During my short trip home for the Lunar New Year, I found myself feeling an unexpected sense of jealousy—toward rice cake.
My hometown lies in central Anhui, historically known as Qianchuan, now part of Hefei. Administrative divisions have shifted over time, but the taste of rice cake has remained unchanged. Since the Zhou Dynasty, glutinous rice products have played a crucial role in daily meals, festivals, and even religious offerings. As a result, rice cake has been known by various names, such as Gao, Er, Ci, and Ba (糕、饵、糍、粑). In my hometown, however, it is affectionately called Baba (粑粑), a soft-sounding name, as if calling out to a beloved child.
At this moment, a basin of baba is lazily soaking in clear water, stretching out as if in relaxation. This is the traditional way of preserving rice cake in the Yangtze River Delta during winter—submerging it in water. A clay vat, a bucket, or an enamel basin can all serve as containers, requiring only occasional water changes to keep the rice cake fresh throughout the season. Since my bedroom faces north, making it cool enough, the washbasin of rice cake has, by default, become my new "roommate."
"So… I'm supposed to sleep with Baba in my room tonight?" I hesitantly asked my mother.
She, however, gazed at the rice cake with a look of deep fondness, softly counting, "Two, four, six, eight… this should last us several days." The warmth in her voice, I noticed, was even gentler than when she spoke to me.
A Winter Memory of Rice Cake
I had no choice but to tread carefully around the washbasin, afraid of accidentally tipping it over. My eyes lingered on the rice cake, stirring up memories of the past.
As a child, it was always my job to fetch the rice cake. Beforehand, the adults would remind me repeatedly, "Wash your hands clean—don't dirty the Baba." Looking back, I realize that the rice cake's pristine whiteness comes from the rice itself. My hometown, nestled in a region abundant with rice and fish, prides itself on its fragrant, high-quality grains. The Baba from Lujiang follows a precise recipe—30% indica rice and 70% japonica rice—combining the elasticity of the former with the chewiness of the latter.
On winter nights, I would sometimes wake up in the darkness to find the rice cake in the enamel basin faintly reflecting the moonlight. In those moments, my thoughts would drift back to my childhood visits to the rice cake workshop.
From Workshop to Winter Dining Table
I was six years old when I first accompanied my grandmother to the village rice cake workshop. She carried a bamboo tray filled with carefully selected rice, which had been soaked for half a month. On the tenth day of the twelfth lunar month, she meticulously rinsed it, handling each grain as gently as if bathing a newborn.
Even at dawn, the queue outside the workshop stretched around the corner. After a long wait, it was finally our turn. The master, dressed in a blue cloth shirt, poured the soaked rice into a grinder, crushing it into fine powder before steaming it and feeding it into a rice cake machine. Smooth, milky-white rice cake strands emerged from the machine, and with a swift motion of his knife, the master sliced them into neat portions.
Spread out on drying racks, the freshly made rice cakes shimmered under the winter sun, resembling an endless galaxy of white. The steam rising from them carried the sweet scent of rice, filling the air with warmth.
A bite of freshly steamed rice cake was soft, chewy, and subtly sweet—pure comfort in the cold season. The only thing better was roasted rice cake: crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. Biting into it, the slight crunch gave way to a gooey center, releasing waves of nostalgia with each chew. Even when my tongue burned from the heat, I couldn't stop myself from taking another bite.
Only now do I realize that making rice cake was more than just food preparation—it was a communal winter ritual. Families brought their own rice to the workshop, exchanged greetings with familiar faces, and chatted about whose children were working away from home and when they would return. Years later, I had become one of those children living far from home.
Rice Cake and Homesickness
In the Yangtze River Delta, people have an almost obsessive devotion to rice cake. Its chewy, versatile texture makes it a staple of the New Year dining table. From morning to night, rice cake is ever-present: thin slices clinging to the spoon in a bowl of congee, a piece surfacing between chopsticks in a bowl of chicken soup with greens, sizzling golden-brown in a pan, or stretching into long, elastic strands when stir-fried with pork ribs or chicken.
And yet, I find myself eating rice cake less and less. As the New Year approaches, delivery apps push limited-edition holiday coffee instead of rice cake. Shopping malls showcase imported sweets rather than trays of freshly made rice cake. Even in supermarkets, rice cake now comes in vacuum-sealed plastic, stripped of its essence as a water-preserved tradition.
The rice cake hasn't changed—I have.
After returning to the city, I resumed my fast-paced life. Coffee fueled me, keeping me spinning like a workaholic's gyroscope. But sometimes, looking up at the sky, I would think of that basin of rice cake—floating serenely in water, soft and cloud-like. Its quiet presence never demanded attention, yet it always brought comfort, much like the nostalgia that lingers in my heart.
