Zhao Laowu Yellow Rice Cake

Zhao Laowu Yellow Rice Cake

　　Zhao Laowu’s Yellow Rice Cake is a traditional and long-standing folk snack from western China known as “Yellow Rice Cake.” It has a fragrant taste, benefits qi and enriches blood, and offers a unique flavor. It has been awarded the Bijie Region Quality Agricultural Product Prize and the 2003 Night Yak Culture Food Prize.

　　Yellow Rice Cake, also called Yellow Cake Cake, is a very famous and distinctive food in Guizhou with a long history. Urban dwellers love Yellow Rice Cake but often struggle to find the ingredients and tools needed to make it. Since it's hard to come by, it’s categorized as a snack meant to be savored slowly. In the countryside, while the necessary ingredients and wooden steamers are readily available, people rarely have the leisure time to prepare such treats. So when farming slows down, any household that makes a batch of Yellow Rice Cake adds a festive air to the season.

　　As for the origin of Yellow Rice Cake, there is a little story that’s hard to verify. The tale goes back to the Three Kingdoms period, when what is now Guizhou was still called Yelang. It is said that the renowned Zhuge Liang was leading his troops to subdue Meng Huo, battling the chieftain of Qianzhong Cave in the land of Yelang. One day, as the Shu army was preparing a meal by setting up camp stoves, a scout suddenly reported that enemy troops were approaching. Upon hearing this, Zhuge Liang ordered an attack. Within moments, they drove back the forces of the Qian State Chieftain. For reasons unknown—perhaps it was strategic, or perhaps not—Zhuge Liang, instead of heeding the military principle of not pursuing fleeing enemies or considering that his soldiers had not yet eaten, commanded the troops to chase the enemy over a hundred li. The pursuit itself wasn’t the issue, but it worried the army cooks, who were left waiting for the soldiers to return while the simmering bean juice and rice couldn't simply be wasted. With limited provisions to begin with, what could they do? Seeing the situation, Zhuge Liang instructed the soldiers to mix the unused bean juice with the cooked rice, then place it in a large wooden steamer and steam it further to keep it from spoiling. When the triumphant soldiers finally returned to camp, the bean-juice-infused rice had been steaming for nearly two days. Exhausted and hungry, the soldiers quickly divided up the food—but to their surprise, the rice had transformed into something entirely new. Not only did it have a golden-yellow hue, but it also tasted sweet, soft, and delicious, offering a unique flavor. The soldiers assumed it was a special reward prepared by Zhuge Liang, and they quickly finished off several batches of this delightful dish. By coincidence, local villagers who came to support the army tried the food and, finding it so tasty, began making it using the same method. Passed down through generations for over a thousand years, this is how Guizhou gained another beloved delicacy—Yellow Rice Cake.

　　Because steamed Yellow Rice Cake comes out bright red and sweet, many assume that it contains a large amount of brown sugar for color and flavor. But that’s not the case. The yellow hue and sweetness of the cake are entirely due to the long steaming process. The glutinous rice mixed with yellow bean juice is steamed for a long time in a sealed wooden steamer, fermenting and breaking down into large amounts of sugar. Meanwhile, the color of the rice changes from white to yellow, and it becomes increasingly fragrant and soft. This is also how Yellow Rice Cake gets its name. And this is its most notable feature—its natural color and authentic flavor, with all taste derived purely from its ingredients. Authenticity and genuine flavor represent the pinnacle of culinary art, and arguably, of life as well. In that sense, Yellow Rice Cake is quite a flavorful and characterful dish.

　　Being born in Bijie and having easy access to this delicacy is truly a stroke of “luck”; but if you travel through Bijie and miss out on tasting it, you might just end up with a lifetime of “regret.”