Eight-Corner Snow Jujube

Eight-Corner Snow Jujube

　　The Eight-Corner Snow Jujube is a specialty of Bajiao Street in Ziling Town, Dongbao District, Jingmen City, Hubei Province. This Jingmen delicacy features a snow-white, flawless outer skin and a tender, silvery interior that melts in your mouth, offering a sweet, crispy, and refreshing taste.

　　The Eight-Corner Snow Jujube comes in both large and small sizes. It is made by steaming and mashing high-quality glutinous rice, then mixing it with soybeans, gypsum powder, white sugar, and other ingredients to form a dough. The dough is fermented, puffed, dried, and then deep-fried in small stone-ground sesame oil until cooked. It is then coated with a crispy shell. The final product is snow-white and translucent, resembling a jujube in shape but with a silvery, lace-like interior. Its thin skin and fluffy filling deliver a sweet aftertaste, a crispy texture, and a refreshing mouthfeel, making it an all-time favorite among people of all ages.

　　Production Method of Eight-Corner Snow Jujube: The making of Eight-Corner Snow Jujube involves strict requirements in terms of timing, ingredient selection, and processing, requiring nearly 20 steps. The best time to produce the jujubes is after the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ingredient selection is meticulous—only soft, premium glutinous rice without broken grains should be used. High-quality soybeans and green beans are chosen as supplementary ingredients. The soaking of glutinous rice should ideally begin on the Double Ninth Festival and last over a month, with the water being changed every three to four days. After soaking, the rice is drained and rinsed with clean water to remove impurities, then pounded manually in a wooden barrel or stone mortar. When steaming, the rice is tested with chopsticks—it is considered fully cooked when it is soft, free of impurities and bubbles, and transparent.

　　The Eight-Corner Snow Jujube is a traditional food unique to the Jingmen region, rich in local character. This traditional food production technique boasts a history of over 400 years and is considered a gem among Jingmen’s intangible cultural heritage. In January 2012, Jingmen City designated the “Eight-Corner Snow Jujube” as part of the second batch of municipal-level intangible cultural heritage, aiming to better preserve and pass on this folk craft with over 400 years of history.

　　Today, the Eight-Corner Snow Jujube continues to uphold its “fine reputation.” In the 1980s, it was ranked first among similar products in Hubei Province during a provincial specialty competition, selected to participate in China’s first Food Expo in Beijing, and exported to regions such as Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, winning widespread acclaim from domestic and international merchants. In the 1990s, at economic and cultural exchange fairs in the bordering regions of Hubei, Henan, Sichuan, and Shaanxi, as well as the Jianghan Plain Collaborative Area, the Eight-Corner Snow Jujube was named the best product and was also included in the book "China Enterprise Product Collection" by the Management World Magazine of the Development Research Center of the State Council. In 2004, it won the Famous, Special, and High-Quality Award at the first Hubei Provincial Agricultural Expo; in 2005, it earned the Gold Award at the provincial agricultural expo. In December of the same year, it also received the Gold Award at the National Food Expo and Green Products Expo.