Gulou Street is a big workshop, which mainly produces cakes. There are bread, sesame cakes, rice candy, egg cakes, sprinkle qima and so on. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th, several kinds of moon cakes will be made, which belong to the Soviet-style moon cakes. They are sand-washed, rose-flavored and salty. Their shells are all hard and old, and people with bad teeth can't bite them easily.
in the 197s, a fermented bread was produced, which was 8 cents each, soft and fragrant. Its acidity and sweetness are just right, and it is very popular with the public. Every day when it is listed, it will be robbed. The best seller is Saqima, the brand of Chrysanthemum. During the Cultural Revolution, it was the bourgeoisie's name to say that the word "Saqima" was foreign, and it was renamed "Harvest Crisp" one by one. Wrapped in a layer of plastic paper, it is very beautiful for some years. Leshan people go out to give gifts, or foreigners come to Leshan, and they always buy some Saqima to take away.
The candy production workshop is on Haitang Road, which is opposite to the old dormitory of Leshan Daily and adjacent to the later Leshan Brewery. That place is also the headquarters of the candy factory. It mainly produces fruit candy, peanut candy and peanut account, that is, the crispy peanuts are wrapped with a layer of white sugar. The more famous one is called Inch Gold Sugar, and the children in Leshan like to call it Tobacco Rod Sugar. It is made of caramel into cigarettes, which is not expensive. Children buy it and put it on their mouths to simulate adults smoking, but they are actually eating sweets.
The candies produced in Leshan are mainly hard candies, supplemented by soft candies, all of which are poorly packaged. In Leshan dialect, there is no glossy paper on the outer packaging of hard candy, but some colored stripes are printed on the wax paper. It can't catch up with the candy of Yaohua Food Factory on the edge of Chengdu's new south gate. After all, it is a big pier in Chengdu Province. People's candy packaging is at least cellophane with a few small red flowers printed on it. At that time, the best candy packaging was in Shanghai, and almost every used candy paper was collected. Even among primary and secondary school students, it can be exchanged and circulated. At that time, if someone among your classmates tore a candy made in Shanghai in front of you, it would be a matter of face.
Leshan hard candy with simple packaging, even hard candy without packaging, still sells well on holidays. In the peak season of production, those who work in the commercial system can entrust someone to take part in hand-packed hard candy if there is no job at home. Not ordinary people can't go. It was hard to find a job at that time.
Packing boxes and bags in match factories, cement factories, candy factories and pharmaceutical factories in Maanshan have become the best jobs that unemployed people can find.
The fate of the candy factory changed suddenly in the 199s. A factory director surnamed Guo is very open-minded. He set up a Sino-foreign joint venture Ledeli Cake Industry Co., Ltd. on the old site, and a flag of unknown country was erected at the door. I've been pulling my eyes for a few days. It is said that a biscuit production line was introduced from Jieyang, Guangdong. It's a pity that the banner of the joint venture came down without flying for a few months, saying that it was crushed by the triangular debt.
Ledley ended the story of Leshan Candy Factory for nearly half a century.
Since then, pastry factories in Suji have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, replacing the market gap after the withdrawal of state-owned candy factories. This is another story.
A brewery was set up on Haitang Road, next to the candy factory, in the late 197s and early 198s. Before Leshan people drank beer, there were only two choices, either "Shancheng" beer in Chongqing, which was brought back to Leshan by the regional commercial motorcade from Shiqiaopu in Chongqing, 4 kilometers away, or Lan Jian beer was bought at Shifang Brewery in Chengdu. It is also profitable to build a brewery in Leshan only from the perspective of saving transportation costs.
The newly-built brewery was first invested in Leshan County, and later it was put under the management of the regional commercial bureau. After all, it belongs to a state-owned enterprise, and the brewery has a high start. Workers in all positions are sent to study in the largest and best Tsingtao brewery in China for half a year or even a year. At that time, I had a high school classmate who was very honored to participate in the first batch of study in Qingdao. On the weekend, a group of beer students who speak Leshan dialect went to Laoshan Scenic Area for a tour. He once wrote to tell me that he finally knew the quality of beer, hops and yeast were indispensable.
At the beginning of the new Leshan Brewery, Qingdao Brewery controlled the quality and produced "Haitang brand" beer. Once the product was launched, it was applauded by everyone. How did it collapse again? Some parties recalled that there were many old problems in state-owned enterprises. In a small brewery, when there were many deputy directors, two tables of mahjong and one table of rice could be opened, and all kinds of arguments restricted each other. The goods purchased and put into storage have high sub-price, and there is no scale effect, so the unstable quality can't match the "mountain city". In addition to taking advantage of logistics, it was quickly defeated by the market.
My high school classmate suffered a lot after his business went bankrupt, helping people keep vigil and delivering goods on tricycles. In this way, I was looked down upon by my wife, and getting a dirty look became a common occurrence. In the middle and late 199s, how many enterprises went bankrupt and auctioned in Leshan, and how many employees lost their jobs overnight and were abandoned from the once powerful working class, which became social vagrants. Their tears of disappointment, sadness and even resentment have not finished until today.
There is also a famous food in Leshan, braised duck. In recent years, it has occupied the streets of Leshan. Even in Chengdu and Chongqing, and even in Shenyang, Beijing, you can see shops under the banner of Leshan braised duck.
In the rural areas around Leshan, rice is mainly planted, and there are many ditches in paddy fields. It has been a long time since ducks were raised and eaten. Writer Ye Shengtao arrived in Leshan in early November, 1938, and was attracted by the cheap life in Leshan. In his letter to his friends, he said, "Yesterday, I ate out with two bookstore friends, kung pao chicken, a piece of fish, duck's paw and duck's tongue, chicken soup and tofu, Daqu half a catty, and three guests, only one yuan and eighty cents, which was excellent and could not be eaten in Suzhou. "
Raising ducks became the most important sideline of the production team during the People's Commune period. Mr. Huang Youren, senior chef, Sichuan, recalled that he was a chef when he worked in a catering company in Xicheng District, Chengdu, specializing in killing ducks. Every day, ducks are slowly rushed to Chengdu by duck drivers from Leshan and Meishan in the south, picking up rice, fish, shrimp and snails scattered in the fields while walking. The farther north you go, the duck grows up and walks to Chengdu for several months, just in autumn. Ducks are concentrated in Tianba in Hongpailou, Sima Bridge and other places, waiting for customers to choose.
Huang Youren's daily job is to catch and kill ducks. The venue is dirty and smelly, and not far away is the cauldron for marinating duck and the stove for roast duck. When the wind turns, the smell is fragrant. Later, the master of Sichuan cuisine described that a craftsman made thousands of ducks cry, and when it came to the chef's grade examination, his hand speed of killing chickens and ducks was not as fast as that of ordinary chefs.
for quite a long time, there were no individual and private enterprises in Leshan market. The ducks in Leshan are all before dawn. According to the notice of the food company, the production teams that raise ducks from all over the country go to Banchang Street, now the back door of the municipal government. It was a spectacular scene. One or two farmers driving ducks were wearing bamboo hats and their backs were covered with hemp fiber made of palm leaves. There is a long bamboo pole in his hand, and a piece of cloth is tied to the tip of the pole. Driving hundreds of croaking ducks across the street and lanes to Banchang Street. It is the only designated slaughterhouse for ducks, cattle and sheep in Leshan City.
Banchang Street and Trench Street are also places where the Hui people live in relatively concentrated areas. I know a Hui family named Wu, who gave birth to three women and one man, almost all of whom work in food companies.
My friend Le Sheng recalled that killing ducks and drying duck feathers on one side stinked. Next to it is the cauldron of stewed duck, which smells delicious from time to time. Marinated ducks and other marinated vegetables are distributed according to the ration and sent to all collective stores in the city for sale in the morning and afternoon. Le Sheng said that Leshan braised duck, which became famous all over the country later, came out of Banchang Street. He often goes to the place where he buys braised duck and braised pork, which is opposite the People's Cinema in Tuqiao Street. The store selling pot-stewed flavor is also the largest in Leshan, with a complete variety and a large quantity, and there is also a big store in Guandi Temple.
when I was in junior high school, I lived in a complex in County Street. My neighbor's surname was He, and we all called him He Dad. He is a shop assistant who sells braised pork under the service company. His shop is on the dam mouth of Jiaochang, and he goes to work with a white apron every day. People greet him all the way, which is respected. Bring two or two pork heads home after work. Else all the way, I went home with a cup of Pengshan Erqu. That day was very enviable.
When it comes to selling beef and mutton, until the Cultural Revolution, there was a soup pot shop specializing in mutton across the street from the Second Outpatient Department of Xuedao Market Hospital. The shop is very small, with a pot at the door and a fire in the early morning to sell mutton offal soup. The rest of the time also sells fried mutton and fried lamb liver.
There's an alley that kills sheep. It's dark and dirty. But the mutton offal soup is really genuine and delicious. In the days when pork and beef are supplied with a meat ticket, and everyone in the urban hukou is only half a catty of pork every month, eating a bowl of mutton offal soup is free of tickets, and it costs a dime or even a dime. For those who have a long-term clear soup and little water in the stomach, a bowl of boiling mutton offal soup is eaten in cold weather, and that feeling can only be realized after passing through that period.
Le Sheng's father used to be the head of the regional commercial bureau and lived in the commercial bureau compound of Jiulong Lane Administrative Office. He often picked up the enamel jar to buy mutton offal soup. I once heard an adult surnamed Ma who lived in the same yard say,
"Drink mutton soup and don't wear clothes in winter. "
The old classmate named Ma is a man with a story. I used to be a cadre of a sugar and liquor company. In the 196s, I cleaned up the class ranks and found out that Ma Tongxue had been a martial arts coach and taught the police before liberation, which was not bad. Send a sweep to let Ma Tongxue clean the toilet dam of the Commercial Bureau.
Laoma students who have practiced martial arts wear short sleeves to sweep the floor in winter, and they like to get up early in the morning. First, they go to drink a bowl of mutton offal soup and continue their labor reform.
I think that dirty and messy mutton shop on Xuedao Street has warmed many frustrated people in the war-torn era.
(Acknowledgements, the main contents of this article are provided by comrades-in-arms Geng Lesheng and Wang Fuhua. The former took part in the war against Vietnam, and worked in the commercial system for a long time. The latter took part in the work at the age of 15 or 16. First, he boiled sugar in the county candy factory, and then he refined pig's side oil to make qima, which was thanked together. )