The custom of Fuqing Spring Festival

Zen Hall-Say goodbye to the old and welcome the new.

Many years ago, Fuqing people called it "Fresh Tang Xue", which is essential for every household in Fuqing. Every year in the twelfth lunar month, on sunny days, the whole family mobilizes to clean the ceiling, hall and utility room, especially scrubbing the doors, windows and furniture carefully. A day can be divided into several days, but there must be no sanitary corner.

It is said that the cleaning tools used by the old Fuqing family every year are not ordinary brooms, but brooms made of fresh bamboo leaves, tied with red paper, which are homophonic for "abundance" and "satisfaction".

When I am in the hall, I have to eat rice. When the family starts cleaning, the children look forward to having rice rubbing time, because after cleaning, the family will send each neighbor a basin of rice rubbing time. When your house is cleaned and returned to others, the relationship between neighbors will be closer.

Buy new year's goods and offer sacrifices to stoves

There are many kinds of new year's goods in old Fuqing, such as taro paste, spring rolls, meat swallows and Buddha jumping over the wall. But there are three things that are the most important, both the poor and the rich will prepare, that is, stove sugar stove cake, rice cake (reading zie) and rice cake.

In the old society, after Lao Fuqing prepared the above three new year's goods, every family had to buy new year's goods.

"The altar is confusing. There is a bronze incense burner in front of the stove. Gold ingot is glutinous rice, and gold pants are glutinous rice. The kitchen god said it well. The kitchen god fell to the ground and blessed Nong, blessed Nong's father to earn money, blessed Nong's milk to be rich and long, blessed Nong's brother to beg for his brother's sister-in-law, and blessed Nong to become smart in reading. "

Legend has it that the Jade Emperor sent the Kitchen God down to earth to supervise the behavior of every household. Every year, it arrives on the fourth day of the first lunar month, and on December 24th of the previous year, it is sent to heaven to bid farewell to Kitchen God.

In Fuqing, the god of offering sacrifices to stoves has a special emphasis. He has to offer sacrifices twice, divided into "offering sacrifices to vegetarian stoves" and "offering sacrifices to meat stoves". On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people will entertain the kitchen god with good wine and good dishes, which is called' meat sacrifice stove'. But I was afraid that he would go to heaven, and the smell of wine would upset the Jade Emperor, and he was too drunk to report it at random, so when he was sent to heaven on December 24 of the lunar calendar, he was only given vegetarian food such as fruits and vegetables, which was called "vegetarian stove".

Sacrificing a stove is a prelude to the Chinese New Year! After the sacrifice, you can eat candy stove cakes. Mouse (scientific name Cunzao), jujube cake, Asu cake, money cake, red paper bag, fried rice cake, etc. I liked it when I was a child. On the day of the sacrifice, the adults were busy around. After the family finished their dinner early, they began to clean the edges and corners of the pot cover and stove. Then they took out ten prepared exquisite dishes, put them on the stove, lit incense sticks, poured rice wine, and put horseshoes and sugar cane representing "sweetness". It's getting dark. It's time to sacrifice to the stove. Burn incense and worship Grandpa Kitchen God, make a sincere wish, and then set off firecrackers. When all the procedures were over, friends began to enjoy the candy stove cake happily.

In ancient times, families with different identities sacrificed stoves at different times, which can be seen from the old saying of Fuqing. "Officer, three people, four stools, five hooves, successively offering food and meat. Cut rattan whip and burn paper horse, and send you to ride on the blue sky. " That is to say, the home of the gentry (people with official positions) is the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the home of self-protection (civilians) is the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, and the home of the people (water people) is the 25th of the twelfth lunar month.

According to the custom of old Fuqing, grandparents should give their grandchildren candy stove cakes and painted shells (masks) on the day of offering sacrifices to the stove to express their deep love.

Nowadays, few people can make Mickey by themselves, and they all buy it ready-made. Every household used to cook rice and sugar cakes (rice cakes). Grinding pulp, washing retort, rubbing leaves, every link can smell the strong flavor of the year. Children usually gather around their parents to watch the whole process of making rice: soak glutinous rice, grind it with a stone mill and put it into a white rice bag; Press the water out with a stone or chair to make the glutinous rice inside lump; Squeeze a piece, wrap a proper amount of brown sugar and glutinous rice stuffing, roll it into a circle, press it on a square yam leaf pad, and steam it in a steamer; After coming out of the cage, use chopsticks to make a little red dot, which means to see happiness and peace.

The original intention of being Mitzi is to worship the ancestors. After the New Year's Eve dinner is given to ancestors, you can eat it in the first month, cook it or fry it. Old Fuqing also has the custom of asking Mickey for luck. Bian Xiao only remembers that Tomb-Sweeping Day would eat this!

Because of its homophonic "high year" and diverse tastes, rice cakes have almost become a must-have Spring Festival food for every household.

Married daughters also send rice cakes to their parents every Spring Festival, thanking their parents for their kindness. Of course, this is not enough, but also to send grass carp, trotters, noodles, duck eggs, oranges and so on to parents. These new year's goods all have beautiful meanings: send rice cakes and hope that her family's life will be high every year; Send grass carp, I hope my parents will be more than one year; Send pig's trotters, hoping that parents have strong legs and feet; Send a thread, hoping that parents will live a long and healthy life; Send duck eggs, hope parents are safe; Send a blessing to your parents.

In order to make rice cakes taste better, old Fuqing people like to make "gold wrapped in silver". It is to cut the rice cake into pieces, dip it in the beaten egg liquid, and then fry it in the oil pan until the surface color of the rice cake turns golden yellow.

Young: worship for at least a whole day

The night before New Year's Eve, northerners call it "Chinese New Year" and Fuqing people call it "Waiting for the Year", which is the time to worship ancestors. According to eBay, offering sacrifices to ancestors is a very complicated matter. It will take a whole day so that the family can get together on the evening of the 30th.

An important activity on the day of "being a child" is to worship. In the morning, we worship in the hall of the ancestral temple, at noon in the hall at home, and in the room in the afternoon ... On the thick futon, we kowtow once, twice and three times, and the "bye-bye" is endless, but the children behind the adults are never tired of it.

New Year's Eve: New Year's Eve is particular.

There is an old saying in Fuqing: "A good boy doesn't make money on New Year's Eve". Fuqing people who do business and work in other places will definitely go home for a reunion dinner before New Year's Eve. "People don't eat when they are not together." In the eyes of the old Fuqing people, the climax of the New Year is reflected in the New Year's Eve dinner.

Fuqing people are very particular about eating New Year's Eve, and slicing fried rice cakes is a must. There are also red-cooked chicken, spring rolls, fried eel, pickled mustard tuber, crab fried white glutinous rice, muscovy duck soup, chicken soup, nine-section shrimp, fried liver in the south, taro paste, Taiping Yan and so on. Taiping Yan cooks soup with meat swallows and duck eggs. In Fuqing dialect, "egg" is called "egg", and the homonym of duck egg is "suppressing chaos", which means peace.

In addition, there is a saying in old Fuqing that "garlic" and "oyster" are not eaten on New Year's Eve. Because the pronunciation of garlic and oysters in Fuqing dialect is the same as that of grandchildren and brothers, in order to prevent grandparents from eating grandchildren and brothers from eating brothers, garlic and oysters cannot be served separately on the old Fuqing New Year's Eve dinner.

The order of the New Year's Eve dinner is also particular. Among the dishes, the first chopstick should eat spinach, commonly known as "Emperor's dish", to show "green mouth is safe", and the second chopstick should drink "tofu soup", because the more tofu you eat, the more production income you eat. The third chopstick should contain fish, which means more than one year.

What children expect most is to get a red envelope. After the New Year's Eve, elders will give their children red envelopes and oranges. Now that they have grown up, they can only give red envelopes, but they can't give red envelopes. Good mulberry.

In addition, Fuqing people once had an interesting custom. After the New Year's Eve, parents should wipe their children's mouths, which means the children are talking nonsense. If the children say something wrong, I hope the gods will not blame them.

There are fewer and fewer customs preserved now. Many people think cooking is troublesome, so they book the New Year's Eve dinner in the hotel in advance.

The custom of Fuqing in the first month.

Eat a peaceful bowl on New Year's Day. It's noodles soaked in red fermented chicken soup with two eggs added. As the name implies, flat ones can be safely eaten.

Before the fifteenth day of the first month, the bride's family will send lanterns to her daughter's house. Because the word "Deng" in Fuqing dialect is homophonic with the word "Ding", which means that I hope my daughter will have a baby earlier, there is a custom of "in-laws and uncles giving lanterns". "Sending lights" is very particular. In the first year of the girl's marriage, she was given a "Guanyin Songzi" lamp, a "baby sitting in a basin" lamp in the second year, and a "champion riding" lamp in the third year. If it hasn't been born the next year, add an orange light, because "orange" and "urgent" are homophonic in Fuqing dialect. If you have children, give one more child a lamp, and the number of lamps should exceed the number of children, such as knife-closing lamps, lantern lanterns, sheep lanterns and so on. When delivering the lamp, I hung the lamp at the two ends of two sugarcane, and my in-laws and uncles carried it to my mother's house. When sending lanterns, mom or brother-in-law will cook the in-laws flat and give them lucky money.