These original folk art are mainly Utopia Phoenix lights, two bamboo high cavity, Utopia two shed, Utopia four six sentences, rowing dry boat, mussel dance, lion dance, dragon lanterns, color boat, Huangzhou points and other 31 species of local opera sketches, fully demonstrate the charm of the local folk art, the audience was full.
For thousands of years, Shiyan's ancestors have left us many folklore, a valuable cultural heritage. The Shiyan area has a particularly large number of folklore for the Spring Festival. From the first year of the waxing moon to the first month of the following year 15, almost everywhere in the busy year. South of the Han River, Jing Chu Chuan Xi, strong flavor; north of the Han River, Shaanxi wind and Yu customs, penetrate the territory.
Killing the New Year's pig
Killing the New Year's pig is one of the most important contents of the Shiyan people busy year, from "into the nine". Pork is generally not sold, not eaten in the New Year, so "into the nine" before killing the pig, in order to be made into bacon, to stay in the next year to eat. The poorer people, the pig is small, not eat, wait until the twentieth of Lunar New Year to kill the pig. Shiyan folk song "December" sings: "Lunar New Year's Eve, every family kills a pig. The meat is chopped up and carried to my sister's house."
Everyone rushed to kill the New Year's pig in one piece, and then the pig killer was pretty. The pig killer is covered in greasy clothes, who usually see all avoided. But into the waxing moon, who do not mind him dirty, a few days in advance to line up to receive. The heavy, oily basket of tools for killing pigs is also packed and carried by some people.
On the day of the killing of the pig, the owner of the pig got up early in the morning, in the house on the ground to build up a wood stove, set up a large iron pot, chopping wood to boil water. And then to kill the pig to feed the scoop of delicious food, and then an invitation to kill the pig maker, two helpers to come, three invited to drink pig wine (pig's blood soup) family and friends, neighbors to support the scene. Older people rushed to wait to kill the pig water soaked feet, small children waiting to grab a pig urine bubble to play ......
Old mountain children have no toys, just waiting to kill the pig to grab a pig urine bubble blown into a balloon to play. See the pig killer open gut, they are around, cut down the moment of pig urine bubble, the quickest hand will be the first to grab a hand over, put on the stone rubbing loose skin, blown into a basketball big, with a string tied mouth, it became a floating "balloon". The children who didn't get it often took advantage of their defenses and stabbed the pig's urine bubble with a small eye, which deflated in a short time. It didn't matter, the family was killing another pig. The children rushed over in a gust of wind like they were attacking a mountain.
In the old days, the elderly also wore straw shoes in winter, feet were frozen cracked, with the killing of pigs water bubble, the next year will not be cracked. So, which kill pigs, feet frozen cracked people have to rush there. After scraping the pig's hair, with a large foot basin filled with scalding pig water, everyone together to put their feet into the basin, laughing and soaking their feet.
The pig was killed, the meat was salted, and the pig killer, the helpers, and the friends and neighbors all gathered around the big square table in the courtyard, drinking and eating meat, and not getting drunk.
Now, children's toys are more, the elderly also have warm boots, blowing pig urine bubbles, the custom of soaking feet in pig-killing water has disappeared.
Small year
Shiyan area over the small year is the 24th day of the lunar month, there is also the 23rd day of the lunar month, commonly known as the "military three people four king twenty-five" ("king" refers to the late return of the draft soldiers). Southern Song Wen Tianxiang "24 days" poem has "Jiangxiang is small year" sentence. Fangxian Zhi" Volume 11 "Customs" records: "twenty-third day, the sacrificial stove God, the common saying is that the stove God on the day Cao Cao play things. Housewife clean kettle burning lamps, to gum teeth molasses, glutinous rice cake, bean sugar balls and other offerings, said 'a few sweet words' also. Also, black beans and grasses are placed on a plate, which is used by the god of the stove to feed the horses. After the festival, the whole family worships and gives sugar and molasses to the children. After the festival, all the families worshiped and gave sugar and molasses to the children. A banquet was held and it was called 'the New Year'. Since then, the cocktail and drums and firecrackers continue all night long until New Year's Eve, which is called 'haunted New Year'." In the Shiyan folk song "Love Song", there is: "On the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, every family celebrates the New Year, telling the king of the stove to go up to the blue sky, and blessing Lang to return." In fact, the 23rd day of the Lunar New Year is mainly for sacrificing to the God of Zaos, and people treat it as a small year.
The god of the stove is also known as the master of life. The love song also says, "On the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, Master Sishin is going to heaven. With beaten sugar cubes in his mouth, there will be fewer slanders in front of the Jade Emperor." Ge Hong of the Jin Dynasty, while practicing at Wudang Mountain, wrote "Holding Park Zi - Subtle Purpose", which states, "On the night of the moon's darkness, the god of the stove also goes to heaven." So before dark on the twenty-third day of the Lunar New Year, there are many children in the streets and alleys, at the end of the village, selling Zao Wang Wang's statue and Zao Ma Tu, because on this day every family cleans the walls in front of and behind the stove, and then puts on a new statue of the god Zao and burns the Zao Ma Tu, so that the master of life can ride on the flowery horse and go to the sky with Zao candy and Zao cakes. On both sides of the new Zaoshen statue, couplets are pasted, with the first one saying "good things in heaven" and the second one saying "peace in the lower world".
After dinner, in the stove on the stove on the incense burner, candles, yellow framed paper and eight stove cake, a plate of stove sugar and other offerings, burning incense, candles, burning framed, the whole family worship. Some do not burn stove horse, catch a big green-tailed rooster, put the knife, bowl on the ground in front of the stove door, kill the chicken to catch the blood. When taking off the feathers of the chicken in the chicken head, wings, tail, each leaving three longer, reciting "red rooster, green tail, Zaowang master riding up to heaven". After the festival, the whole family eats zaocai and zaocai candies.
To the 1970s, the custom of sacrificing to the God of the stove gradually faded. Nowadays, there are still old people in the mountainous areas who sacrifice to the god of the stove and boil stove sugar.
Playing stove sugar
Playing stove sugar is on the twenty-second day of the lunar month, to grain boiled sugar, there are three kinds of: one is glutinous rice, two is sweet potato, three is the bud grain. Jiangnan mountains do not come out of glutinous rice, sweet potatoes, they will use bracts to boil sugar. Sugar boiled, cooled and hardened, eat with a hammer to knock a piece down, so the name "sugar". In the sugar plus sesame, peanuts, etc., fried, put into the mold shaped, cut pieces, is the stove sugar. There are also added Pod flower, cooked soybean. The sugar is used to offer sacrifices to the god of the stove, with the intention of "sticking to the mouth", so that the god of the stove will say good things after going to heaven.
Zaobao cakes are made of glutinous rice bread with sugar filling, and are shaped like large copper coins in the shape of a half-moon or full-moon.
Catching up on the marriage
After the 24th day of the Lunar New Year, the Sifu went up to heaven, and there was no God on earth to control, and it was all about the "auspicious day of the zodiac", so naturally, you didn't have to look at the day of the marriage to get married, which was called "catching up on the messy marriage" in folklore. So from the Chinese New Year until the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, regardless of the city and countryside, regardless of the south of the river and the north, marrying a daughter-in-law, marrying a girl to catch up with the pile. The streets, alleys, eight villages, everywhere you can hear the gongs and drums, horns, firecrackers ringing. The bride's sedan chair often meets across the street, the two brides will be handed out of the sedan chair to exchange gifts, called "handing over gifts", said each other congratulations. These days, children are particularly busy, running around to see the bride, pick up firecrackers, grab candy, touch red eggs. Some years ago, sedan cars began to rise to marry, the custom of sitting in a sedan chair gradually disappeared. In recent years, the young people feel fresh to the old custom, and sit up the sedan chair, followed by a string of small cars, the old custom has become a new wind.
Dusting
Shiyan proverb cloud: "waxing twenty-four, dust sweeping the house", there is a new, poor luck, bad luck all sweep out of the meaning. On this day, people dusted in the morning, noon or evening of the New Year, figure a clean and healthy.
Lunar month twenty-four early in the morning, the whole family got up early, all hands, the furniture to the yard or rice paddies. If you can't move a large object, cover it with a cloth or paper. Pull down the curtains, take off the frame ...... male laborers to change sets of old clothes, put on a straw hat, at the top of a long bamboo pole bundled with a brush or duster, first upstairs, then downstairs; the first room, hut, after the hall, the big room, in turn, dusted off the roof, the roof, the walls of the floating dust and cobwebs, and then the corners of the corners and edges of the edge of the sweep clean. The house is cleaned up, then wash the furniture, dry, dry, and then restore.
This time when the mother, sister can be busy. After dusting, the whole family took a bath and changed into clean clothes, and the hostess and the eldest daughter grabbed the sun to wash the bedding and clothes. On the night of the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, the new clothes of the whole family were put on their respective beds. After taking care of the beds of their own family members, they also had to support a bed and put on clean bedding to prepare for the guests to sleep on New Year's Day.
Beating tofu
Shiyan produces a lot of soybeans, and almost every family has to beat the tofu on New Year's Day, and the time is chosen around the 25th day of the Lunar New Year. If the time is too early, the tofu will be sour; if it is too late, it will be too busy. That's why the Shiyan folk song "Xiao Lang Shang Sichuan" says: "On the 25th day of the Lunar New Year, every family makes bean curd. When I think of my Lang outside, I cry all day long." Why do you cry? The first is to hope for the return of Lang, and the second is that one person is too busy to beat the bean curd.
"Tofu out of a hundred dishes", can do soybean oil skin, tofu block, frozen tofu, smoked dried beans, thousand sheets of skin, deep-fried tofu dishes, lazy tofu. Fangxian specialties fried rolls in recent years popular in Shiyan, New Year's home must have. The outer skin of this crispy fried rolls is soybean oil skin, rolled meat filling, and then deep-fried. After the tofu pot, remove the foam, the surface of the cooled into a layer of film, uncovered with a bamboo pole, is the soybean oil skin, the operation process is called "uncovering soybean oil". Soybean oil skin contains high protein, thin and bright, resistant to breakage. Uncovering soybean oil skin is very profitable, but to have a certain mortgage, drying, collection techniques. After the tofu is beaten, part of it is floated in water or frozen, and part of it is deep-fried and other fancy dishes. Shiyan proverb: "reunion year can not be separated from the tofu dishes," is the truth.
The tofu is a busy job. The first water soaked soybeans, soaked through the mill on the push. The hand-powered mill is pushed by one person, while pushing to the eye of the mill to feed the water and soybeans, too tiring. The abductor mill must be pushed by one person, one person to feed soybeans, a single person can not do. After grinding the soybean milk, you also have to use the "tofu swinger" to filter the milk and remove the dregs. The so-called "tofu swings" is a hanging wooden cross at the corners of the tie a filter cloth, and then pour the ground soybean milk into the filter cloth, the filtered soybean juice into the "tofu swings" below the cauldron. The pot under the stove filled with large pieces of firewood, burned a large fire, to the soybean milk rolling cease fire, to foam, drying a few sheets of soybean oil skin, after the soybean milk from the pot to a large wooden barrel. Then pour the prepared gypsum juice into the soy milk, which is called "point tofu". Point tofu has to pay attention to, gypsum juice less tofu is too tender, the amount of small; more, coarse, tofu is too old, not delicious. When the soybean milk into soybean flower, poured into the wooden box, covered with a thick wooden box groove board, with a large stone pressure, squeeze out the water, which is called "pressure tofu". The dried beans and the skin of the thousand sheets are also made in this way.
The process of making tofu is laborious and difficult, and it is even more difficult for a person to make tofu. When a man goes out and doesn't return at the end of the year, how can a single woman at home beat the bean curd? It is understandable that the woman in the folk song "cries one day at a time" as she waits for her husband to return.
Some people are very particular about what they do, and the tofu they eat on New Year's Day should be filtered for two days, and they don't have to put on soybean oil skins. This way out of the tofu white see green, no "honeycomb", the mouth is tender.
Haunted New Year
Haunted New Year, that is, every year before New Year's Eve ancestor worship, said with the ancestors of the New Year. Qing - Fang County Records, Volume 11, "Customs" records: "Twenty-six days later, with wine and preserved recommended ancestor, Luan Luan and food, known as 'haunted year'." "Pro", dried meat, such as dried fruit. "Recommendation", grass cushions. "Luan", large trees. This is to say that, after the twenty-sixth day of the lunar month, every family should bring wine and food to the ancestral tomb to pay homage to their ancestors. Ancestor worship, in front of the grave under the big tree to choose a place, lay a straw mat, put wine and vegetables, fruits, offerings buns, the grave people on behalf of the whole family to the ancestors to pay tribute to the New Year, toast, to show that the yin and yang reunion, nostalgia.
Steam the steamed bun
Shiyan people generally in the waxing moon around 26 steamed bun. The folk song says: "On the twenty-sixth day, every family is busy, and the noodle pots are brought to the fireplace. Chopping oil dregs, mixing flour and sugar, chopping wood to set up a cage to steam for the feast." Steam steamed buns selected on the twenty-sixth day of the Lunar New Year, one is close to the New Year, the buns can be put after the year. Secondly, the closer to the side of the year, the busier people, busy, can not take care of food, there are a few cages of steamed bread, hungry can be pad bottom. The New Year's Day buns are usually made with oil residue after refining lard, plus tofu, radish, vermicelli, dried beans and other fillings, both oil and meat flavor. You can't use pure sugar to make sugar buns, you have to fry the flour and mix it in the sugar to prevent the sugar from flowing out when you bite into the bun.
The New Year's steamed buns are not called steamed buns, but called "steamed for the benefit of", which is to figure a good luck. Because the "steam" and "real" harmony, "bun" and "mill" harmony, New Year's Day, said "steamed bun", easy to listen to as "real mill", unlucky.
The buns are divided into three categories: large, medium and small, each with 10 pieces. The big one to honor the family god, from the New Year's Eve reunion straight to the 17th of January for breakfast. For the steamed buns steamed cracked called "smile", meaning that the year will have a good thing. Medium-sized buns are offered to the ancestors' graves, and can be eaten as they are offered, meaning that they are asking the ancestors to bless and protect them from disasters. Smaller buns are dedicated to the land lord and are taken back afterward. All of the offerings to the top of the bun to point to five points of red plum blossoms, or in the bun wrapped in red dates.
While it is said to be "steamed offerings", in fact, the steamed buns have many different patterns. In addition to meat buns, sugar buns, there are other patterns, such as fish-shaped buns, snake-shaped buns, chicken-shaped buns. There are also made into a family of children's phases, gifted to children, figure a happy.
Writing pairs
Shiyan people on New Year's Eve, commonly posted spring couplets, door painting. Spring Festival couplets, also known as "pairs", originated from peach charms. The "peach symbol" is a rectangular peach wood board hanging on both sides of the gate in the Zhou Dynasty. After the Han Book - ceremonial records: "Peach runes six inches long, three inches wide, peach board on the book 'Shentian', 'Yubi' two gods, the first day of the first month ...... make Peach talisman on the household, the name of the immortal wood, all the ghosts are afraid of." "Song History - Shu Shijia" records: "After the Lord of Shu Meng Chang made bachelor Zhang Xun Peach Board, ordered the pen inscription: 'New Year's Day Na Yuqing, Jiajie No. Changchun'." This is China's first Spring Festival couplets.
Legendary door deities are Shentian and Yubi, who can catch ghosts. The Book of the Yellow Emperor, quoted in Ying Shao's The Book of Customs in the Eastern Han Dynasty, says: "In ancient times, there were two brothers, Shentian and Yubi, who lived on Dushuo Mountain. There was a peach tree on the mountain, which was covered with shade. Every morning, they examined all the ghosts under this tree. If there were any evil spirits that jeopardized the earth, they would be tied up and fed to tigers. Later, people used two peach wood boards to paint the images of Shentian and Yushi and hung them on both sides of the door to drive away ghosts and evil spirits. In the Tang Dynasty, the portraits of the door gods became Qin Shubao and Yuchi Jingde, then Zhao Citizen, the God of Wealth, and Guan Yu, the God of Wealth, and then the Taoist God of Thunder was added.
The pair and the door god are "brothers", Shiyan city and countryside, the government and the people have the custom of posting the pair and the door god. People in the countryside than the city people pay more attention to, even the poor family, New Year's Day, we have to do everything possible to paste the pair and the door god. In the month of Lunar New Year, in order to prevent snow from sealing the mountains, the mountain people carry a basket of grains early and go over the mountains to the city to sell grain. In the lower mountains, they would pick a load of firewood or charcoal to catch the market. After selling money, the first thing to do is to buy incense, wax, paper frames and pairs of pairs and door gods. The red pairs and door gods are rolled up and inserted in the basket, hung on the head of the flat burden, and walk on the street with satisfaction, constituting a picture of the folklore of New Year's shopping and buying pairs of goods.
This time, the county's streets and alleys, rural towns, there are a lot of pairs of writing, painting the door of the stalls. Red paper and black ink are drying on the ground before and after the stalls. People who are illiterate gather around and ask the seller to read a pair of pairs, and if they find it appetizing, they will pick it out and buy it.
Speaking of ostentation, not through the ink rich families often spared no money to pretend that the facade, the oldest invited the literati (mostly Mr. Teaching), the painter to the home party. Painter bowed his head to paint, few words; make a couplet, write a pair of people shaking their heads, thinking hard, trying to create new ideas. Half a day later, the couplets and door paintings were spread all over the house. The master of the house is happy, like the literati shouted: "Please sit down, all guests and friends masters, for me to make couplets, painting the door god, hard work. Yu prepared thin wine, please drink your fill." The crowd responded together, big bowl of wine, big piece of meat, to a drunken meal. After the meal, the literati chose the works to be left for the host's family, and they themselves took the couplets and door gods that they had hidden in advance, and left amidst the voices of thanks. The remaining couplets and door gods became gifts for the hosts to send to their friends and relatives.
Couplets and door gods are two pairs of "spring trees" planted on the door of each house, on which good luck and festivity fall, bringing out the colors of spring and the year. Today, many people also stick couplets and door paintings on New Year's Eve, but they are all similar prints, monotonous style, without the flavor of the ancient trade, please write the lively.
Digging New Year's lotus root
Shiyan folk proverb: "The twenty-seventh day of the lunar month, digging lotus root does not wash mud." Lotus root farmers why rush in the freezing cold on the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month to dig lotus root? There is a saying here.
Shiyan people on New Year's Eve, every family is stewed lotus root. The root in the annual feast can be cold, stir-fried. Drinking half-full of wine, on a plate of tender white crisp hot and sour lotus root slices, or chili popping lotus root, that is a good dish. Half a month before and after New Year's Eve, the lotus root will dry out and rot for a long time, so buy it on the 27th or 28th of Lunar New Year's Day, with mud to preserve moisture, freshness, and can be put. Especially small field lotus root, good cooking, delicious, favorite. Like Fangxian Lotus Pond, Danjiangkou six miles of Ping, Zhuxi Shui Ping lotus root, the old days are a good deal, they have to stay to the end of the waxing moon before digging up and selling, a catty to sell three pounds of price, but also with the mud. Therefore, the root farmers are "stay root in the field, waiting for the New Year".
The end of the waxing moon is a hard thing to dig root. Sunny days are good, catch frost, ice or snow, it is more bitter. "The first thing you need to do is to get a good deal of money to buy a new car, and then you can buy a new car, and then you can buy a new car. A few days ago, the lotus root field side of the smoke, a group of people standing on the ridge, digging lotus root, guard lotus root, buy lotus root, lotus root peddling you to and fro. There were no waterproof boots in the old days, and the people who dug the lotus roots stepped barefoot into the muddy water of the ice slag, waved their arms to shovel the mud, and touched the branches of the lotus roots with both hands, and then carefully lifted them upwards in the direction of the long direction. When an intact lotus root comes out of the mud, the digger, though his hands and feet are numb, still carries the lotus root and shows it off to others. The lotus root buyers were so happy that they shouted, "Come up to the fire," with both pain and approval. The fire on the ridge was made by women, children and lotus root vendors who picked up lotus leaves and dried grass. The smoke rolled over the lotus field, and the fragrance of the lotus root smoked to resist the cold. Who says lotus root farmers are not bitter, just to earn more money. From the dawn of the field, to the end of the day, a person can dig a quart of lotus root, a lot of hard work has been rewarded. At noon, the housewife fried a meat and a vegetarian two dishes, carrying a pot of hot yellow wine, put on the ground for them to eat. Those who wanted to buy lotus roots, stuffed a whole pack of cigarettes to the lotus root diggers, and sometimes brought some candies to the children, and the women of the lotus root diggers to tell jokes and pull relations, that is, to buy a good lotus root that is cleanly trimmed and not rotting. At this time the lotus root diggers are very pretty, to come to buy the two traffickers do not care. The two traffickers ran Zhang Tian ran Li Tian, and finally buy are thin and rotten residual lotus root, but still can make money, because at this time the residual lotus root is also beautiful.
Fried dishes
Utopia fried custom, Jiangnan Jiangbei different. Jiangnan and Sichuan, Xiangyang border, Jiangnan and Shaanxi, Henan junction, fried dishes absorbed around the characteristics, plus Wudang Taoism, the influence of the culture of exile, fancy.
Crispy fried dishes, that is, put the food into the boiling frying pan fried and stored. Shiyan New Year's custom in the "spring wine feast" is very concerned, in addition to more dishes, more patterns, but also simple and time-saving. Crispy fried dishes can change the pattern, can be temporarily put together, the lack of shall not be. Crispy fried dishes can be put together a cold dish, throw soup pot, so the Shiyan proverb: "Lunar New Year's twenty-eight, the family move crispy fried," in fact, in advance to do the annual dish.
Shiyan fried dishes from the content of meat, vegetarian two categories, from the taste of the points of the countryside, the city, the mountains, Taoism and the court of different, from the flavor of the points of salty, sweet, spicy, hot and sour difference, from the taste of the points of the crunchy type, flaky type. Crispy type crunchy and crumbly, soft type chewy flavor long.
Meat fried dishes, is the animal meat and other foods mixed into the fried; vegetarian fried dishes, namely sweet potatoes, wheat flour, grains, taro, greens, wild vegetables and other mixed into the fried. Wudang Mountain Taoist temple to "Wudang eight treasures (tofu, gluten, fungus, mushroom, yam, yellow essence)" as the main ingredient, crispy fried a variety of meat-type vegetarian dishes, such as "deep-fried pork chops", "deep-fried eel", "yam and yellow essence meat", etc., are to make the guests crave in the fasting "meat" products.
Here are two practices: deep-fried "pork chops", with winter bamboo shoots cut sections for the "bone", wrapped around the soybean oil tendon, made of pork chops, adjusted with egg sauce, deep-fried in a frying pan, golden fragrance, crispy and delicious, modeling enough to mess with the real; crispy-fried "eel", will be a large mushroom cut into a finger-width strip, micro-frying and then change the block, the back of the black meat yellow, quite like eel slices, and then add peppers, carrots, black fungus and other stir-fry, green, red, yellow, black, color and flavor are good.
Shiyan around the more common crispy fried dishes are crispy fat, crispy ribs, crispy fish, crispy chicken balls, crispy duck wings, crispy spring rolls, crispy hemp leaves, crispy tofu pills, lotus root folder and so on. Jiangbei specialties include sweet potato balls, oil bun tendons, whole quail, and lamb meatballs. Jiangnan specialties include crispy rolls, mung bean balls, taro balls, beef balls, turnip balls, etc. Modern introduction of foreign crispy fried dishes are lion's head, crispy dog meat, crispy donkey meat and so on.
Steaming New Year's dishes
Shiyan folk proverb: "Lunar New Year's Eve 29, steamed meat boiled bones." In the old days, there is no supermarket, no finished products on the market steamed vegetables, so every family prepared steamer. Large households with large steamer, small households with small steamer. Usually steamed buns, steamed rice, steamed rice wine, to the New Year will be steamed vegetables, called "cage dip meat".
Steamed vegetables are meat, vegetarian two. Meat steamed vegetables have strips of buckled meat, steamed meat, steamed ribs, etc., chicken, duck, cattle, sheep, fish can do steamed vegetables. Steamed vegetables with medium-sized earthenware bowl, because the earthenware bowl out of flavor. The bottom of the bowl is first loaded with cushioning dishes, such as buckled meat cushion moldy dried vegetables, plus the main ingredient soy beans; chicken pieces cushion chestnut; lamb, beef cushion radish or carrot; duck cushion old lotus root and so on.
Button meat is not eating meat. Moldy dried vegetables after steaming oil immersion, coupled with the special stink of soy beans, is a good dish to eat after wine with rice. For this bowl of bottom dish, Shiyan family eaves hanging dried vegetables. Steamed meat is also a popular steamed vegetables, Jiangbei with rice mixed with bract flour, or glutinous rice mixed with rice, plus five-spice powder, mixed with meat on the cage, meat flavor taste long. Jiangnan with high mountain "cold water red" rice flour, plus five-spice powder mixed with meat, steamed out of the meat was slightly red, fragrant. Unfortunately, "cold water red" production is low, now basically extinct.
Zhuxi steamed pot is the Jiangnan special steamed dishes, the main ingredient is preserved meat (preserved pig's feet, preserved duck, preserved chicken, preserved pork chops, preserved pork belly, etc.). These preserved meat plus ingredients mixed in a large clay pot, plus cilantro, fungus, tofu and pickled old pickled cabbage, steamed over high heat for about four hours out of the cage. "The steamer comes out of the cage, the heat goes out, and the master gives the word to drink three cups of wine at the table."
Busy year is not tired, busy and happy. The new year's goods are being brought to the door, and every family is full of joy. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new car, and you'll be able to get it to work, and you'll be able to get it to work.
New Year's Eve, is a family reunion of joyful days, outside the people want to go home to reunite with their families, the family is also looking forward to the return of people outside. Whether you have money in your pocket or not, a New Year's Eve reunion is the wish of all. The Lunar New Year's dinner on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year is the most representative activity in folklore.
Reunion
Posting couplets. In ancient times, couplets were posted facing the main door, with the right side being large and the left side being small. The upper couplet is posted on the right, the lower couplet is posted on the left, the lintel is posted on the banner, the lintel mortise and tenon is posted on the "Spring" or "Fu" character, and then posted on the door god. Pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, "six animals prosperous", granary paste "abundant", loom, spinning wheel paste "turn line" (the meaning of money).
Posting the word "fortune". Most people in Shiyan on New Year's Eve in the door, wall, lintel mortise and tenon on the pasted on large and small "Fu" character. Some of the "Fu" word embellished into a picture, some in the life star, peach, five grains in the embedded a "Fu" word, in order to send the desire for a happy life.
The word "Fu" is posted upside down to indicate "good luck". Legend has it that in the Qing Dynasty, during the New Year celebrations at King Jing's residence, a servant, who could not read or write, posted the character "福" upside down. King Jing wanted to kill the servant, but then a scholar came and kowtowed to the door. When the servant asked him what was wrong, he told him that King Jing had been blessed. The housekeeper rushed to report, the king came out to ask, the scholar said: "I see the king's door 'Fu' word posted upside down, is a great joy, so kowtow." The king was so happy to hear this that he kept the scholar in his house and rewarded him with three pieces of ocean for posting the word "Fu" upside down. There is also a story that Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty, used the character "福" as a secret mark and prepared to kill people. In order to eliminate this disaster, the kind-hearted Empress Ma ordered every household in the city to put up the character "福". One of the households could not read or write, so it posted the character "福" upside down. The next day, Zhu Yuanzhang decreed that the family should be executed. Empress Ma said, "This is a sign of good fortune". So the family was spared. Afterwards, people used it to honor Empress Ma's memory.
The New Year's dinner. In ancient times, the New Year's dinner is very elaborate, more than the feast is sumptuous, there are cold vegetables, fried vegetables, steamed vegetables, stewed vegetables, and some on the peanuts, melon seeds, and so on. Cold dishes are soybean sprouts, pork liver, beef, sausage, preserved fish, chicken claws (also known as "catch money hand"), pickled chicken and duck eggs and small green vegetables. The first plate of cold dishes is soybean sprouts, arranged in the shape of a golden-colored ruyi, so it is called "ruyi dish", taking the meaning of "year after year". Stir-fried cooked dishes include chicken and duck meat cubes, pork cubes, pork loin flower, sweet and sour fish, etc., with meat and vegetables. Steamed dishes are various kinds of steamed meat, eight treasures of rice, sweet potato balls, steamed crispy rolls and so on. Soup dishes to lotus root boiled pig's feet, beef and mutton and radish soup, Hanjiang River and steamed pot fish, bleak fish soup, yellow mulberry fish soup. In Zhuxi County, there are "Zhuxi Steamed Basin" mixed with wax and freshness, and so on.
The dishes on all, lit a large firecrackers, exploding the door sparks flying. The whole family worship God after, in the sound of blessing and laughter, greedy for a year's New Year's Eve dinner before eating. The reunion wine Utopia County has old yellow wine, Fang County has milky yellow wine, and other places with more wine. Driven by the parents, the whole family in turn raise their glasses to the elders toast, wishing them happiness and longevity. Then they drink a lot of wine and overflow the hall with joy.
When Jiangnan closed its banquet, it served a big bowl of mushroom soup, which was stewed with a fat hen, put in strips of mushrooms, and added a few spinach, which was called "red-beaked parrot's mushroom soup". The soup is green, white, red and orange in color, with a special flavor of mountain treasures. A plate of whole fish is indispensable to the New Year's banquet of the northern part of the Yangtze River. When children try to poke at it with their chopsticks, the elders often discourage them by saying, "Eat the big bowl of vegetables first. In the end, the big plate of fish stays, representing the "yearly surplus of fish".
If someone dies in a family, a set of chopsticks and bowls will be placed on the table according to seniority to show that the deceased has returned home for the reunion. Because the door god is to stop the ghosts, the family did not put up the door god and red couplets, but yellow paper pairs.
Today's living conditions are better, and there are a lot of people who order New Year's dinners at restaurants. This saves the housewife the hard work, but also less family reunion of the warmth and fun. The city people feel that the flavor of the year is not enough, so they go to the countryside to celebrate the New Year, in order to find the lost folklore.
In the old days, married girls were not allowed to spend New Year's Eve at their mother's house. After the promulgation of the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, the mother's family in-laws are all immediate family members, coupled with being an only child, a new trend of having a New Year's Eve dinner together in both families has emerged. There are also girls son-in-law rushed to the two families to reunite two years.
Dumplings. Shiyan people eat dumplings on the first day of the New Year, also known as "eat Yuanbao". Because the dumplings are white and fat, like a silver dollar. Eat Yuanbao, means "add wealth into the treasure". This is related to Shiyan's exile culture. The princes and nobles who were exiled to Shiyan were all frightened and were always afraid of being killed. Dumplings and "hanged" harmonized, in order to avoid the taboo, it was called "Yuanbao".
The dumplings eaten on the first day of the Lunar New Year are wrapped the night before. In the afternoon of the New Year's Eve, the housewife would scoop up a few scoops of good white flour and put them on the stove. Then she chooses green onions, cuts ginger, washes cabbage, and then the kitchen is filled with the sound of chopping mincemeat. It was not until the family was all seated at the reunion that the housewife wiped her hands and went to the table for the reunion dinner. Without waiting for the meal to be over and the dishes to be washed, the housewife would be busy scrubbing the sieve and dustpan for the dumplings. After the meal, the whole family is mobilized to make dumplings.
There is a myth that during the Ming Dynasty, when the Xuan Yue Gate was being repaired, Zhang San Feng was cooking at the construction site, and one person was cooking for a hundred people. One day, he said the dumplings to eat, we do not believe, he patted his chest guarantee. There is a small worker is curious, lying in the kitchen doorway peeping, see Zhang master only wrapped a bowl of dumplings, cooked and eaten themselves. Then squatted on the stove to defecate dumplings, a moment will defecate a big pot. After the work was finished, people ate the dumplings and praised Master Zhang's ability, but the small worker did not eat. The only one who didn't eat it was the little laborer. Later, the ninety-nine became immortals, and only the little laborer is still doing hard labor in the mortal world.
Washing the Knee. The old people said, after the New Year's Eve reunion, we should wash the knocking knees, wash will have money to collect. This is supposed to be a child's play. The cold days of the waxing moon, children do not want to take a bath. Adults and busy, it is not easy to force, had to use the coaxing method, made up such words. Children believe in the truth, enduring the cold to take a bath, rubbing hard to knock the knees. On the first day of the New Year to the elders to pay tribute to the New Year, really got the money. To this day, some people still say, "I didn't wash my knees on New Year's Day" even though they didn't earn any money.
The New Year's Eve.
The year-end vigil. The Jing Chu chronicle of the year: "the end of the year, the family furniture suss, at the place of the old age, to meet the new year, get together and drink." Means that this night, the family prepared food and wine, the whole family to observe the New Year, drinking to welcome the New Year. Before the New Year's Eve, a bowl of New Year's Eve rice was offered in front of the ancestors' tablets, which was poured on the street or road on the twelfth day of the first lunar month to "bring in the old and bring in the new". Jin Dynasty Zhou Zhi "land and customs": "New Year's Eve, the big day sleepless, known as the year-end vigil".
The year-end vigil is also known as the "boiling year". Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a monster called "Nian", which came out on the night of the 30th day of the new year to harm people and animals, and destroy the fields and gardens. In order to avoid the Nian, people closed their doors early that night and did not dare to sleep. One year, on the night of the 30th, "Nian" scurried into a village and ate almost all the people in the village. Only a newlywed couple hanging red curtains and wearing red clothes were safe, and a few children playing with firecrackers were also spared. Since then, people know that the "year" is afraid of red, afraid of light, afraid of firecrackers, New Year's Day, they will be stickers, red robes, hanging red lanterns, gongs and drums, firecrackers, "year" will not dare to come back.
It's not enough to choose me anymore.