Fried Cake Bubbles

Fried Cake Bubbles

　　Fried Cake Bubbles, also known as Fried Beans or Fried Bread Beans, is a famous traditional snack from Yanchuan County in the Yan'an region. It is a dry food made by steaming and frying flour. With its crispy and sweet taste and convenient portability, it is very popular among locals.

　　The history of Fried Cake Bubbles is also very long, and historical records show that it evolved from two types of dried provisions called “Qiushi Hou.” There is a widely circulated folk story about the origins of Fried Cake Bubbles. Legend has it that during the reign of Emperor Ruizong of Tang, Li Dan, Empress Wu Zetian usurped the Li family’s imperial throne, declared herself emperor, and changed the country’s name to the Great Zhou. This angered the Jade Emperor, who issued an edict forbidding the Dragon King from sending rain to the human world for three years. As a result, crops withered, and the people suffered from hunger and thirst, praying to the heavens for rain. Unable to bear the suffering, the Jade Dragon, who was in charge of rainfall under the Dragon King, secretly created a life-saving rainstorm for the people. When the Jade Emperor learned of this, he punished the Jade Dragon by banishing him to the human world and imprisoning him under a stone mountain. A stone tablet was erected with a warning that the Jade Dragon would never be allowed to return to heaven, stating: “Only when golden beans bloom may you return.”

　　The Jade Dragon’s punishment deeply saddened the people, who then tried every possible way to find golden beans. Their efforts paid off—by the second year, on the first day of the second lunar month, an elderly woman (or daughter-in-law) carrying a bag of yellow millet to visit relatives accidentally spilled the grain on the ground. People exclaimed, “Isn’t this the golden beans? Won’t they bloom when fried?” So, on the following day, the second day of the second lunar month, people prepared “golden bean blossoms” using this method. The Heavenly General Taibai Jinxing, who was guarding the Jade Dragon, saw that indeed the “golden beans had bloomed,” and thus the Jade Dragon was allowed to return to heaven.

　　To commemorate the Jade Dragon, the day he was saved—the second day of the second lunar month—was called “Dragon Raises Its Head.” Every year on this day, households would fry beans, passing down the story of the Jade Dragon through generations. Later, in Yanchuan County, the custom of frying beans evolved into frying cake beans.