Five-Spice Beans from the City God Temple

Five-Spice Beans from the City God Temple

　　　The Five-Spice Beans from the City God Temple are made with carefully selected ingredients and cooked to perfection. The beans used are specially chosen from the broad beans produced in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province. The selection process is extremely strict—yellow-skinned beans and worm-eaten beans are not allowed; only uniformly green-skinned beans are used. These are thoroughly washed and then boiled. The cooking is done on a double-eye stove, with one pot of plain water and one pot of sugar water on top. When the temperature of the water in the plain water pot reaches around 60 degrees Celsius, the washed broad beans are added and boiled for a period of time. Once the beans are cooked, they are scooped into the sugar water pot. But before scooping, a certain proportion of saccharin, vanilla, and flavoring essence must be added to the sugar water pot. Then, a bit of salt is sprinkled on the scooped-out beans before they are placed in the sugar pot. They must be continuously stirred while in the pot. During stirring, use a strainer to slowly push and turn the beans from the edges of the pot downward. This ensures the beans are evenly cooked and flavorful. After about half an hour, when salt crystals begin to appear on the bean skins, the beans can be taken out and spread on a bamboo tray to cool. Once fully cooled and dried, they become the Five-Spice Beans. With thin skins, loose flesh, evenly distributed salt crystals, and a soft, chewy texture, these beans offer a deliciously fragrant and sweet taste with a unique flavor.

　　The Five-Spice Beans from the City God Temple are a specialty of Shanghai, China. “If you haven’t tasted the old City God Temple Five-Spice Beans, you haven’t really been to Shanghai!” This is the unanimous comment from both domestic and international visitors to the temple. The Five-Spice Beans have thin skins, loose flesh, evenly distributed salt crystals, and a soft, chewy texture. They are deliciously fragrant and sweet, offering a unique flavor. In Shanghai, they are a household name.

　　 Specialty Culture: Fifty or sixty years ago, a shop called “Xinglong Guoji” opened inside the old City God Temple in Shanghai, specializing in its own brand of cream Five-Spice Beans. The business thrived exceptionally well, earning widespread praise, attracting customers from near and far. Before long, it became a widely known and beloved Shanghai specialty.

　　Guo Yingzhou, also known as Guo Zongru, was born on October 23, 1908, during the 34th year of the Guangxu reign in the Qing Dynasty, into an ordinary farming family in Yangzhong County, Jiangsu Province. Due to a famine in his hometown, he left at the age of 18 and came to Shanghai alone. With no relatives or friends, he endured many hardships. Over the course of ten years of unsettled life, he made a living by running small bookstalls in areas such as Xiyaojia Lane and Fulumin Road in the southern city. During the war of resistance, he also worked at the Leiyunxuan tobacco and sundries shop.

　　　　Shanghai residents who lived through the 1930s and 1940s will recall that “fennel beans” were once popular in Shanghai. These beans were tough yet not hard, soft yet not astringent. At that time, they did fairly brisk business on the streets and alleys near the old city area, but very few people knew the recipe or mastered the cooking technique.

　　Speaking of the history of Five-Spice Beans, according to “old Shanghainese,” after the City God Temple was built, it enjoyed flourishing incense offerings. The temple market was bustling with customers and visitors. Vendors flocked here to set up stalls and do business. One outsider named Zhang Acheng set up a coal stove and an iron pot, selling freshly cooked Five-Spice Beans. Though the flavor of the beans was average, the enticing aroma during cooking attracted many customers who would buy a pack to try. The downside was that while the bean skins were fragrant, the insides were often undercooked. This often led to arguments with customers. A nearby vendor selling Five-Spice Beef and dried tofu, Guo Yingzhou, noticed that the Five-Spice Bean business had low overhead but high profits, so he switched trades and tried his hand at making Five-Spice Beans. Determined to “take the strengths and overcome the weaknesses,” he aimed to outdo Zhang Acheng. Drawing on his experience of “selecting quality ingredients and refining the processing” from making Five-Spice Beef, he chose “Three Whites” broad beans from Jiading, experimented with seasonings, added imported flavoring and saccharin, and paid close attention to adjusting the heat. The resulting Five-Spice Beans were neither undercooked nor bland, but sweet and delicious. Later, he found that cooking the beans in an iron pot made the skin dark and unappealing, so he refined his method further, commissioning a large purple copper pot that could cook forty pounds of beans at a time. This achieved perfect color, aroma, and taste, with a texture that was soft yet firm, salty yet sweet—greatly praised by customers and leading to increasingly booming business.

　　　　Around this time, the owner of the “Leiyunxuan Tobacco Shop” in the marketplace happened to close down and return to his hometown due to personal reasons, entrusting Guo with looking after the shop. Seizing the opportunity, Guo used the storefront to set up his own stall and shop, naming it “Guoji Xinglong Hao.” On packaging bags made of kraft paper, he printed his own portrait and a twin-dragon trademark. After expanding the business, his products evolved from retail to include wholesale. Not only did vendors selling Five-Spice Beans from baskets or stalls appear at train stations, docks, teahouses, restaurants, and theaters across Shanghai, but the product also began to be exported overseas. In 1956, “Guoji Xinglong Hao” was renamed “City God Temple Five-Spice Beans.” Today, the Yu Garden Shopping Mall has a dedicated Five-Spice Bean store, with a Five-Spice Bean factory nearby. The product quality has far surpassed historical highs, and its fame continues to spread far and wide.