current position→The Mid Autumn Festiva→Making glutinous rice cake  Chinese

          Making glutinous rice cake

By  /  He Qian        Photo  /  Zhang Longyu

     The Mid-Autumn Day is the day for my grandparents.
     The night before the Mid-Autumn Day, my grandma soaks the new glutinous rice in a big bowl after wiping out the sediment and debris. In the morning of the festival, my grandma gets up early, puts on the new clothes my father bought for her and the new shoes my little uncle bought for her, and then prepares for food in the kitchen.
     First, she washes the soaked glutinous rice for a few times, drains the water, and then puts it into the rice steamer. During steaming the glutinous rice, my grandma is very careful. Sometimes she hears the sound of the pot, and sometimes she looks at the fire in the stove. With our eagerly waiting, she drops the last piece of firewood into the stove. When the firewood burns into ashes, my grandma opens the steamer lid, after which a steamer lid of shining white glutinous rice appears in front of us. Then my grandma moves out the stone pestle nest(a tool made of stone) and puts the steamed glutinous rice into it after washing the nest inside and outside and drying it..

 

 
            Now it’s the time for my grandpa. He takes off his coat, just wearing a vest, lifts the pestle nest stick up and down, and then bursts of rhythmic sound “Hey-rip” come from the kitchen. “Hey” is the song of my grandpa, while “Rip” is the crashing sound from the stone pestle nest. The sound of “Hey” of my My grandpa and “Rip” from the nest consist a wonderful piece of music. With my brother and sisters, we cheer next to my grandpa, which seems more vigorous than him with the “Hey” sound of my grandpa. Making ciba （glutinous rice cake）is not an easy job. Just for a moment, my grandpa’s vest is all wet. He simply takes off the vest and goes on shirtless.
     The glutinous rice is pounded into gelatinous things in the stone pestle nest. My grandma comes to see several times and last she makes it stop. My grandpa sits on a low stool, breathing heavily, and then heaves a long sigh comfortably. Seeing my grandpa so tired, I feel bad to say: “It’s so tired. We will not eat Ciba”. However, my grandpa hums folk songs: “If you do not eat Ciba in the Mid-Autumn Day, toddlers will not recognize his mother”.
     Grandma has already put the ready ciba on the chopping board in the kitchen, which has already been sprinkled with soy flour. Because of grandma’s skill, ciba becomes a wide varity of ciba cakes. Some are big, which will be sent to other friends, while we ourselves eat the little ones. There are different kinds of filling, including sesame peanut, walnut and sunflower seeds, while the most delicious is osmanthus. The ciba without filling is still delicious. My grandma always bakes them yellow two-side in the pot, which look like a golden moon.

HuaCong Middle School, BaZhong City, SiChuan Province, P.R. China
E-mail:leiquhua@163.com       Tel:013547319396