Deep fried twisted dough

Deep fried twisted dough
Sanmenxia Mahua originated in Daying, a town in Shanxian County. It is said that there once had been many poisonous scorpions running wild in the Daying area. To curse them, on every lunar February 2, people made long strips of dough and twisted them into the shape of scorpion tails to be fried and eaten, which was called “biting scorpion tails”. Those “scorpion tails” later developed into the Mahua of today. Mahua falls into two types, soft ones containing more water and hard ones less. In the beginning, all Mahua made in Daying were soft. In the middle of the 19^th century, the hard ones were created. Later, Daying Mahua made great progress in process and ingredients, improved on by Cai Tiangui, the chef of Sanmenxia Food & Service Co., Ltd. About 33 cm in length, shining like mature persimmons; Sanmenxia Mahua is tasty, crispy and nutritious. “It can even be eaten by someone without teeth!” Late Premier Zhou Enlai once commented humorously after tasting it when he inspected Sanmenxia in 1960.