The principal showcases his skills to inherit the charm of intangible cultural heritage for new students, and the Songjiang Yexie intangible cultural heritage enters the campus
Recently, Shanghai Lida College collaborated with Yexie Town in Songjiang District to provide a unique class for newly enrolled students. On that day, the "Ye Xie Soft Cake" of Shanghai's intangible cultural heritage was introduced to the campus. The freshmen witnessed the entire production process from screening powder, pit making, filling squeezing, paving, and demolding, allowing them to better understand and interact with Shanghai's local traditional culture and experience the charm of intangible cultural heritage.
It is understood that Yexie Soft Cake originated in the first year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty and was created by the local Shi Maolong. It has been around for more than 400 years. The "Zhang Ze Xiaozhi" records: "Zhang Youmo visited the Zhou Cuiyan family in Hengyang and sent a poem to the mother of Sheng and Jiang Ergu." "Bin Hongfei was flying in the white clouds, and when he was tired, he sent a branch to the mountain village. Ye Xie made Zhang Ze dumplings with soft cakes, and he pondered a few times in the wind.". In 2011, Shanghai rice cake making techniques were included in the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage List, with one representative inheritor at the city level and three representative inheritors at the district level.
"Ye Xie Soft Cake, originated in 1573 and has been passed down for 448 years..." At the entrance of Lida College cafeteria, Lida College President Huang Yajun skillfully made soft cakes while detailing the history of this traditional pastry to students. "The square and square cake, with a layer of bean paste filling embedded on the surface, is quite ordinary. After taking a bite, you feel it - the texture is soft and elastic, easier to chew than rice cakes, fuller than glutinous rice balls, and not sticky to the teeth; the layer of bean paste filling is slightly sweet and not greasy; there is no exaggerated flavor of spices, and the faint aroma of rice wraps around in your mouth, refreshing and refreshing."
It is reported that Yexie Soft Cake mainly uses local high-quality glutinous rice and japonica rice as the main ingredients, with soft white sugar, jujube kernels, bean paste, red and green winter melon shreds as auxiliary materials, and stone mortar, hand grinder, machine grinder, square steaming, sieve, steamer, and other main production tools. To increase interaction and fun, Lida Academy has specially customized multiple exclusive molds. Among them, there are molds printed with the Shanghai dialect "Nong Hao, Shanghai", reflecting the charm of Shanghai culture, as well as molds that send blessings for students' academic progress and convey the school motto of "loyalty, sincerity, diligence, and harmony".
"The faint aroma of rice and the classic techniques of ancient Chinese culture are so unforgettable that you only need to taste them." Huang Yajun said that such activities not only provide freshmen with an opportunity to deeply understand local culture, but also benefit the inheritance of traditional intangible cultural heritage.
The inheritor of Ye Xie Soft Cake Intangible Cultural Heritage also stated that the production process of Ye Xie Soft Cake is relatively complex and requires continuous innovation and improvement in order to allow more young people to experience the charm of this intangible cultural heritage, and ultimately achieve inheritance and promotion.
