What to eat on New Year's Eve in Xiamen, as the saying goes, do as the Romans do

The Lunar New Year is the biggest and grandest festival of the year, and in Xiamen it runs from at least New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the first month. Before the festival, every family puts up spring scrolls. On New Year's Eve, families gather around the stove (hot pot) to eat New Year's dinner (reunion dinner), to show that the family reunion in the coming year. Some people stay up all night, which is called "keeping the New Year's Eve". Elders give red envelopes to underage children, called "New Year's money". On the first day of the first month of the year, the door was opened at dawn, and Van Xiang burned explosives, which was called "Kai Zheng". Wake up in the morning to sacrifice ancestors, is the day, the manure does not dump outdoors. Early in the morning, there is the custom of eating noodles, indicating that the new year of health and longevity. People put on new clothes and go to their relatives' homes to pay their respects in order of seniority. When they meet friends, they congratulate each other on the new year. Guests to the home, should be treated with sweet tea, candies, preserves; guests with children, is given to the gift of citrus, fruits. The second day of the first month, the son-in-law day, the daughter with her husband back to his mother's home. On the third day of the first month, as the new mourning home sadness day, generally do not string and go out to celebrate the New Year.

On the stove: New Year's Eve New Year's Eve dinner, called "eat twenty-nine all night", most love to eat hot pot (warm pot), "around the stove" family fun. Hot pot has "a pot" (the whole pot of a frame), "mandarin ducks pot" (two frames), "four-color pot" (four frames). The famous dish "Yipin Fortune" is formed from the "Yipin Pot", the soup is pork or chicken and duck soup, the main dish is Golden Dollar (egg), Silver Dollar (pigeon's egg), and the whole hoof is called "One Trouble and Harmony", and the black spiny cuttlefish is served with seaweed. The black thorns of cuttlefish tied together with seaweed are called "Wujin Moyu", the wings of chicken and duck are called "Pengcheng Miles", asparagus is called "Jiejie Gaoxing", and vermicelli is called "Fukushu Mianlong". Fortune and longevity", fishballs, meatballs and hairy vegetables are called "reunion and wealth", chicken head and tail, fish head and tail are called "beginning and end", and ham feet and claws are called "smooth sailing". "Pingbuqingyun", the end of the fruit, meaning "immortality", eating citrus, a symbol of good luck. Due to the hot pot steaming, food tumbling non-stop, do not break the soup, add good ingredients, it is called "the more you eat the more you have, the more you burn the more prosperous". Xiamen people pay special attention to seafood, such as silver carp ("year-round"), oysters, red shrimp, arkshells, Wang snails, kelp and beancurd with hairy vegetables, "Fazai Duofu", etc., in recent years there is a beer hot pot, bean curd hot pot, meatballs hot pot, mixed hot pot, etc. should be marketed

New Year's Cake: Eat the rice cake, all the best year after year high - year after year high, year after year happy! There is also the meaning of honoring the elders to prolong life. Rice cake is also called "Nian Nian Cake", "Nian Nian Cake" from the "sticky sticky cake" homophonic evolution. A Qing Dynasty man, Cheng Nesai, wrote a poem to illustrate the meaning of the rice cake: "The heart of the people is good and high, and harmonizes the sound to make food. The meaning is that the year is better than the year, so as to pray for a ripe year." Xiamen people call rice cake "kuey teow", and there are various varieties, both sweet and salty, the sweet ones are white sugar kuey teow, black sugar kuey teow, with winter melon, red dates, peanuts, etc.; the salty ones are jin gua (pumpkin) kuey teow, choy tau (radish) kuey teow, sweet potato (groundnut) kuey teow, taro kuey teow, with pork, shrimp, dried oysters, mushrooms, green onions, etc.; in addition, there are also liang cuey teow, hairy cuey teow, bowl cake kuey teow, and other kinds of food, such as rice cake and rice cake. kuey teow, bowl cake kuey teow ．．．．．．

Pancakes: Pancakes are also a major invention of the Xiamen people. In Xiamen, the word "bao" and "thin" sound the same, so it is also known as "pancake". It spread from the government to the people, "Mrs. pancake" and become "beauty pancake".

Yuanzai:

Eating Yuanzai, also known as eating Lantern Festival, is also called Tangyuan or Tangtuan in some places. It is said that eating Lantern Festival began at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, and it was only in the Song Dynasty that it was called Yuanzi, taking the meaning of "reunion and roundness". In the Song Dynasty, a writer said that this food is "Panicum powder wrapped in sugar, fragrant soup bath," and 16 words of praise for a song: "Panicum powder, a little sugar cane frost; bath to the sinking water, clear sweet and fragrant." Xiamen Yuanzai will be the flavors of all over the world, both sweet and salty, some white heart, some packaged filling, assorted, bean paste, date paste, bamboo shoots, lard all have.

New Year's Day customs have the same origin in Fujian and Taiwan. In the past, both Fujian and Taiwan have this custom: the first day of fried food left over from New Year's Eve, each person tasted a few mouthfuls; will carp and green vegetables together, can get wealth.

Traditional Xiamen customs on the third day of the first month can not visit the door to pay tribute to the New Year, to worship the dead at home. There is a proverb that "the first morning, the second morning, the third sleepy A full", meaning that the third day of no guests to the door, no harm in getting up late. So how did this custom come about? According to legend, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese invaders occupied the outer islands of Xiamen. On the night of New Year's Eve, the officials and soldiers were busy with New Year's Eve and neglected to keep guard, so a large group of Japanese invaders took the opportunity to attack the city, and the people and the army rose up to resist the enemy, and the battle raged for two days and three nights before the Japanese invaders were defeated and retreated, but the casualties among the people and the army in the city were very heavy. On the third day of the first month, the people buried their friends and relatives, mourning the dead, crying, no time to visit other families to pay tribute to the New Year. The next year, the third day, Xiamen residents take this day as a taboo day, and over time, become customary. (Note: For the same reason, the coast of Fujian have this custom, just a different time, such as Fujian Putian Xianyou area for the second day of the first month.

Xiamen New Year's Eve customs - New Year's posting Spring Festival

Red Spring Festival couplets, is the beginning of the New Year's most red-hot and new weather, Spring Festival couplets since the Five Dynasties has been flaunted since the red hot for more than 1,000 years, year after year, the new Peach for the old, year after year, there are the most sincere and beautiful blessings to let us blossom, so that we are full of hope for the world and the hearts of the people.

The custom of Xiamen is said to have flourished since the city was founded in the Ming Dynasty. According to Mr. Fang Wentu, in the old days, Xiamen city, the Spring Festival is approaching, set up stalls everywhere to sell spring couplets, usually social interaction, but also often with couplets to socialize, for which the bookstore specializing in the printing of couplets, such as 1836 by Xiamen, Wende Hall engraved and printed by the "elegance Dacheng," that is, the compilation of more than 1,000 couplets, which part of the Spring Festival couplets, there are 154 couplets.

In recent years, most people in Xiamen buy their couplets from the market, and few of them write them themselves. Red paper and gold lettering does look good, but just get rich, make money and such content is inevitably monotonous. Therefore, before the Spring Festival this year, Xiamen Couplet Association organized Xiamen poetry, calligraphy, association, painting all parties, to push the envelope, joint creation, writing a number of new Spring Festival couplets, such as "welcome urbanization, yearning for the Gulf type", "Xiang'an warm flowers open, Jimei winds and heron birds" "Eugenics and optimal fertility to comply with the national policy, advocate honesty and faith to revitalize the people's style", "Heron Sea, a bay of unlimited business opportunities, the river and the sky of 10,000 miles of friends such as clouds," and so on, quite a regional and sense of the times, showing a faction of the new meteorological situation. The first three days of the New Year taboo

Traditional Xiamen customs on the third day of the first month can not be door-to-door New Year's Eve, to be at home to worship the dead. There is a proverb that "the first morning, the second morning, the third sleepy A full", meaning that the third day of no guests to the door, get up late no harm. So how did this custom come about? According to legend, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese invaders occupied the outer islands of Xiamen. On the night of New Year's Eve, the officials and soldiers were busy with New Year's Eve and neglected to keep guard, so a large group of Japanese invaders took the opportunity to attack the city, and the people and the army rose up to resist the enemy, and the battle raged for two days and three nights before the Japanese invaders were defeated and retreated, but the casualties among the people and the army in the city were very heavy. On the third day of the first month, the people buried their friends and relatives, mourning the dead, crying, no time to visit other families to pay tribute to the New Year. The next year on the third day, Xiamen residents take this day as a taboo day, over time, become customary.

Fuming Cake

Xiamen's folk food customs, there are many stories about resistance to oppression, "Fuming Cake" is an example. According to legend, Tong'an city was overrun in the early Qing Dynasty, and the people rose up against the Qing soldiers in a flexible guerrilla war. A pastry store in the city is a liaison point of the anti-Qing secret organization, each time before the action, the owner of the store will make a special kind of rice cake, which hides a note, written clearly joint action time, place, code, then known as "Fuming cake". In order to prevent the leakage of secrets, this pastry is not sold to young children, Tongan people have a saying that "cattle herding children and pick up pig manure children do not eat Fuming cake". "Fuming Cake" was steamed with rice flour and sugar, and later added Poria powder, so it got the name "Poria Cake" with a harmonic sound. "

Previously, on the ninth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, families in Xiamen would burn incense, hang lanterns, and set up offerings to honor the "God of Heaven" with sincerity and devotion. Tian Gong was born is not true, but the formation of this festival but there is an interesting story. 300 years ago, the Qing army attacked the southern Fujian, in the case of weak, Zheng Chenggong give up Jin, Xiamen two islands, retreating to Taiwan. Legend has it that in December of that year, the Qing government issued two orders: one was that the people of the country on the first day of the first month of the year should be lighted in every household. One was the "head shaving order" of "keep head but not hair, keep hair but not head", which required the people to change the habit of keeping full hair. At that time, the people of the country were reluctant to change the habit of keeping full hair, thinking that cutting hair was a sign of treason and unfiliality. Thus, a fight against hair shaving began rapidly, due to the strong opposition of the people, the first day of the first month of the order to light the lanterns and colorful, the Qing government had to announce the abolition of the "shaving order" on the eighth day of the first month. Xiamen and neighboring counties of the people heard the news, very happy, coincidentally in the first nine pigs and goats, lighted lanterns and decorations, burn incense and firecrackers, to celebrate the victory of the struggle against the "shaving order". Qing officials know, they asked what the festival, so people cleverly deceive them, said it is the birthday of the God of heaven. Celebrated every year afterward, even the government of southern Fujian is no exception, so the first nine days of the first month of the year has become "Tian Gong birthday".