Lintong Sweet Fermented Rice

Lintong Sweet Fermented Rice

　　The “sweet fermented rice” from Lintong, Shaanxi, is renowned far and wide. There are varieties such as “Clear Water Sweet Fermented Rice,” “Egg Sweet Fermented Rice,” and “Osmanthus Sweet Fermented Rice,” all rich in local flavor. The history of this delicacy can be traced back to the time of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.

　　Legend has it that during the prosperous Tang era, when the country was at peace and its power was strong, Emperor Xuanzong, who loved grandeur, decided to build an unparalleled luxurious resort on Mount Li called “Huaqing Palace,” so he could enjoy heavenly pleasures with his beloved concubine Yang Guifei. With a single imperial command, the common people suffered. Immediately, millions of laborers left their hometowns to transport construction materials, and one hundred thousand skilled craftsmen gathered at the Lintong construction site to build palaces and pavilions. To ensure that the beautiful jade from Lantian could be delivered to the Lintong site on time, the authorities distributed two dou (a unit of volume) of official rice to each household along the route, specifically to prepare meals for the laborers transporting the materials. Anyone who dared to disobey would be beheaded and displayed as a warning.

　　Now, outside the city of Lintong, there lived an elderly farming couple who depended on each other for survival. They too received two dou of official rice and planned to cook the rice the next day for the laborers. The elderly couple stayed up all night and rose before dawn to light the fire, having already prepared a pot of fragrant steamed rice. However, the laborers transporting the Lantian jade failed to arrive on time. Dark clouds gathered in the sky, sand and stones whipped through the air, and torrential rain poured down. The laborers must have been delayed far away. The elderly couple grew anxious: the weather was hot, and if the laborers didn’t come soon, the rice would surely turn sour; if they arrived late and ate spoiled rice, they would get stomachaches, and those ferocious escort officers would never let them off the hook... After a long while, as the rice began to spoil, the elderly couple, though starving themselves, dared not touch a single grain. They knew that eating the official rice privately was also punishable by death. Just as they were fretting, a feeble elderly beggar shuffled up to their door. Seeing him so weak he could barely take a step, the couple felt heartbroken. After much deliberation, they decided to scoop out a bowl of rice from the pot for the beggar. The old man didn’t even thank them but devoured the rice greedily, then wiped his mouth and turned to leave. As he turned around, he noticed the worried expressions and unhidden tears on the elderly couple’s faces and asked what troubled them. The couple explained that the rice made with official grain was turning sour, disaster was imminent.

　　The beggar smiled faintly and said, “Don’t cry, don’t cry, I have a remedy to save you from disaster!” The elderly couple took a few white pills the size of beans from the beggar and quickly stirred them into the pot. After some bustling about, they realized the beggar had vanished without a trace. Who would have thought that two days later, not only had the rice not soured, but it also emitted a rich aroma of wine. Only then did the elderly couple finally breathe a sigh of relief.

　　By that time, summer had arrived, the rain had cleared, and the laborers came in groups. The elderly couple hurriedly served them meals—each received a bowl of plain boiled water and half a bowl of crystal-clear, wine-aromatic rice. The laborers all praised how delicious the rice was, both refreshing and filling. A young laborer asked, “Why is this rice so sweet?” The elderly couple didn’t know how to respond at first and could only ramble on about what had happened two days prior. The young man didn’t believe them, thinking the elders were spinning a nice story. Another middle-aged laborer asked, “This food is extraordinary—there must be a special name for it.” The old man was still racking his brain when he suddenly noticed the man using his chopsticks to fish out leftover grains from the bowl. From a distance, the grains looked just like the tofu dregs he used to eat, and he blurted out, “You can just call this delicious thing ‘lao zao’ (fished-out dregs).”

　　After the laborers left, the reputation of the elderly couple’s “lao zao” spread far and wide. In the Shaanxi dialect, “lao zao” is pronounced the same as “lao zhou” (sweet fermented rice). Later, someone advised the couple to sell the “lao zhou,” and soon a sign advertising “lao zhou” was hung at their doorstep, catching many eyes. Under the careful preparation and hard work of the elderly couple, the small shop’s “lao zhou” business thrived. The kind-hearted couple often helped the impoverished families who had nothing to eat, and the fame of their delicious food grew ever further.

　　After Huaqing Palace was completed, Emperor Xuanzong spent his days feasting with his ministers. More often, he wandered with his beloved concubine Yang Guifei and the palace maidens, indulging in endless romantic tales. One day, the emperor and Yang Guifei went for an outing outside the palace, intending to observe the interesting sights among the common people. As they approached the area near the elderly couple’s sweet fermented rice shop, they caught the whiff of a peculiar wine-like fragrance. Upon asking their attendants, they learned that this was the famous Lintong specialty snack known as “sweet fermented rice.” The emperor and Yang Guifei, eager to taste it, wasted no time entering the shop and asked the owners to serve them with care. Seeing that their guests were no ordinary people, the elderly couple dared not show the slightest negligence. They carefully prepared two bowls of egg sweet fermented rice and presented them. The two guests were extremely satisfied. After finishing, the emperor ordered his attendants to reward the shop owner with ten taels of silver, and Yang Guifei specially gave the old woman the osmanthus branch she had been playing with as a keepsake. Only afterward did the elderly couple realize that the emperor and empress had visited their humble shop. They bowed in gratitude, thanking heaven for the blessing. They also carefully planted the osmanthus branch bestowed by the empress in a flowerpot and tended to it diligently. Strangely enough, from then on, their shop was filled with the fragrance of osmanthus, detectable even by passersby dozens of meters away. Even more remarkably, the “sweet fermented rice” made by the elderly couple always carried a subtle, pleasant osmanthus aroma. Over time, their “Osmanthus Sweet Fermented Rice” became a locally famous and distinctive delicacy. To this day, visitors to Lintong often choose “Osmanthus Sweet Fermented Rice” as their top pick when ordering local specialties. Its story adds even more charm to the experience.

　　The method for making “Clear Water Sweet Fermented Rice” is as follows: Ingredients and additives—

　　3000 grams of glutinous rice, 10000 grams of water, 6 grams of sweet fermented rice starter.

　　Preparation technique—

　　1. Select large and uniformly sized glutinous rice grains, rinse them clean, place them in an earthenware bowl, cover with water to soak for 1 hour, then drain using a bamboo colander.

　　2. Place the wooden steamer on the pot. Once steam rises inside the steamer, evenly and loosely spoon in the glutinous rice, cover with a lid, and steam over high heat for 1.5 hours. Remove the rice and spread it out on a large bamboo colander. Pour 10000 grams of water over the rice to drain and cool it, maintaining the temperature of the drained and cooled rice between 30–32°C.

　　3. Scoop the steamed glutinous rice into the earthenware bowl, grind the sweet fermented rice starter into a fine powder, and evenly sprinkle it into the rice in one direction by hand. Then smooth it out with a wooden stick, digging a round hole in the center about 2 inches deep and wide. Cover the bowl surface with sterilized cloth, place a wooden lid on top, wrap it with a sackcloth, and place it in a fermentation pot. Maintain the fermentation temperature at 30°C–32°C. The fermentation time is generally 24 hours in summer, 48 hours in winter, and 36 hours in spring and autumn. When the sweet fermented rice floats up in the fermentation bowl and turns a bamboo leaf color, it is ready.