon as I stepped away, they appeared immediately. This left a deep impression on me, and afterward I did not dare go worship again. So this time, being able to follow my grandmother and learn the craft of making cakes bit by bit means a great deal to me.
