What do Nantong people eat for the New Year?

China people are the best. They like to talk about everything at the dinner table. During the Spring Festival, the biggest festival of the year, they certainly have to eat. In Nantong, before the Spring Festival, every household began to prepare Spring Festival food so that they could have a happy New Year. So, what do Nantong people want to eat for the New Year?

Steamed bread cake

December of the lunar calendar, commonly known as "twelfth lunar month". This is because this month was a month of waxing and sacrifice in ancient times, and it was also a month of alternation between the old and the new. "Custom Pass" contains: "Wax hunters hunt animals to worship their ancestors. Or, wax, then also. The old and the new are handed over, so the big sacrifice is also rewarded. " On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, it is called Laba Festival. According to legend, it was the birthday of Buddha Sakyamuni, and there was a custom of offering Laba porridge in the temple, which was later spread to the people and has been passed down to this day. The northern folk proverb "After Laba is the year", so there is also a saying that "Laba porridge delivers letters". After people finished eating Laba porridge, the atmosphere of the New Year became more and more warm.

In Nantong, the first climax of Chinese New Year is steamed buns and cakes. Every year1February, farmers in four townships and eight towns are busy drying glutinous rice, raising wheat, grinding bread crumbs and changing flour to prepare for "steaming". In the mill, the banging continued all night. "Every village ran to the mill and pushed or carried it with rice carts and wheat carts. The mill crumbs came back overnight, and the wheat steamed a beige cake "(Liu Ruiting:" Listen and Read Poems of Mountain Living "). This poem vividly describes the busy and exciting scene of Nantong people many years ago. In rural areas, usually several or a dozen families get together, each carrying firewood and taking turns to work, which can make full use of hot stoves and save fuel. Urban residents are provided by the original departments, and most of them are processed by dim sum shops. This custom of steaming cakes and steamed buns at midnight is very popular in Nantong.

Nantong people steamed rice cakes, commonly known as big cakes. Each "steamed" 40 kg glutinous rice flour was mixed with appropriate water and sprinkled into a square steamer layer by layer for vapor permeation to steam. There are two thin layers dyed red above and below. When the cake fell out of the cage, the color of the cake was white, with two bright red lines at each end, red and white. According to the cutting size, it can be divided into "square cake" and "water towel cake". After the cake surface is dry and hard, people soak it in alum water to prevent cracking and mildew, and some people slice it and dry it, which is called "dry cake" and can be preserved for a long time for steaming, boiling, frying and frying in the future.

Nantong steamed buns include "stuffed buns", "solid buns" and long and big "cage cakes" (commonly known as "yellow cats"). Jiaozi steamed bread is usually stuffed with diced pickles, diced shrimps with shredded radish, red bean paste, oil and sugar. Dot red dots with different numbers or shapes outside to show the difference. The "yellow cat" fell out of the cage, thoroughly cooled, sliced and dried for collection, and was called "dried steamed bread". Others put steamed bread in a jar, tie it with cloth and seal it with mud, which can also keep it from cracking and mildew for quite a while.

During the Spring Festival, cakes and steamed bread are one of the staple foods for family and guests. In rural areas, after the Spring Festival, there was a spring shortage, and "dry cakes" and "dry steamed buns" could make up for the shortage of food and meet the urgent need of drought. When wheat seedlings are harvested, they can be eaten at any time with a little cooking, which is convenient for hunger tolerance, saves time and is beneficial to production. Once upon a time, farmers went to the city to do business, reluctant to spend money, and stayed in the store to buy food. They often take a bag of steamed bread and dry it. When they are hungry, they need nearby boiling water to hug and fill their stomachs. When I was a child, I went hiking in Langshan (spring outing) and was often eaten by the children of suburban farmers. After decades, children in the city have become accustomed to eating bread and cakes, but I'm afraid few people know what they are.

Nowadays, both urban and rural economies have improved, but rural Nantong still retains the custom of steaming steamed buns and cakes for the New Year. Even city residents always buy cakes and buns and store them at home years ago. Because cakes are homophonic "high", steamed bread symbolizes "fat". Promoting to a higher position and getting rich is the aspiration of the people, which means auspiciousness. An old song in Nantong sings: "When did you have no salt and steamed bread sold by Pubao?" It can be seen that in the psychology of Nantong people, steamed bread and cakes are closely linked with the "New Year".

Pickled fish and chicken

In the past, many people had to pickle salted fish and bacon and air-dry chicken and fish years ago, because the weather was dry and cold in1February. Pickled food can be preserved for a long time.

Pickled fish. The method is to select fat and thin pig leg plates, sit on the pier, or fish (carp) and herring with thick fish flesh, cut open the abdomen first, take out the internal organs, and do not scrape or wash them. Wipe it repeatedly with fried pepper and salt inside and outside, then put it in a jar and press it with a heavy object to make the water seep out and the salty taste penetrate into it. Take out the salt water, hang it in a ventilated place to dry, then put it in the salt water, repeat this for three times and pickle it. Take it out and hang it under the edge of the house to avoid sun and rain. Salted fish and bacon can be used as home-cooked dishes during the Spring Festival, or for unexpected guests, or reserved for cooking in spring, or as bacon palms for the Dragon Boat Festival. Many rich people pickle several jars at a time and hang them all over the eaves. Poor farmers can't afford to eat big fish and meat, so they pickle one or two pig heads, which people call "ingots". On New Year's Eve, the whole family eats Yuanbao meat, or braised vermicelli, or boiled dried bamboo shoots. Fan Gen hates long, bamboo shoots are high, so don't forget to celebrate when you start a meatless diet. Pickled turtles take more flower fish, followed by herring, which also means "Jiqing has more fish" and "Carp yue longmen".

Besides salted fish, Nantong people also like to eat wind chicken and wind fish. As soon as the wind blows, it is sealed to dry. Cut the big cock and the big flower fish dirty. The chicken doesn't pluck the hair, and the fish doesn't scratch the scales. It is even more taboo to wash them with water. Then clean the pepper and salt, tie them tightly with straw ropes and hang them under the eaves to dry. The food made by this method is less salty than salted fish meat, and has a special smell of dry wax, which is delicious for local meals and wine.

In the past, the countryside was a closed and self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy. The villagers usually scrimp and save, and every time they kill a pig in the New Year, they are reluctant to eat it all at once, so they are preserved by pickling. Farmers have many fish ponds, which will open after winter. In addition to selling, they keep some for themselves, which is a "long stream of water" and a storage of salted fish. Nantong offshore has been a famous saltworks since ancient times, and pickled food has unique conditions. As for wind chicken and wind fish, it seems that ancient bacon is ventilated and has a longer history.