White Rice Cakes 白馍
White Rice Cakes is featured among the local specialties of Hainan.
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White Rice Cakes (白馍) are glutinous-rice cakes of Danzhou (儋州) in Hainan, made in two quite different ways: a cake steamed in ten to twenty thin layers with dried shrimp, squid and pork, and plain rounds of hand-pounded rice from Guangcun (光村).
Where it comes from
In Danzhou, mo (馍) is a whole family of steamed rice foods, roughly what people in eastern Hainan such as Wenchang (文昌) call ba (粑), and Hainan Daily lists well over a dozen kinds, white mo among them. Many local people still eat mo for breakfast, and people who make it for a living start steaming at about three in the morning so that it is ready to sell at dawn. The paper quotes a verse that Su Shi (苏轼) is said to have left during his exile in Danzhou, praising a thousand-layer white mo flecked with squid, dried shrimp, spring onion and lean meat.
How it is made
The layered cake, also called youmo (油膜), starts with fresh glutinous rice ground into a batter and mixed with dried shrimp, squid and pork belly. A thin layer is poured into a steaming tray and steamed, then another is poured on top, and so on for ten to twenty layers until the tray is full. The top is brushed with garlic oil and scattered with chopped spring onion.
In Wangfang Village (王坊村) in Guangcun Town, white mo means pounded rice. Glutinous rice is soaked, steamed for about an hour, then pounded in a basalt mortar by two people with wooden pestles that weigh about 10 kilograms each. Teams take turns for about half an hour until the rice is fully broken down. It is then pulled into balls on a table wiped with peanut oil and slapped flat into rounds.
How it is eaten
The steamed layered cake is white, tender and smooth, and is eaten with vinegar, chilli and soy sauce as condiments. The pounded rounds are glossy with peanut oil, chewy and soft as the glutinous rice releases its stickiness, and Hainan Daily says they taste best dipped in a little white or brown sugar.
In Wangfang, pounding white mo is a tradition for festivals and weddings, and the rounds are given to friends and relatives as gifts. Because the work is slow and heavy, few villagers still do it by hand. Hainan Daily reported in 2022 that the making of Danzhou Guangcun white mo was being put forward for intangible-heritage listing.
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Danzhou dressed rice noodles 儋州米烂 →
Both are Danzhou rice foods, but White Rice Cakes are glutinous rice either steamed in many layers with shrimp, squid and pork or pounded by hand and eaten with sugar.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.