Incredible Chinese candy: sugar lollipops (糖画：龙)

Like the other Chinese candy articles I've posted, this is another example of taking something very simple, chucking incredible skill and clever fingers at it and casually turning it into an artform that is so transitory that you eat it.

This first video isn't great and I'm not even sure what he's making. It appears to be some kind of bear in a hat or something, I dunno. But what you see at the start is that he's heating sugar off-screen and testing its consistency on the slab in front of him - usually the slabs are made of marble, but this one appears to be plastic. Then it's just a case of ladelling out the melted sugar into an intricate pattern. Ignore the thing he's actually making (give me a break; it's hard to find these videos) and note the technique and then look at the incredible dragon on the right of the screen. Wow!





This second video shows the whole process. Traditionally, each craftsman (confectioner?) would have a pre-chosen set of designs based on the Chinese zodiac and other images. You paid your money and then spun a... uh, spinner and where the arrow ended up was the shape he would do for you. Although most of the lollipop sellers will have many shapes in common with each other, they all have their own unique style of doing them.

Oh and at the end of this second video, there's a guy who's decided that incredibly intricate designs aren't enough on their own and he's decided to go 3D with it all. Crikey! I'm sure that if we check back on him in another couple of years, he'll have lollipops that can move...



Since my wife came to live in Britain, it's been my job to introduce her to British culture. One thing I've particularly tried to show her is the range of traditional British sweets. It's not gone terribly well:

"And these are what we call mint humbugs."

"And what do they do?"

"Do? They don't do anything. You put them in your mouth and eat them."

"What? They don't even transform into giant robots or require fifty years of training to make? Your sweets suck."

Sigh...

Incredible Chinese candy: rice dough sculptures

At Chinese New Year (January 23rd this year), there are a billion things that the Chinese do for various reasons. One of the most fun things is creating rice dough sculptures. A little like what the Germans do with marzipan, these are surprisingly elaborate edible sculptures, usually depicting traditional things such as Chinese gods.

Ordinarily, this is something you do yourself. A rice dough is prepared and split into lumps which are mixed with various food colourings. You then create a little model or sculpture (often on a stick like in the video above). When it's finished, you use it to assist with your prayers. When you're finished praying, you eat your little model.

There are professional modellers out there who will sell you sculptures if you don't have time to make them yourself. Although the home-made ones tend to be quite simple, the professional product tends to be incredibly elaborate and it seems almost a shame to eat them.

In our second video, the work of another professional modeller is seen. Later in the video he explains that he makes some of them with silicone mixed in to make them more resilient (which the reporter tests by chucking it on the floor) and how he will varnish models that people intend to keep rather than consume.

The video ends with our man going to a school to teach the kids how to do it. Bonus points if you spot Doraemon in there.

Incredible Chinese candy: popcorn / rice krispie squares

I was reading the Geeks are Sexy blog and they had an article highlighting a video of someone making "Korean popcorn". Here's the video in question:

Okay, now that video is a little confusing and it appears to show something, but it's not quite what it looks like. The man is cooking rice in a pressure cooker and he suddenly releases the pressure (the bang) and it all flies out. It's not exactly popcorn, but that's what it looks like and that's what Geeks are Sexy are saying that it is. But it isn't.

What he's actually making are Rice Krispie squares. It's an ancient Chinese thing - isn't everything? It seems that the Chinese love to combine fun with their candy to make even the making of it an interesting experience. I've found (well, the wife did) another video showing the whole process more clearly as well as what they do with it afterwards. Oh and they call it something like "fat man rice".

Here's what's happening:
0:02 - He raises the pressure vessel
0:10 - Rice is added
0:22 - The lid is closed. Note the two arms holding the lid down
0:29 - The pressure vessel is swung over a gas flame and oil is added
0:34 - A motor is switched on to start it turning - this stops the rice burning (traditionally they were turned by hand)
0:38 - A cover is put over the vessel to help contain the heat
0:49 - He cleans out the "catcher" box ready for the coming explosion
1:02 - This is what will come out of the pressure vessel - pretty much Rice Krispies
1:13 - Note the saucepan next to the Rice Krispies - it contains maltose
1:20 - Maltose (a sugar extracted from grain) is heated
1:45 - The maltose is added to the Rice Krispies...
1:55 - ...and is stirred in, coating the Krispies
2:39 - The coated Krispies are dumped into a tray ready for the next stage
3:08 - They're rolled out to form a block...
3:45 - ...and then cut into smaller blocks. Note that some other ingredients (peanuts, etc) have been added
3:55 - The blocks are bagged up, ready to hand to customers
4:20 - Note the gauge on the pressure vessel
4:30 - The cover is removed and...
4:34 - ...the pressure vessel is rotate out of the flame and into the "catcher"
4:37 - The cook shouts something like "fire in the hole" to alert passers-by
4:44 - The arms holding the lid on the pressure vessel are released and the rice explodes out, instantly puffing up. And then the process begins again.

Quite an amazing thing really. Although it tends to get billed as oriental popcorn, it really is pretty much rice krispie squares. The only difference between that and what we make as kids is that they use maltose syrup instead of sucrose and that they have the super cool exploding thing. Neat eh?