Customs of the Bai people

Daily Food Customs The Bai people are usually accustomed to eating three meals a day. During busy farming seasons or festivals, more breakfast and lunch snacks are served. The Bai people in Pingba area mostly eat rice and wheat as their staple food; the Bai people in mountainous areas mostly eat corn, potato and buckwheat as their staple food. The staple food is mainly steamed, and they often eat dry rice. When going out to work, they carry packed lunches and have cold meals on the spot. The daily diet of the Bai people is rich in variety, and in order to change the taste, they often change the food. Such as: Baba, bait cubes, glutinous rice balls, etc. Since fresh vegetables are available all year round, fresh vegetables and various pickled vegetables are included in every meal. Most Bai women are good at making pickles. There are many types of pickles. In addition to pickling fresh vegetables, they also make bean paste, tempeh, and noodle sauce. The Bai people in Jianchuan and Heqing often pick sea cauliflower flowers from the Erhai Lake and process them into various kinds. Flavor dishes, such as seaweed and tofu soup made from the leaves and stems of seaweed flowers, and the stems and buds of seaweed flowers are used to stir-fry ham, shredded pork or pickle them into pickles. The main meat of the Bai people is pork. In addition to using fresh pork to make various stir-fry dishes, they also like to pickle New Year pigs and process them into ham, sausages, sausages, pig liver bream, and blow liver (fresh liver is stuffed with seasonings and dried in the air. ), rice intestines (stuffed glutinous rice into intestines and cooked) and other exquisite flavor foods. In winter, the Bai people like to make large pots of beef soup, and add carrots, radishes, green onions and other condiments when eating it. The Bai people have a long history of raising dairy cows and are good at processing dairy products. The Bai people, who live by water, are good at cooking fresh water. Such as: live fish boiled in live water, fish in casserole, steamed fish with rice flour, spicy and sour fish with dried plums, snail tofu (the snail juice is solidified after boiling water for a while, then drained), etc., as well as "steamed fish" made from Yangbi's sand-crawling worms. Soil sea cucumber". The Bai people pay great attention to etiquette when dining. During the meal, the elders must sit on top of the table, and the younger generations must sit on either side or opposite. The younger generations must add vegetables and soup to the elders at any time.

Most of the Bai people like to drink, and wine making is a major sideline business for Bai families. Due to the different raw materials and methods used, there are many types of home-made wine. More than 40 kinds of herbs are used to make distiller's yeast and various white wines. Among them, kiln wine and dry wine are traditional wines. There is also a kind of glutinous rice liqueur, which is specially made for women and pregnant women. It is said to have nourishing and lactation-stimulating effects. Drinking tea is another hobby of the Bai people. The Bai people attach great importance to tea twice a day in the morning and at noon. Morning tea is called "morning tea" or "awakening tea". It is roasted as soon as you get up and is drunk by all adults. Afternoon tea is also called "break tea" or "thirst quenching tea" with rice crackers like milk fans in it, and even children drink it. One cup.

The daily stoves of the Bai people in the mountainous area are also very unique. They are usually a platform supported by four 70-centimeter-high wooden pillars with a hole in the middle. The table is 1.5 meters square, and it is paved with blue bricks or stone slabs. Cover it with a layer of soil and support it with an iron tripod, which can be used to hang pots, etc. A fire is made under the stage, and the flame passes through the hole to heat the food hanging on the tripod. There is a row of bamboo strips hanging above the stove, and wooden boards are used as a drying oven. For grilling food.

Festivals, Etiquette, Sacrifice and Food Customs During every festival, in addition to the necessary festival foods, there are also sacrificial activities such as worshiping Buddha, offering sacrifices to heaven and respecting ancestors. The New Year's Day is the most solemn. Starting from the twelfth lunar month, every family has to buy new year's goods, kill pigs, grind tofu, pound bait cubes and glutinous rice flour. On New Year's Eve, the heads of each family will bring food, tea and wine on trays to worship along the shunba of heaven and earth, gates, wells, kitchen gods and ancestors' tablets. Then the whole family has a reunion dinner. During the grand reunion dinner, a large copper hot pot is placed in the center of the dining table, and pig head meat is always served, surrounded by eight large bowls of Japanese dishes with profound meanings. For example: lotus root has eyes, which means openness and smoothness; white garlic sprouts mean "shun", which means everything goes smoothly; roasted fish means wealth and surplus, etc. On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, glutinous rice dumplings are cooked, and some are made into noodles, which all imply good wishes such as reunion, harmony, and longevity. From the first to the fifth day of junior high school, there are certain standards for what you eat every day. The Bai people who live in Bijiang celebrate the New Year in a different way from other areas. The Bai people in Bijiang divide the year into thirteen months, and the New Year Festival is held in late 13th on the day of the pig or snake. On New Year's Eve, the whole family will first worship the tree god, and then the whole village will have a dinner together. In some other festivals, in addition to slaughtering pigs or sheep to prepare banquets, seasonal food is also required. For example, there are various steamed cakes and jelly on March Street; assorted cold dishes are served on Qingming Festival; on Dragon Boat Festival, rice dumplings are made and realgar wine is drunk; on the rice-planting festival, rice-planting meat and fried broad beans are eaten; on June 25, sweets and various other foods are eaten during the Torch Festival. Plant sweets; eat white cakes and shortbread cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival; eat rice mixed with new foods during the New Year Festival, etc.

The Zhongyuan Festival and the Heaven Sacrifice are special sacrificial festivals, especially the Zhongyuan Festival in the seventh month of the lunar calendar every year. It is a festival for worshiping the souls of ancestors. If it is a newly mourned family, the sacrifice must be more grand. Eight large bowls of delicacies are prepared for the memorial ceremony, including thousands of pieces of meat, spareribs, crispy pork, stuffed eggplants, lilies, morels, and fish stuffed with meat fillings. Each dish not only uses exquisite ingredients and is exquisitely made, but also has great ornamental value. . For direct relatives or in-laws, a full feast called "Three Drops of Water" should be made to express condolences before the funeral. The so-called "Three Drops of Water" banquet refers to three categories: fruits, sacrifices (dishes made into anchovies and lions) and eight bowls. In particular, the four dishes of anchovies and lion elephants are lifelike in appearance. Among them, the elephant is made of cooked pig belly as the body, and a section of pig intestines is used as the head and nose. It is lifelike and of great value for viewing. There are also sacrificial activities such as offering sacrifices to heaven and worshiping Buddha. However, the food for worshiping Buddha is different from the food for other sacrificial activities. It requires fasting and a vegetarian meal. All dishes are made into meat-like dishes using tofu, jelly, taro, lotus root, etc. .

When a young Bai man proposes to a girl, if the girl agrees, she must give him a cake; at the wedding, the bride must go to the kitchen to make "fish soup"; on the first Mid-Autumn Festival after marriage, the bride must make a big meal. Noodle cakes are made to express the bride’s cooking skills.

At weddings, it is important to serve refreshments first, followed by the four-four-ruyi banquet table. The Bai people are very hospitable. No matter on weekdays or during festivals, if a guest arrives, they will first serve Chen tea and pour it three times in a row, which is called three courses of tea. When serving tea to guests, do not fill it to the full capacity. There is a saying among the people that "respecting others when you are full of wine will deceive you when you are full of tea." Festivals of the Bai Nationality

Typical Foods The Bai people have superb cooking skills and produce many unique foods. For example: rawhide, a traditional famous dish of the Bai people, is one of the must-have dishes for the Bai people during the New Year and festivals. It is a cold meat dish made with a variety of spicy and spicy ingredients. Donkey soup pot, a traditional dish of the Bai ethnic group in Yunnan, is made from donkey meat. Big Noodle Cake, a special cake made by the Bai people during the Mid-Autumn Festival, is steamed with fermented dough and seasonings. Steamed pig head with willow, a traditional famous dish of the Bai ethnic group, is steamed with pig head placed on a wicker rack.

Marriage Customs Back marriage is a popular marriage custom in the Bai area of ??Eryuan County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Whenever there is a crossroad, a three-way road or a place where people gather, the guests will stop and put the dowry into two big piles, and let the groom carry the bride on his back and circle the figure "8" around the dowry.