Published on : 17/05/2024
Do you like street food? Fish balls, Siu Mai, Eggettes are all popular choices in Hong Kong.
In the 1960s to 1980s, street food varied greatly, such as Fried Oil Cake (炸油糍), Cold Cake (冷糕), Ding Ding Candy (叮叮糖), Hong Kong's organ meat (牛雜), Stinky Tofu (臭豆腐), some of which have completely disappeared, and some are also becoming rare.
Hakka snack: Fried Oil Cake
Do you remember having street food with classmates after school? Although many traditional street food have gradually become less popular or even disappeared, we will always remember those familiar flavours and never forget them.
The Hakka snack Fried Oil Cake, which may sound unfamiliar, is actually a common snack made by shredded radish.
Fried Oil Cake is made of radish strips seasoned with five-spice powder(五香粉), pepper powder(胡椒粉), sugar, salt, sesame oil(麻油), mixed with dried shrimp(蝦米), coriander(芫茜) and flour paste formed into round cakes, and fried in oil.
Then, we would dip it with sweet sauce(甜醬) or spicy sauce(辣醬) for eating. Fried Oil Cakes are golden in colour, crispy on the outside and fragrant with a strong radish sweetness in the mouth, which is very memorable.
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Chaozhou Cold Cake is not frozen food?
Like Fried Oil Cake, Chaozhou Cold Cake(潮州冷糕) can no longer be seen these days.
The character "cold(冷)" here is short for the name of a kind of speciality dishes in Chaozhou called "打冷" which actually does not have the meaning of coldness; and because of the character "cold(冷)", many people mistakenly thought Cold Cake was frozen food.
In fact, Chaozhou Cold Cake is a "cold cake" folded into a triangle on heated egg liquid, sprinkled with sesame, peanuts, coconut, sugar, etc. Because a lot of sugar is added to the cold cake, it is also called "sugar pancake".
With rich and finely chopped fillings, it is best to eat Cold Cake by gently pressing the edge to prevent the filling from overflowing, and you can savour its rich and endless taste.
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The kids favour Ding Ding Candy
Another nostalgic and delicious street snack is "Ding Ding Candy", which is the favourite of many sweet tooths.
Ding Ding Candy, originally named Peck-Peck Candy, is one of the traditional candies in Guangdong Province. Its name is derived from the action made by vendors to break the sugar chunks with a hammer when selling, hence it is also named "Peck-Peck"; and it gets the name of "Ding Ding Candy" or "Dong Dong Candy" because of the ding-dong sound made when breaking the candy.
Peck-Peck Candy is made by boiling maltose with sesame and ginger flavour. After constant stirring, it is pulled into a sugar glue on the iron branch before it completely solidifies, and then the strip-shaped sugar glue is bound into a plate shape. After it solidifies and cools to become hard, the hawker would use a hammer to crush the candies for sale.
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Hong Kong's beef offal stew come from aged buffalo?
In the past, street beef offal stalls were always surrounded by many students and workers. Hong Kong's beef offal stew is usually cooked with organs of a buffalo, including tripe, stomach, heart, liver, kidney, lung, spleen, intestine, etc. Immersed in thick gravy, Hong Kong's beef offal stew is amazingly rich in flavour.
Regarding the origin of Hong Kong's beef offal stew, it is said that it started in Guangzhou at the end of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, some sick and weak buffalos would be slaughtered for food. After cooking, it presented a unique flavour and gradually became a folk cuisine.
Street Beef Offal stalls are very rare in Hong Kong now. If you want to have some Hong Kong's beef offal stew, you might need to turn to noodle shops.
Read more: Instant noodles “Satay Beef”, “Lo Ding” become Hong Kong culture
Empress Dowager Cixi was a fan of Stinky Tofu?
If we were to choose a street snack that people love and hate the most, it must be Stinky Tofu.
When walking on the streets in Hong Kong, sometimes a strong smell would drift from a distance, and those who hate it immediately cover their noses and walk past quickly, but those who love it always get excited and eager to take a bite.
Stinky Tofu is made by fermenting tofu. It is said that in the eighth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty, there was a man who ran a tofu shop in Beijing.
Once, he didn't sell all the tofu he had made, so he cut the tofu into small pieces and put them in the jar along with salt, and Sichuan Pepper. A few days later, the tofu in the jar turned green and stunk incredibly, but he tasted it and found it incredibly delicious.
Hence, he put the these Stinky Tofu on sell and it attracted many people to buy it. And stinky tofu was therefore famous all over the world, becoming a featured snack of China. It is said that even Empress Dowager Cixi also loved Stinky Tofu .
Read more: Changsha Stinky Tofu listed as "Intangible Heritage"
In the past, many hawkers selling Stinky Tofu in Hong Kong would shoulder the charcoal stove and oil pan, set up a stall on the street. The Stinky Tofu-lovers would follow the smell to the stall.
However, this unique smell is also unbearable for many people, and because the production of Stinky Tofu is time-consuming, there are currently few stalls selling stinky tofu.
If you like these traditional Hong Kong street food, remember to share with your friends while you enjoy them, so that more people can relive those happy memories.