Quanjiao folk custom

Cooking stones for a meal may sound ridiculous to you. However, in the ancient city of Quanjiao, it is not surprising that people talk about cooking stones for food. Because everyone there knows the story of Taoist Baishi cooking stones to satisfy his hunger, and there are Tang poems as evidence.

In the Tang Dynasty, there was a Taoist named Miao Qing on the holy mountain 30 kilometers west of Quanjiao County. He practiced hard and got the word. He doesn't eat fireworks, thirsty mountains and hungry rocks. It is said that the stone eaten by Taoist priests in Miao Qing is a kind of stone with a little red and white inside. He washed the white stone, put it in the furnace and boiled it with spring water until it was as soft as rice flour and settled on the bottom of the furnace. The precipitated stone powder is divided into two layers at the bottom of the furnace, the upper layer is white and the lower layer is red. The Taoist priest scraped off the white part and ate it. Because Miao Qing Taoist drank Baishi, over time, people forgot his Taoist name and called it Baishi Taoist. Dr. Baishi often treats poor villagers nearby for free. He cured many incurable diseases and won the respect of the people.

Wei Ren, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, often talked with Taoist Baishi about classics and Taoism when he was in Chuzhou, and he had deep feelings. One late autumn, it rained for three days. After the rain, it suddenly turned cold. Wei misses Baishi, a Taoist priest in Quanjiao Mountain. What will the fairy who ate the stone do? Is he still cooking stones? Wei wrote a five-character quatrain "Poem to a Taoist priest in Jiaoshan, Sichuan", which is well-known throughout the ages:

It's very cold in the county today, and I suddenly think of people who live in seclusion in the mountains.

At the bottom of the canyon, or in his hut, boiled potatoes with white stones.

I want to see you with a bottle of wine, so that you can get some comfort at night.

But how can I find his footprints among the fallen leaves piled up on the bare hillside! ?

Since then, Quanjiao Shenshan and Shenshan Taoist Baishishan have become famous all over the world. Later generations marveled at the white stone passers-by living on stones. For many years, people have been arguing whether Taoist Baishi cooks an alchemist or a stone to satisfy his hunger. Most people say later. There is a saying among the villagers near Shenshan Mountain: "Drinking mountain springs and boiling rocks will keep you from getting sick all year round." Not to mention, villagers near Shenshan really seldom get sick.

In recent years, people found a kind of medical stone in Shenshan, which contains many trace elements needed by human body and has high medicinal value. There is also a kind of sheep meat stone, which has a small proportion and soft texture and may be edible, which has attracted the attention of relevant departments.

With the concern and strong support of the local Party committee and government, the Fairy Cave where Taoist Baishi lived has been opened to the public, with deep caves, stone beds, tables and chairs, attracting a large number of tourists to explore the wonders every year. Fairy Cave and Shenshan Temple, a thousand-year-old temple, face each other across the river and become a beautiful scenery in eastern Anhui.