What are the customs of Yiwu?

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Dietary customs

In Yiwu, every wedding, housewarming, birthday, promotion, further education and other festive festivals, relatives and friends always have the custom of treating guests and giving gifts in return, which has continued to this day. However, there is a big difference between the rich and the poor in treating guests and giving gifts. Rich people have big scenes, rich banquets and rich dishes, and even entertain guests with "Sixteen Signs". The poor really have no choice but to make do with a simple family dinner. There is really a feeling that "the rich have a glass of wine, and the poor have food for half a year" and "the wine in Zhumen stinks and the road freezes to death". We have only heard of the famous dishes of Sixteen Qian Hui, but we have never seen them with our own eyes.

As a kind of food culture in Yiwu, "Sixteen Signs" should be carefully studied and passed down, which should be beneficial to the development of today's food industry. Traditional food culture has its reference and inheritance. In fact, compared with today's banquet dishes, "Sixteen Qian Hui" is really a drop in the bucket. It is also an impact and criticism on some inappropriate lifestyles and eating habits today.

"Sixteenth Qian Hui" Banquet: It refers to 4 cooked foods, 4 seafood, 4 sweet soups, 4 snacks and 8 cold cuts.

For traditional banquets and festive banquets in the past, "Sixteen Qian Hui" is the most abundant, followed by "Twelve Qian Hui". The so-called "Qian Hui" means that the host selects 16 kinds of rare dishes from the lottery box and orders bamboo sticks to form a "full house", which is called "Sixteen Qian Hui". In the category of "Twelve Qian Hui", four samples were omitted (two samples were omitted in "Four Seafood" and two samples were omitted in "Four Sweet Soups"). "Sixteen Qian Hui" consists of the following dishes:

Eight cold cuts are based on the specific conditions such as time, supply and price of the following two dishes, four of each, that is, on the table when the banquet is held.

Chicken, duck, mutton, beef, jellyfish and watercress eggs

Braised ham sausage with big tail belly slices (pictured above is white cut)

Shredded cabbage, shrimp with green beans, water bamboo and kidney flower.

Fried eggs with sliced tripe, shredded eel, chopped green onion and crucian crab powder.

Stir-fried bell celery, chicken, mushrooms and bamboo shoots.

Four hot dishes Choose four dishes from the following dishes.

Steamed chicken with mushroom and fungus, steamed chicken with golden needle and fat feet, steamed whole fish vermicelli and tendon with turtle.

Four seafood choose four dishes from the following.

Winter bamboo shoots, scallops, leek buds, fish maw, osmanthus silver fillets, mussels, vinegar-flavored shark fin (shark), fungus and sea cucumber.

Four kinds of sweet soups Choose four kinds from the following sweet soups.

Mi Luoluo porridge, coix seed, tremella, longan and ginseng soup, lotus seed, almond, lily and osmanthus.

Choose from the following four snacks: 2 sweet and 2 salty.

Steamed pork with steamed bread, lean meat, steamed stuffed bun, red bean paste, zongzi, crystal red fruit, green plum, babaolian powder.

Baiguo rice cake plate oil cake Baiguo glutinous cake Mamen rice paste

4 cooked food, 4 seafood, 4 sweet soup and 4 snacks. This 16 dish must be cooked together and served alternately. The last course is "Fried Bighead Carp with Tofu Brain". Traditionally, this dish is not eaten, which is called "leftover (fish)". Guests who need to eat will eat the last bowl of soup, usually "green vegetable tofu" or "winter bamboo shoots and snow vegetables". People who don't eat can stand up and decline politely when they see the "fish head tofu" on the table.