Wujiang Bawang Pastry 乌江霸王酥

Where it comes from

The local story, told on the He County government site, has the fleeing Xiang Yu stop, hungry and thirsty, at a thatched hut where an old man was selling small square pastries. The pastry broke in his hand before it reached his mouth; he called it a fine crisp and ate more than thirty pieces. The seller spread the tale, and the pastry took the Hegemon-King's name. An Anhui Daily report gives the older name as toad pastry (蛤蟆酥).

Wujiang's pastry makers kept the trade going under names such as Yuwei Xiaosu (余味小酥, 'lingering-taste pastry'); only in the 1980s was it formally named Bawang Su. At a township-enterprise products fair in Beijing in October 1985 it won a national award, and in November 1989 it was shown at a food fair in Hong Kong.

How it is made

The work runs through several steps: rolling the dough, pinching off pieces, adding the layering fat (点酥), shaping each piece and scattering it with sesame. In 2017 the Wujiang Bawang Pastry making technique (乌江霸王酥制作技艺) entered Anhui's fifth provincial list of intangible cultural heritage. Its listed bearer, Tong Maolong (仝茂龙), took over the family trade in 1985 and reworked the production process, leaving behind the old earthen stove, which had hygiene problems and could not turn out large batches; in early 2021 he was making 2,500 a day at his shop on Wujiang Old Street (乌江老街).

Flavour and texture

The finished pastry is loose, crisp and fragrant, rich with fat but not greasy. For Tong Maolong the twelfth lunar month is the busiest time of the year, and the pastry is remembered on Wujiang Old Street as a taste of the new year.