In Xi’an there’s a local specialty that I have thought about constantly since I left: it’s a small cake made from a dried persimmon (shizibing 柿子饼), stuffed with nuts, and then shallow fried, so that the flesh was chewy and sticky. It was a orange-gold color, and the filling that we preferred was the “five benevolences” (wuren 五仁), which is typically composed of almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds, peanuts and sunflower seeds. The stand that we returned to time and time again also added a heady rose (and I think possibly osmanthus). Beyond my love of eating things that are golden, which feels like consuming sunshine, this filling was particularly exotic, not unlike imbibing perfume, and provided a… READ MORE | 1 Comment