On China's Dietary Tradition and Folklore

Chaoshan food custom Chaoshan food culture is created by Chaoshan working people in the historical process of thousands of years. It is rooted in thousands of households and has a deep mass base. This paper introduces some folk food customs in Chaoshan area, aiming to let everyone know more clearly the deep local color and local flavor of Chaozhou cuisine and Chaoshan food culture, and the inseparable relationship between Chaozhou cuisine and Chaoshan food culture and the people. Four cents: Four cents is the most common dietary custom of Chaoshan people. The so-called "four-cent gold" means that a boiled chicken is completely shaped into the shape of a chicken on a plate or a sea bowl, and then red spots are painted on the chicken's head, two wings and the chicken's tail. In Chaoshan, children have to pay four cents to show their auspicious significance in dzogchen when they go out for garden, wedding banquet, dragon boat table and other festive banquets. This is because the four-quarter golden rooster head, chicken wings and chicken tail are all complete, so it is used to express the meaning of completeness and perfection (in some places in Chaoshan, two chicken calves are also put in four-quarter gold, which is different from place to place in Chaoshan). Dongjie Pill: Dongjie Pill is a sacrifice and food in the traditional winter solstice festival in Chaoshan area. It is made by kneading glutinous rice flour with water into pills, adding brown sugar or white sugar into a pot, and boiling into sweet soup pills. The mid-November of the lunar calendar, that is, the winter solstice on February 12, 2 1 or 22nd of the solar calendar, is an ancient winter festival in China. The winter solstice is one of the 24 solar terms in the China lunar calendar. In ancient China, the twenty-four solar terms started from the winter solstice. People think that the day before winter solstice is New Year's Eve, and winter solstice means spring solstice. At that time, people thought that the solstice of winter meant New Year's Eve. Later, after the first day of the first lunar month was the first day of the year, people condescended to Yaji. In Chaoshan area, people say that the solstice in winter means small New Year's Eve, which means age. According to the folk custom in Chaoshan area, people call the solstice of winter the Winter Festival, and the masses attach great importance to this small New Year. In the early morning of this day, every household will rub winter festival pills. A family of men, women and children will rub pills around the round table. The atmosphere is very warm. After rubbing, they will make winter festival pills with sweet soup, which means family reunion. In Chaoshan area, some rural areas not only eat soup and medicine, but also worship their ancestors and feed their livestock, and stick winter festival pills on their heads, horns and bodies, or on doorknockers and furniture, in order to pray for a safe winter and healthy prosperity in the coming year. Compared with the Chaoshan area eating Winter Festival Pills from winter to Sunday, the northern area eats wonton on this day (similar to jiaozi in Chaoshan). This is because in ancient times, wonton was a food for ancestor worship in the north, and people there also thought that "the solstice in winter is as big as a year", so it is of course necessary to worship ancestors and eat wonton on this day. In this way, it is the same reason that northerners eat wonton and Chaoshan people eat winter festival pills. On the day of the winter solstice, Chaoshan people said that children "grew one year after taking the winter solstice pills". This is because, as mentioned above, people are used to treating the winter solstice as the first day of the year, that is, the New Year, so they eat winter solstice pills. After the winter solstice, it means another year, and of course they are one year older. There is also a saying that after the winter solstice every year, the government will no longer execute prisoners on death row, so during the winter solstice, relatives and friends of prisoners on death row will send winter festival pills to congratulate them on living one more year. Sixteen dishes: "Sixteen dishes" is the traditional custom of setting the table for wedding banquets in Chaoshan area. 16 dish is four plates of flowers, that is, flowers picked by Sheng Gang in the plate, such as chrysanthemums and roses. There are about a few flowers in each plate; Four plates of candied fruit, such as sweet olives and sugar orange cakes; Four sets of raw fruits (fruits), such as Sydney, apple and Chaozhou orange. Four cold dishes, that is, preserved eggs, jujube cakes, smoked chicken and walnut sauce, are neatly arranged on the plate. This 16 dish is neatly placed around the table before the banquet dish is served. After serving, this 16 dish was not sprinkled. 16 The main function of setting dishes is to increase the atmosphere of the wedding banquet, so that people will not feel that there are only a few dishes. The custom of "16" was used in Chaoshan area until the Cultural Revolution. After the Cultural Revolution, it was rarely seen again because it broke the influence of the "four olds". Folk dietary customs in Chaoshan area. In Chaoshan area, all new guests, distinguished guests and rare guests, such as new son-in-law, new in-laws, returned overseas Chinese, distinguished guests and expensive officials, should cook sweet glutinous rice soup pills first to show their respect for the guests. Two to four eggs should be added in Jiedong County and Rongcheng District of Chaoshan, which are called sweet pill eggs. Even if it's almost time for lunch and dinner, you must eat first. Politely ask the host to beat less or eat only two eggs. Sweet tail: Sweet tail is a major feature of Chaozhou cuisine banquet. That is, the festive banquets of Chaozhou cuisine, such as wedding banquets, housewarming, opening ceremonies, etc., are generally accompanied by beets in the first and last dishes, which have auspicious significance from beginning to end. Beets in Chaozhou cuisine banquets generally include "cake-baked ginkgo", "golden melon and taro paste" and "lotus and lily soup". Some festive banquets, combined with the content of the banquet, gave the dessert an auspicious name. For example, the first beet at some wedding banquets is "Zaosheng", and its name consists of red dates, peanuts, longan, lotus seeds and other raw materials. There is also a kind of "Sweet Lily Soup" called "Hundred Years of Harmony".