Ciba is a common practice.

Ciba is a snack of southern nationalities, which is very popular in southern China. Guizhou, Chongqing, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Hunan, Fujian, Hubei, Guangdong, Guangxi, Shaanxi and other provinces and cities, Jiangxi Huangchuan, Jiujiang and Fujian Wuyishan are the most popular areas, and Guangxi Wuzhou is the most special one. It is also available in southern Anhui, mainly on the Double Ninth Festival, as a holiday food for guests to taste. Ciba [1] takes glutinous rice and potatoes as raw materials, soaked in clear water, then steamed in a steamer, quickly kneaded in a stone mortar until soft and elastic, then made the rice paste into a big or small ball while it is hot, and then rolled in a plate mixed with white sugar (or fried sesame powder mixed with white sugar) to eat. It tastes sweet. Nowadays, street vendors often peddle with their feet on tricycles, and rice paste is packed in special iron drums, which has good thermal insulation. Shake the handle and the rice paste will come out of the round hole. Whenever there is a happy event, the local people will make brown sugar mixed with rice cakes to entertain their guests as a sign of good luck.

Practice editing

The custom of making Ciba in Chongqing: Usually in the Mid-Autumn Festival, steamed glutinous rice is introduced into a stone spoon, mashed with reeds, and then sprinkled with bean powder and sugar.

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

The specific method of glutinous rice: soak glutinous rice for more than one day, drain the water, and steam it in a wooden steamer. Then pour it into a stone mortar and mash it into jelly, sprinkle some glutinous rice flour on a clean vessel, add stuffing into the mashed glutinous rice and knead it evenly, knead it into balls or cakes, or print various patterns with a special mold and put it in a ventilated and dry place to dry in the shade. It can be soaked in water after drying in the shade and can be stored for a long time. If the glutinous rice cake is pressed into a big round cake while it is hot, it will be cut into small pieces (about 2cm*6cm* 10cm) with a sharp kitchen knife soon after cooling. Because the tool will get stuck when it is not completely cooled, it will be too hard to cool for too long and it will be very laborious to cut. For example, in cold winter, round cakes are pressed at night and can be cut the next morning. There are many ways to eat, such as frying, boiling, baking, cooking with sweet wine, adding sugar and so on.

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

The specific method of potato: scrape the skin off the potato, clean it, steam it in a steamer, cook it until it is rotten, put it in a cool and ventilated place to let the remaining mild steam out, then quickly pour it into a special stone trough, and manually pound it with a wooden hammer until it is fine and even, resulting in many bubbles. Finally, put them into the basin with a shovel. According to the dietary tastes of different regions, white sugar and sesame seeds can be added. Some places in southern Shaanxi will merge and sprinkle some soup (northern Shaanxi).

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

Ciba (19)

Ciba in Hunan: First, wash the glutinous rice. It turns out that rice has to be washed in a long well, because there is not so much washing at home. Later, the family dug a well, which saved the effort of picking rice. But I found that some powerful people in my hometown are still far away from home, preferring to carry rice to the waterfall well far away from the village for washing. Maybe it's because the water quality there is good, so it's more convenient to wash! Drain the washed glutinous rice, put a wooden steamer on the big iron pot, and when the water in the pot boils, scoop the rice into the steaming wooden steamer and cook it with high fire. When the glutinous rice is almost ripe, cook it with slow fire for a while, and you can make rice cakes. Playing Ciba is hard work, and each person has a hammer. At first, two men took a mallet and let the rice in the stone tablet rot. Then raise the gavel and hit it. Show me, one by one. Cook the meal while it is hot, and the sooner the better. For a long time, it is not only difficult to beat rice when it is cold, but also difficult to pinch it. At the same time, you should be skilled in making Ciba. You should pry it up with a mallet from time to time and turn it around. Otherwise, the missing part will still be rice grains. Just eat it. Also, when you play Ciba, you should take a good look and grasp the rhythm, otherwise you will hit the gavel on the other side's gavel or stone tablet, which will not only hurt yourself, but also make the gavel easily smashed. Therefore, not every powerful man will be uncomfortable. When I first learned to play Ciba as an adult, I either hit the gavel on the other side's gavel or on the stone tablet. After Baba, I was panting like a cow, my arm was sore and my mouth was numb. After a bang, bang, the smashed glutinous rice was dug out of the stone tablet, and the women immediately gathered around the square table, each pulling a lock and picking it up. Rubbing Ciba is of course skillful, but you can see that your hands are skillfully turned over, and your right fingers are pinched with your left thumb and forefinger several times. Then you twist your right hand, and a round, white and steaming dumpling is placed on the table. If you are not skilled, you can't knead a circle, and you can't knead one for a long time. Rub some butter and egg yolk on your hands from time to time to avoid sticking your hands. After Bazin rubbed it, he turned another square table upside down and pressed it on it. This time is the happiest time for children. They climb onto the table and jump on it. When the adults lifted the table, a thin circle appeared in front of them. Then, the children scrambled to carve a five-pointed star or a swastika seal with radish and painted it with red juice. At this time, even if it is made. Of course, what makes children happy is that they can eat a glutinous rice from time to time. Adults pour glutinous rice into the stone tablet. At this time, greedy children will jump over and grab a handful in their hands, then run to one side and eat it with relish. Sometimes, when adults are not looking, they will steal the soft rice cakes that have just been made. Playing and kneading Ciba is a job that needs the cooperation of many people. Usually several families play together, men and women, old and young, laughing and making fun, which sets off the festive atmosphere of the New Year. The children especially like this scene. You chase me, you tell me to shout, eat, play, and you are happy. Eating glutinous rice, serving rice on the table and putting a red stamp on the rice are all delicious things for Chinese New Year when I was a child.

Nutritional value editor

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

People in most areas are used to playing Ciba in the twelfth lunar month. Every traditional festival or family celebration in Meizhou Hakka area; Sichuanese make moon cakes before Mid-Autumn Festival, which symbolizes harvest, celebration and reunion. They are necessary for Mid-Autumn Festival and moon cakes. In some places in Sichuan, sweet-scented osmanthus is added to Ciba to make laurel Ciba, dipped in fried soybeans and sugar. The taste is quiet and elegant, sweet and refreshing, and has a unique flavor. In other places, cooked bean products such as red beans are wrapped in hot cakes, and appropriate amount of salt is added, and then cut into oval slices, which are fried in cooked vegetable oil to make red bean oil cakes with good color and flavor. Hubei people are also used to making Ciba in the twelfth lunar month, cutting it into long strips for preservation, and then cutting it into pieces when eating.

Hakka

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

Cooked glutinous rice is mashed into paste.

In Hakka areas such as Meizhou in Guangdong, Longyan in Fujian and Sanming in Fujian, there is a custom of making Ciba during traditional festivals or family celebrations. The making method of Ciba is: take the first-class glutinous rice, preferably red glutinous rice with thin and soft shell, and process it into white glutinous rice. Soak glutinous rice in clear water, steam it in a wooden steamer, put it in a stone mortar, and make it with a pestle and a hammer. Therefore, Hakkas are called "Ciba". Use a smooth wooden pestle to make a glutinous rice hammer, so that the glutinous rice grains will not stick. After vigorous beating, it was made into soup and then made into the size of an egg. Dip it in the seasoning powder made of fried rice, peanuts, sesame seeds and yellow sugar, and it tastes flexible, fresh, smooth, sweet and delicious. There is a saying in Hakka countryside: "In October, Baba is burning." It is said that on the first day of the tenth lunar month, the rice cakes made by every household are steaming hot [2].

Minqing

Fuzhou Minqing making Baba

Fuzhou Minqing making Baba

In Bandong Town, Minqing, Fuzhou, where ancient houses gathered in the Qing Dynasty, Ciba was soaked in local high-quality glutinous rice, put into a rice cooker, steamed and poured into a stone mortar. One person turned it with a wooden pestle, and the other turned it until the rice became sticky and stirred up constantly, which was commonly known as "beating" among the people. Then put it into a basin, add sesame oil to moisten it, rub it into pieces by hand, rub it into pills, put it into a bowl filled with fried and ground sesame seeds, peanuts, beans and sugar, and roll it up to eat. It tastes fragrant, sweet and delicious, soothes the qi and stomach, and is not tired of eating more. The elegant way to eat it is to rub it into balls and stir-fry it with sliced meat, vegetable stalks, mushrooms, cuttlefish, garlic and peppers. Spicy and delicious, it is a good dish on the table.

Once upon a time, every household in Minqing rural area of Fuzhou was equipped with tools such as wooden pestle and stone mortar to make Ciba. On holidays, every household will make Ciba. At this time, the children watched the adults happily play Ciba until they saw the adults put the prepared Ciba in a basin and knead it into meatballs. The golden and translucent Ciba is really appetizing, and they can't wait to eat it at once. The prepared Ciba should be dedicated to the ancestors first, and a incense should be burned. When the incense is burned out, everyone can start eating Ciba. Eating Ciba is really laborious, sticky and thick, and it can't be opened. It happens that country people like to eat large pieces of meat and drink a lot of wine. Naturally, they also like to rub Ciba meatballs into giant ones, which tastes delicious. This makes it difficult for gentle city dwellers to face this huge bus. But the chef thought of this and refined the traditional Cibashuo pill into a small pill the size of an apple, but it can still be broken and eaten without losing its original characteristics. However, if you want to taste the sticky taste of Ciba, you'd better try eating big Ciba pills, with a large piece of pork and a big bowl of soju, and experience the farm life.