Longjiang jian dui is a traditional New Year food from Longjiang in Shunde, first made in the Ming dynasty. Qu Dajun, writing at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, recorded in Guangdong Xinyu that at year's end glutinous rice was popped over fierce fire — called bao gu — to make the filling of jian dui, and that jian dui were glutinous rice balls, large and small, fried in oil to offer to ancestors and to give to relatives and friends.[1]
Preparation
Glutinous rice flour is mixed with rice flour for the skin, puffed rice and fried peanuts are bound with sugar syrup for the filling, and the mixture is shaped into balls the size of a fist, covered with sesame and deep-fried until golden. The work falls into four stages — filling, skin, wrapping and frying — and fourteen steps in all.[1]
Meaning and transmission
Longjiang jian dui is perfectly round; the Longshan Township Gazetteer notes that Jiujiang prefers flat ones while Longjiang prefers round ones, and the round shape stands for reunion. A local saying wishes that "as the jian dui roll, gold and silver fill the house". In 2019 the craft was listed in the seventh batch of Foshan municipal intangible cultural heritage.[1][2]
[1]: ShundePlus, “这道金灿灿的美食，载满了老顺德人的记忆”. [2]: Longjiang Fabu, “起油镬，炸煎堆！龙江煎堆，传承了数百年的舌尖年味”.