Shaoxing fragrant cake is a famous spot in Zhejiang with a long history.
Legend has it that a long time ago, there lived a Shaoxing man surnamed Meng under the Chenghuang Mountain by the West Lake in Hangzhou. Because of his young age, everyone called him Xiao Shaoxing. Xiao Shaoxing got up at midnight every day, ground rice noodles, steamed sponge cakes, and picked up cakes to sell after dawn, so as to support himself and his blind mother.
One year, on the first day of the New Year, due to the habit of climbing mountains during the Spring Festival in Hangzhou, in order to ask for the auspiciousness of "climbing high step by step", there were many tourists at the foot of the mountain on the Chenghuang Mountain. Xiao Shaoxing's muffin sold very quickly, and after a while, only a small piece of broken muffin was sold. Xiao Shaoxing remembered that his mother had not eaten yet, so he left this broken horn cake and was going to take it back to his mother to eat. As he walked to the Chenghuang Temple, he saw an old man with white hair and a silver beard, his head resting on two broken bowls facing each other mouth to mouth, reaching out to beg. It turned out that this was Lu Dongbin, the Immortal of the Upper Eight Caves. Because of the trouble in the world, he came down to earth to have a look. At that time, Xiao Shaoxing did not see that the old man was ragged and skinny, he was very sympathetic, so he took out a few coins and gave them to the old man. Who knew that the old man did not want copper coins, but asked for a muffin to eat. Xiao Shaoxing took out the broken horn cake left for his mother and handed it to the old man. The old man ate it rudely.
When Shaoxing returned home, he told his mother about it. His mother was very approving. From then on, Shaoxing walked through the temple door every day, and whenever he saw the old man, he gave him a piece of muffin.
One day, the old man saw Xiao Shaoxing frowning and handed him a piece of cake, so he asked, "Do you have anything unsatisfactory?"
Xiao Shaoxing replied, "It's been raining for days, business is light, and the muffin can't be sold. My mother ate the leftover cake and got seriously ill, so she didn't think about food and tea."
The old man laughed, "Don't worry, I don't have anything to eat, but I have good medicine." As he spoke, he took out a gourd from his arms and handed it to Xiao Shaoxing. When he tellss him to make a sponge cake, put the medicine in the gourd into the sponge cake, and his mother will be cured after eating this cake. After speaking, a gust of wind picked up, and the old man disappeared. Xiao Shaoxing knew that he had met a fairy, and when he thought of the old man's broken bowls, he suddenly realized that it was Lu Dongbin. So he happily went home and made the sponge cake according to Lu Dongbin's instructions. He first poured a little of the medicine into the gourd, put it in the pastry flour, made the cake embryo, and steamed it on a hot fire. After the cake is cooled, place it piece by piece on a charcoal fire and bake into a golden brown. The baked muffin exudes a strange fragrance. The old mother, who had eaten the rice for three days and three nights, smelled this strange fragrance and immediately felt hungry in her stomach, so she asked Xiao Shaoxing to bring the cake to eat. After the old mother ate the cake, she was sick the next day. Since then, Xiao Shaoxing has been using this method to make cakes. Because this kind of cake is very fragrant, sweet and delicious, everyone praised it. So the muffin was renamed "fragrant cake." Because the fragrant cake was made by Xiao Shaoxing, it was also called "Shaoxing fragrant cake".
Later, people realized that the medicine put in the fragrant cake turned out to be the sand seed in the traditional Chinese medicine. Sand seed is warm in nature, can regulate qi and widen the chest, strengthen the spleen and stomach, increase appetite, and is suitable for spleen and stomach qi stagnation and indigestion. As a therapeutic food, fragrant cake is more popular.