Earhole Fried Cake,Big Belly with Sweet Glutinous Stuffing
2 min read
Earhole Fried Cake(Erduoyan fried rice cake,Erduoyan used below as abbreviation)is Tianjin’s traditional snack with a history of more than one hundred years.Together with Goubuli Baozi and Guifaxiang Fried Dough Twists,the three snacks are called Tianjin Three Best Snacks.The origin of Erduoyan can be dated back to Qing Dynasty when Guangxu was in reign.At that time,there was an avenue in Tianjin connecting Beijing called Tongdejie Avenue.There were many vendors selling snacks on both sides of the street.
The founder of Erduoyan is Liu Wanchun,who was from Hui ethnic group.At first,he peddled along the Gulou street and Beidaguan street to sell the fried cakes he made himself.With a strong sense of observation and quick wit,he found that there were more customers in Beimenwai street.So he set up a stall there selling freshly cooked fried cakes.The business went well.But Liu Wanchun thought that it was not a long plan for the future and wanted to expand business.He discussed with his nephew Zhang Kuiyuan about the plan.They jointly rented a store of eight feet large and named it”Liuji Fried Cake Store”.
Liu Wanchun paid much attention to the choice of food formula and made devoted efforts to make the fried cakes.The food quality was high but the price was affordable,attracting many returned customers.People friendly called him”Fried Cake Liu”.Some people may wonder,why the current fried cake is called”Earhole Fried Cake”?That’s because the store was located in the hutong lane called”Earhole Lane”.When people bought the nice snacks from the store and told others about the snack,they always said that there was a wonderful store selling fried cakes in Earhole.Gradually in this way,customers all knew”Erduoyan fried cakes”more than “Liuji fried cakes”.Therefore,Liu Wanchun changed the name of the shop into “Erduoyan fried cakes”,which was the origin for its development.
