A relative from Tampin, Melaka gave me a big bag of goodies consisting of several types of biscuits, lime juice concentrate and sweets.
This box caught my eye. First, the package looks impressive and modern. Secondly, the company bears the Halal signs.
Upon closer inspection, I notice some writings on the box. Originally, I had no intention of opening and consuming some of the biscuits and was about to give them away to someone else.
The box has a myth about this wife cake or called lou phor peng in Cantonese. This biscuit is made of crispy outer layer and inside the layers, it has the black sesame paste. I find the taste rather pleasant, not too sweet or too oily. Probably because the biscuits are made of halal stuffs (i.e. no lard), it taste very ‘mild’ instead of the flavourful taste of other types of biscuits of similar nature.
Let me tell you about this wife cake from Yong Sheng. BTW, if I am not mistaken, Yong Sheng is the name for Emperor Shih Huang Ti. (correct me if I am wrong).
According to the story (on the box), a poor peasant family was in need of money because the old father-in-law fell sick. The filial daughter-in-law sold herself so that the old man has money to cure his illness. (not sure what ‘selling’ was offered 🙂 ) In order for the husband to redeem his wife, he started baking these biscuits and sell them to earn money. Eventually, he earned enough money and brought the wife back. Hence, the name wife cake. They lived happily ever after, selling the biscuits.
I must applaud Yong Sheng Confectionery Sdn Bhd for their modern approach in marketing these traditional goodies. I really bought into the idea of trying out these biscuits because of the mythical story!
Yong Sheng…really good chinese biscuit shop from Muar. They have very nice hiu pneah…must be the best in Malaysia cos everyone who knows how to eat hiu pneah will travel to Muar to buy them!
p.s. Tampin not in Malacca lah…its in Negeri Sembilan bordering Malacca
ops..and Yong Sheng is not the name of the Emperor of China..the Emperor’s name is Yong Zheng. Besides…the chinese characters for Yong Sheng actually spell as “Rong Cheng”
Cherry – LOL, I need lessons in Geography and China History. I just remembered, my bro-in-law car reg. starts with N hor, not M.
Wow that is such a romantic story!! I never heard of it before.
…Maybe because I never liked lou poh peng… 😛
i’ve had some b4 when i was in singapore & my sis-in law buys them from hk when she goes there on business trips, i’m not too overly impressed with the taste but ur story is more impressive! 🙂
Thanks for letting me know about the taste. I saw these wife cakes in a supermarket a few weeks ago and I was contemplating on buying them. The company also produces husband cakes but I didn’t read the package to know the story behind husband cakes.
i liked the mung beans paste biscuit from them leh yumyummm but dun really like loh por pheng though
The real name of Shih Huang Ti (259BC – 210BC) is Ying Zheng. Ying being his surname.
Yong Zheng (1678 – 1735) was another Emperor of China. His real name is Ai Xin Jue Luo Yin Zhen. Ai Xin Jue Luo being his surname.
As for the story of LouPoh Peng, the version that I got is like this:
Once upon a time, there was a kopitiam somewhere in Guangzhou which was famous for their delicacies (kuih-muih and cookies). One day, one of the dessert sifus there bought all the nice kuih-muih and cookies back for his wife to taste. This dessert sifu was from Chaozhou (Teochew).
After the wife tasted, she commented, “Cheh! Famous kopitiam famous cookies like that only ah? Nothing special one. My hometown homemade wintermelon puff lagi best lah!”
So this dessert sifu challenged her wife, “Your wintermelon puff so best then make for me to taste lah!”
So the wife made the puff and this sifu also admitted very best. So then he brought some back to the kopitiam for his fellow colleagues other dessert sifus to eat. The kopitiam taukeh after eating said, “Wah! Very nice wor. Where you buy one?”
“Not buy one… Teochew LouPoh made one,” said some of the sifus.
“Oh… Teochew LouPoh Peng…” taukeh said. “We must sell this also. ”
So that’s how the name came about.
And they all lived happily ever after.
– The End –
I tried some “lou por peng” in Yuen Long (HK) and oh my, they were AWESOME! But I’ve never tried the Tampin one though I spent 10 years of my life in Melaka 🙂