Childhood Treats of Chaoshan: Pig Trotter Rings, Ji Gong Pills and Want Want Rice Crackers on the Altar
Preface
As my electric scooter curved beside the basketball court, preparing to turn into the market, I caught the faint echo of a voice drifting through the air. Fearing I had imagined it, I circled back, and this time I heard the words “sweet potato starch cubes” clearly. I also spotted the source—a loudspeaker mounted on a motorbike—tirelessly chanting the refrain. The sound felt so distant, yet so familiar; it was as if I were dreaming, swiftly pulling me back to the street stalls of my childhood, and the sizzling oil stoves that made a rhythmic “chah-chah” sound.
I. Fried Sweet Potato Starch Cubes at the School Gate
Sometimes the grocery store diagonally opposite the school would sell them, but other times a vendor would set up a stove slightly further down, next to the bicycle repair shop, selling all sorts of fried treats. The hot oil would sizzle and pop, surrounded by tiny bubbles like crab eyes, while the starch cubes floated and swayed freely, as if they were masters of the oil. My mouth would water just watching them, and if I felt a bit of pocket money in my pocket, I would step forward to buy some to eat while they were still piping hot.
More often than not, I would go home first. With my mother’s permission, I would take some money and be back in no time, carrying a steaming bag to share with my family. We each had a small portion, which was never enough, and my mother always ate the least. Though she ate the least, she had the most to say: “It’s better when there isn’t enough; it makes them taste better. If you eat too many at once, you’ll grow tired of them, and they won’t taste as good next time.” She would also add that filling up on steamed rice was the priority, and these were just occasional treats. In short, my mother always had a reason for everything.
However, when she was in a good mood, she would buy some unfried starch cubes while shopping for groceries in the morning and fry them herself for us. When my mother cooked, all the rules went out the window, and we ate until we were full. In those moments, she didn’t have nearly as much to say; seeing us eat with such joy seemed to bring her a deep sense of satisfaction.
Despite the name, these starch cubes have nothing to do with bean curd; they are made primarily from sweet potato starch and water, borrowing the name simply because they look like tofu cubes. For the older generation of Chaoshan people, sweet potatoes were a staple food. I remember my mother telling me that during the era of the People’s Communes, there wasn’t enough food, and they “ate sweet potato porridge until they were sick of it,” which was very different from the rice-based diet of today. Just as the ancestors of Chaoshan used their ingenuity to transform rice into a variety of delicious foods like rice noodle rolls, kway teow, and kway chap, it was only natural that they used sweet potatoes to create delicacies like these starch cubes.
II. Ten-Cent Ice Lollies and Skewered Snacks
Only a third of the shop was dedicated to learning materials; another third was draped with toys, and the final third was packed with an array of snacks. Many came in very rudimentary packaging—strings of treats skewered on bamboo sticks, bundled in large, transparent plastic bags with the tops left open. If you spotted something you liked, you simply reached in and took it; you could take as many as you pleased. They tasted sweet, spicy, or sometimes both.
They also sold a variety of confectionery: chewing gum, lollipops, popping candy… all you had to do was remember to pay, as there were plenty of eyes watching you from the sidelines.
There was also a freezer containing ice lollies that cost ten cents each, which were the most popular treats for children in the summer. We were playful children back then, spending our time at school playing skipping games or ‘Eagle Catches the Chicks’, running and jumping with all our might until we were drenched in sweat. That was when we would ask for a pearl milk tea or buy an ice lolly. Sometimes, with a ten-cent lolly in my mouth, I would stop under the banyan tree near my house, taking five bites and then crunching the rest before swallowing. I would lick my lips clean like a little thief before finally venturing home.
Markets in that era weren’t as monopolised as they are now. Many snacks were produced by obscure small-scale food factories. I can hardly remember the tastes now, only the lingering sweetness that clung to my tongue after finishing an ice lolly—I know now that it was cyclamate. But as children, we didn’t care about such things; as long as it was novel, curious, or looked appealing, we wanted to buy it. Some even became addicted. I was better off, only trying them occasionally out of curiosity.
Looking back, despite the fact that we hadn’t yet experienced or understood much about food safety incidents, we already harboured certain doubts and hidden anxieties even as we marveled at the ingenuity of the food industry.
Nowadays, even at the end of the school day, you no longer see crowds of children bustling about with snacks in their hands. Before the bell even rings, the school gates are already crowded with motorbikes waiting to collect children. The moment a child emerges, they are whisked onto the bike, and with a couple of loud ‘vroom-vrooms’, both rider and passenger vanish from sight. This is a scene I never witnessed in my youth; my generation walked to and from school starting from nursery. Perhaps for this reason, snack vendors have realised that the school gates are no longer a good place to set up shop.
There is another new sight. On a main road near the school, a sign protrudes from a lane entrance reading ‘Ji Can Yuan’ (Meal Care Centre). Busy parents, or those who feel unable to supervise their children, have them go to this centre after school to eat and then receive tutoring from specialised teachers to help with their homework.
When I returned to my hometown for a festival a few years ago, passing that stationery shop opposite the school reminded me of the owner from my childhood, a man in his forties. Sometimes, when I handed over my money, his large hand would suddenly reach out and grab mine along with the coins; other times, as I reached for my change, he would snatch my hand and look at me with a mischievous, triumphant grin. Later, when I saw the fanged Golden-haired Hound in Journey to the West, I would jump back with a cry whenever it clutched the bracelet of the Golden Holy Mother. From then on, I gave him the nickname ‘Golden-haired Hound’.
I took a deliberate peek inside, and everything was exactly as it had been. The storefront was aged and almost unchanged, like a faded old photograph, jarringly out of place amidst the upheaval and transformation of the entire village. And the Golden-haired Hound was still there, growing old alongside the ancient shop he guarded. The elderly man from the neighbouring bike shop, who was as lean as a ribcage, had passed away several years ago.
III. Ji Gong Pills and Tang Seng Meat
Such a quaint old shop, with its air of mystery, was the perfect setting for selling treats ostensibly hailing from the realms of immortals and demons. They were immensely popular with children. This was the golden age of television, and hit series like *Journey to the West* and *The Legend of Ji Gong* had been broadcast on a loop more times than one could count. The figures of Tang Monk, Sun Wukong, and Ji Gong were etched into our consciousness; adults and children alike would constantly chat about which demon had kidnapped Tang Monk this time, or what latest eccentricity Ji Gong had displayed. Sensing a commercial opportunity, vendors quickly whipped up these two snacks, while collectible character stickers from *Journey to the West* became equally fashionable.
Both snacks came in small bags, barely larger than half a palm, and cost only a few pennies—well within a child’s budget. In our innocence, we wondered where these Ji Gong Pills and Tang Monk Meat actually came from. Could Tang Monk Meat really grant immortality? Were Ji Gong Pills truly rolled out from under Ji Gong’s armpits? The thought made us wrinkle our noses, but the sweet and sour taste was simply delicious.
Once the truth behind the Ji Gong Pills and Tang Seng Meat was revealed, the magic vanished.
IV. Grandma’s Jasmine Tea and Pig Trotter Rings
In my primary school essays, I wrote: ‘My grandmother is over 80 years old, but she is still hale and hearty.’ I probably picked up the phrase ‘hale and hearty’ directly from my textbooks at the time. She often wore a black hair tie, looking neat and brisk. What I remember most was her navy blue suit, which I recall being specially tailored for her 80th birthday. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother was very old—a woman with a head of silver hair. She both smoked and drank, but she did so with moderation; she wasn’t greedy, treating them merely as accompaniments to life.
When I visited her house towards evening as a child, I would shout ‘Ah Ma!’ at the door. If there was no response, I would raise my voice and shout again, and I would hear her answer from the second-floor terrace. That meant she was tending to her plants. I would then rush up to the second floor like a little sparrow, diving into the terrace garden to search for her amidst the dense foliage.
I often heard people say that those who love plants and are close to nature live longer. Usually, as soon as I stepped onto the stairs, a rich fragrance would hit me—like night-blooming jasmine, gardenias, and jasmine! In the summer, when clusters of white jasmine bloomed, she would pick the flowers and place them in a small teacup on the living room coffee table, so that the room was enveloped in fragrance the moment we entered. Sometimes, she would drop two or three blossoms into a gaiwan filled with tea leaves, brewing a fragrant jasmine tea. Thinking back now, I can still remember that natural scent, as if I have returned to the old house to share tea with Ah Ma, enjoying those slow, lingering moments.
When I was around five or six, my father pointed out that Grandma was getting older—she was over 80 by then and living alone—and he was worried about her being by herself at night. He suggested to my uncles that each household provide one daughter to stay overnight with her. As the only daughter in my family, the task naturally fell to me. Consequently, my two cousins and I would crowd together on the traditional vermilion high-legged bed on the second floor of Grandma’s house.
I don’t know why they didn’t implement a rota to share the responsibility. My cousins frequently made excuses to be absent, so I ended up going almost every day. Sometimes, by the time I woke up, Grandma had already taken a long, leisurely stroll outside and returned from the market, carrying a bag of Pig Trotter Rings.
She probably bought them for me because she heard me complaining about why my cousins hadn’t come. At the time, a Pig Trotter Ring cost about 50 pence; for Grandma, who was accustomed to a frugal life, this was a significant treat. In those moments, she was the gentle grandmother, not the elder who lived to lecture and discipline. And I was the good granddaughter, not the mischievous child who would be sternly reprimanded for failing to hold her bowl properly or for calling her grandson by his name while the family sat together for a meal.
By the time I was born, my grandfather and maternal grandparents had already passed away, leaving only Grandma. I remember my father often remarking with pride, “It’s so wonderful to still have my mother! It’s truly a blessing that she is still so healthy and spirited!” Although I didn’t fully understand it then, I felt that having Grandma was a source of pride and happiness. To me, Grandma was like an eternal banyan tree, much like the 400-year-old banyan in our village—the one the villagers revered as a “sacred tree” and built a small shrine beneath to worship.
V. Ritual Rice Cakes and Want Want Rice Crackers on the Chaoshan Altar
When the food was ready to come out, I would hover nearby, hoping that as my mother plated the rice cakes, she would find one with a broken skin or one that looked less than perfect and hand it to me to eat. The beautiful ones were reserved for the *Lao Ye* (the collective term for local Chaoshan deities) or for ancestral offerings.
Vegetable rice cakes wrapped in chives have a raw, grassy fragrance that is so vibrant it makes one’s mouth water instinctively;
Peach rice cakes filled with glutinous rice, shiitake mushrooms, and prawns offer a soft, fragrant rice scent mingled with the faint briny note of the filling, gently awakening the taste buds and leaving one longing for more;
Zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival carry the scent of bamboo leaves and pork belly steeped for days in sugar and rice wine, with glutinous rice infused with five-spice powder, stimulating the appetite even in the stifling heat of early summer…
These freshly made traditional local foods—the vegetable rice cakes, peach rice cakes, and Zongzi—crafted by my mother’s hardworking and clever hands, were placed immediately upon the altar as offerings to the ancestors and the *Lao Ye*. The “Three Sacrifices” were also indispensable for major festivals: at least three items, typically chicken (or duck, goose), fish, and pork. As the word for fish is a homophone for “surplus”, it symbolises “abundance year after year” and a life that continues to improve.
If you glanced across the altar then, you would also spot open bottles of fizzy soda, bubbling away. To my childhood eyes, that effervescence felt magical, much like popping candy or Ji Gong Pills.
In the television adverts of that time, Eric Tsang would dress as the God of Wealth to promote Hsu Fu Chi. Meanwhile, Want Want spent the whole day shouting “Want Want Want”—”Prosperity in wealth, prosperity in family, Want Want Want”—as if the brand were a relative of the God of Wealth himself. These were exactly the kinds of promises Chaoshan people loved to hear. Thus, Hsu Fu Chi and Want Want joined the ranks of the sodas, sitting alongside the handmade rice cakes on the festive altars.
VI. Emotional Eating and Obesity in Our Generation
If the quantity of industrially produced treats and food in my childhood was a stream, it has now become an ocean. An endless array of styles and packaging, combined with the ubiquity of live-stream recommendations and the nationwide expansion of snack chains like Zhao Yiming, means commercial promotion is omnipresent, pulling more and more people into this ocean.
In a corner of the Guangzhou suburbs where I now live, a Zhao Yiming snack shop sits by the main road at the village entrance. Customers flock to it daily; it is perhaps the busiest place in the area aside from the kindergarten. Opposite it lies the wet market, where the flow of people grows thinner by the day. A neighbour of mine, a child of only four or five, screams to go to Zhao Yiming whenever they throw a tantrum; once they return with a bag of treats, their face is beaming with joy once more.
These changes eventually manifest in our physiques and our health. Some of my old schoolmates, who were once lanky as beanpoles, have, by their thirties, expanded like balloons into spheres.
My mother used to gasp in disbelief when she saw obese people from Western countries on television, wondering, “Goodness, what on earth do they eat?” Now, over half of all Chinese adults are overweight or obese. A few years ago, I knew a young man preparing for his IELTS exam to study abroad. Under immense pressure, he lived on takeout for all three meals, frequently eating oily foods like chicken wings, and insisted on one or two bottles of cola after dinner to soothe his nerves. In just a couple of months, he put on nearly 10 kilograms. He had developed the very physique my mother used to marvel at in foreigners.
Having studied psychological counselling in recent years, I have come to know this as “emotional eating”. Through practice and observation, I have realised that labels and diagnoses such as emotional eating, anorexia, and bulimia are becoming increasingly common. We have grown distant from the land, from nature, and from natural foods; the bonds between people have also suffered many fractures. We have been alienated by capital and fed by the food industry. These issues ultimately reflect themselves in our relationship with food, yet this remains a social epidemic that is seldom seen or recognised by the public. At this point, food is no longer about love and comfort, but is instead a source of tangible harm.
My mother used to lecture us tirelessly and earnestly, insisting that it was far better to eat simple rice and congee, and that there was no benefit in eating too many processed snacks. At the time, I thought she was terribly old-fashioned, someone who couldn’t keep up with the times. Now, I feel grateful to her for teaching me early in life that there is a fundamental difference between types of food.
VII. Local Traditional Foods: Extending from the Past into the Future
Once the warning lights came on, I developed a deep interest in and focus on homemade food, especially the traditional dishes of my hometown. I became determined to eat properly and grew to cherish the joy of cooking for myself. Looking back, I used traditional foods to heal myself and my life, rebuilding a healthy relationship with what I eat.
Last year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I returned to my hometown and bought some taro flour bean curd from the market. In the evening, my mother deep-fried them. As I dipped them in salt water and tasted that satisfying blend of crisp and soft, salty and fragrant, I suddenly realised I hadn’t tasted this flavour in at least ten years. As my father ate, he mentioned that my eldest uncle, who had settled in Guangzhou for decades after serving in the army as a young man, still loved taro flour bean curd above all else; whenever he returned to the village, he always sought it out. My uncle is no longer with us, and this was the first time I had ever heard this story. It was during that visit that my growing passion for exploring the food of my hometown drove me to start trying to make some of these local delicacies myself.
Through this process, I have truly come to understand how the land shapes the people. I realised just how much we love rice, much like people in the North love wheat. The early settlers of Chaoshan had such a passion for life and gastronomy; with just simple rice and a pair of hands, they could magically conjure up an array of delicacies: rice noodles, steamed cakes, rice noodle rolls, rice noodle stew, red peach cakes, fermented cakes, bowl cakes, and more. Each respects the original flavour of the food, yet each offers a distinct taste.
Local traditional foods possess a vibrant and enduring life! They forge countless connections between people, allowing us to see family stories, local history, and the deities and ancestors upon the altar.
While I was learning to make noodles, my mother told me that during the era of collectivisation, food was scarce. My eldest aunt, who had married into the city and become a city dweller, had a ration of noodles and would bring some back to her parents’ home, where they would use the limited flour to make noodles.
While shaping the siumai, I mentioned that they should look like the “neck of a beer bottle”. My mother looked at them and said, “These look like pomegranate flowers.” Her reminder brought back memories of the pomegranate flower cakes placed on the altar during my “Leaving the Garden” ceremony (the Chaoshan rite of passage, usually held at the age of fifteen). Our pomegranate flower cakes had red-dyed skins filled with sweet glutinous rice—symbols of sweetness and auspiciousness.
While making steamed cakes, I recalled the story of my mother giving birth. It was the night of the ninth day of the first lunar month; she was busy at the stove with my second aunt, steaming rice noodles for the next day’s offerings to the Lord, when her labour pains began. By the early hours of the morning, my second brother was born.
In years past, during the Spring Festival, Grandma would sometimes come to my house to help wrap cakes and zongzi. She has passed away now, but I believe she would have loved the red peach cakes and zongzi on the altar.
From Grandma to my parents, and now to me, life continues to flow forward. From the past to the present, and into the future, everyone still has a choice. The answers lie in the ancestral wisdom left to us and the experiences of the lives we have lived. We can start by trying to cook for ourselves, by tracing the roots of our local foods, to rebuild a better relationship with our bodies and our lives, and to create new possibilities for connecting with the land and with others.
Editors: Yuyang, Wang Hao