BLESSED with abundant waterways and rich farmland, Songjiang is feast of traditional cuisine. As spring approaches, it’s the perfect time to go on an outing to enjoy some of the seasonal delicacies for which the district is famous. Here are some of the taste treats not to be missed on the culinary map. Wing Tan reports.

Guangli zongzi

These glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves are perhaps the most famous local snack in Sijing Town.

These treats are somewhat different from the usual pyramid-shaped glutinous rice dumplings. They are rectangular and held together with straw string instead of bamboo leaves. Each dumpling weighs about 50 grams.

The filling is made with minced meat. The dumplings are neither greasy nor chewy because the lean and fatty meat is blended to perfection.

The dumplings are cooked in an aged soup stock, with fresh water added from time to time.

The dumplings were first created in the town’s Yanshou Patisserie, which was established in 1893 and run by a man named Zhou Guangli and his wife.

For more than a century, the dumplings have been a draw card for locals and for people from neighboring districts of Shanghai.

In the early 1920s, branches of the shop opened in downtown areas such as Xujiahui and Nanjing Road E.

The original recipe was handed down to Wang Peihua, who runs a small bistro in Sijing, specializing in the dumplings.

Address: 155 Jiangchuan Rd N., Sijing Town

A Liu dumplings •

Filled with fish, meat, sweets or vegetables, A Liu dumplings have been a time-honored household snack for more than 100 years in Sijing Town.

In 1905, Zhang Liuchu opened a dumpling shop in the town, naming it after his child­hood moniker A Liu. With fine hand skills and quality ingredients, he crafted thin dough skins filled with minced meat, delicately chopped vegetables and a delicious broth. The dumplings quickly became a specialist dish in the town.

It was said that newspaper tycoon Shi Liangcai (1880-1934), a Sijing native, came to the shop for a bowl of dumplings each time he returned home.

During the 1950s, the store was transformed into a public eatery after shop owner Zhang Fengxiang, son of Zhang Liuchu, was assigned to work at an agricultural station.

“My father passed down the dumpling skills to two apprentices,” said Zhang Pinhua, 79, granddaughter of Zhang Liuchu. “But one quit because the process of making the dumplings to perfection was so time-consuming.”

Indeed, to make an A Liu dumpling requires deft skills in rubbing, kneading, pinching and twisting the dough, not to mention assem­bling the right fillings.

Like many other old traditions, such expert dumpling cuisine is dying out as heirs to the original process age and more people buy supermarket dumpling skins or ready-made dumplings.

Today, Zhang Pinhua and Zhang Yongquan, the apprentice who stuck with it, are the only remaining heirs of the tradition.

“There are many stores bragging that they sell A Liu dumplings, but they are not authen­tic,” Zhang Pinhua said. “The original A Liu dumpling doesn’t have onions. In addition, the ratio of fat and lean meat is 3-to-7 or 4-to-6 — it’s not all lean meat.”

She said she wishes time-honored traditions weren’t allowed to disappear.

“I heard that Old Sijing Town is going to be redeveloped into a new tourism attraction,” she said. “Food culture is a big part of tour­ism, and I hope A Liu dumplings return to dining tables.”

The two heirs haven’t opened a shop yet, but it is expected they will once redevelopment of Old Sijing Town is completed.

Yexie cake •

Made of rice and stuffed with any one of dozens of fillings, such as sweetened red bean or jujube pastes, the Yexie cake is a rich, square-shaped pas­try. It is sweet but not cloying, soft but not sticky. The snack has been officially included in Shanghai’s cultural heritage list of products, recipes and folk arts.

The tradition of the cake-making, according to locals in Yexie Town, started more than 400 years ago. Today, it is considered a must-eat snack in spring.

Gu Huonan, 69, is the heir to the cake-making art. He has been making the cakes for more than three decades.

At his somewhat rundown cake shop at the junc­tion of Guanting and Jizhong roads, more than 800 cakes are sold every day.

Gu’s day starts at 1am, when he goes into a kitchen filled with bags of flour. Gu and his wife Jiang Jinnai, 72, knead dough, mix fillings, light the fire under the oven and boil water to steam the cakes. It’s a dawn-to-dusk labor of love.

“Spring Festival is the busiest time of the year for me,” Gu said. “I have to cook almost 2,500 cakes a day.”

His customers range from area farmers to down­town Shanghai residents willing to drive an hour to buy the cakes.

Yexie cake can be traced back to 1573 during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Legend has it that the cake was created by a businessman named Shi Maolong, for reasons now obscure. Since then, the recipe and cooking technique have been handed down from generation to generation.

“At the beginning, I learned the recipe just for fun,” Gu said. “But gradually I became attached to this handmaking skill.”

As a young man, he drove a tractor hauling bricks and also served as a “barefoot doctor” in his rural village. His life changed when he met Zeng Yumei, a descendant of the Shi family, who taught him how to make Yexie cakes.

Each step is done by hand, which takes time. Orders have to be placed weeks in advance.

Business is always brisk. The cakes have become an indispensible part of town celebrations, birth­day parties, wedding ceremonies and the blessing rituals at groundbreakings.

Gu specially designed the bamboo steamers he uses and built an oven that can accommodate 128 cakes at a time.

Gu’s shop opens at 6am and by 9am, all the cakes are usually sold out.

The recipe for the cakes has changed little over the millennia. Gu’s recipe uses 90 percent ordinary rice and only 10 percent glutinous rice.

“Some people who can’t digest glutinous rice easily develop stomach aches, but they can always enjoy my cakes without problems,” he said.

Both rices are soaked in cold water for seven days to allow fermentation. The water is changed daily. The fermented rice then ground into a powder with a stone pestle and sifted three times to create a fine flour texture.

The flour is mixed with sugar, lard, oil and differ­ent fillings, and then placed on a bed of lotus leaves before going into a bamboo steamer.

Gu said he has been reducing the amount of sugar in the recipe because “people are more health conscious nowadays.”

In summer, he adds some peppermint oil to the flour to give the cakes a refreshing flavor. The cakes can be stored for a long time. Even in summer, they keep for a week at room temperature.

The cakes sell from 1.2 yuan to 1.5 yuan (17-22 US cents). Many older patrons buy several hundred at one time to share with relatives and friends.

Today Gu’s granddaughter Ji Peiqing is being groomed to take over the family tradition some day.

Address: Junction of Guanting and Jizhong roads,

Yexie Town

Goat gala •

Urban people traditionally eat goat meat in cold winter to warm up, but mutton is an all-year-round dish for farmers in Zhangze Village.

The village tradition now attracts a steady flow of gourmets from the city, with its ubiquitous goat meat restaurants filled with families and friends sitting around a hot pot of goat soup.

Three typical dishes, referred to as lao san yang by local people, are ordered by almost every table. They are a plate of chopped goat meat, sliced goat meat and a pot of goat soup.

The sliced goat meat is usually for takeout, while the chopped goat meat is typically eaten in the restaurant.

Local farmers usually have a bowl of goat soup for breakfast, but urban dwellers coming to the village can enjoy local goat special­ties any time of the day or night.

On Zhangze Old Street, diners can take away meals of goat broth and noodles or sit down for more elaborate meals in local restau­rants. The menus include steamed goat, leg of goat, spicy goat and goat offal. Steaming bowls of hot goat soup are served with warmed rice wine.

According to old rural recipes, goat meat is traditionally mari­nated in rice wine or other local alcohol before it goes into stir-fries and braised dishes. Hot chili is the traditional condiment.

The most popular local delicacies are steamed sliced goat meat, red braised goat meat and minced goat meat. For true aficionados, there is a hotpot that includes goat blood, liver and tripe. Local cooks use the traditional method of a steamboat in a wooden vat on a clay oven.

Venue: Zhangze Village