What to eat during Xiaoxue? You must know these four customs

The customs of each of the 24 solar terms are different in different places. Take the Beginning of Spring, the first of the 24 solar terms, for example. Some customs are to eat radishes, some are to eat spring pancakes, some are to eat dumplings, and so on. So what is the custom of eating during the Xiaoxue solar term? In fact, there are four customs of Xiaoxue in various parts of the country. Let’s take a closer look at them below!

1. Cured bacon

There is a folk custom of "pickle food in winter to store for the winter". After a light snowfall, the temperature drops sharply and the weather becomes dry, which is a good time to process bacon. After the Minor Snow solar term, some farmers start making sausages and bacon so that they can enjoy the delicious food during the Spring Festival. Hangzhou people often take advantage of this solar term to pickle duck and bacon.

Why do people like to start pickling bacon and making sauces during the Xiaoxue solar term? Experts explain that if the weather is hot, bacon and sauces will easily go bad and stink. After the light snow, the temperature will basically go straight down and is unlikely to rebound. Back then, after these things were made, they would be taken out as New Year's goods just around the corner, and slowly it became a custom.

The traditional custom of processing and making bacon is not only long-standing, but also widespread. During the twelfth month of winter, from the beginning of the Lesser Snow to the beginning of Spring, every household would slaughter pigs and sheep. Apart from keeping enough fresh meat for the New Year, the rest would be pickled in a jar with salt mixed with a certain proportion of spices such as Sichuan pepper, fennel, star anise, cinnamon, cloves, etc.

After seven to fifteen days, they are hung up with palm leaf ropes, dried, and then processed. Cypress branches, sugarcane peels, Chinese toon bark or firewood are used to slowly smoke over a fire, then hung up and slowly dried using fireworks. It can be hung on top of a wood-burning stove, or suspended above a wood-burning stove, and slowly dried by smoke and fire.

The western region has lush forests and abundant grass, and almost every household burns firewood for cooking or heating, which is a favorable condition for smoking bacon. Even city dwellers, who do not slaughter pigs or sheep, would still go to the market in the winter months to pick out the best white meat, whether fat or lean, buy some, go home and pickle it, smoke a few pieces of bacon, and taste the bacon flavor. If you don’t have firewood at home, you can ask your relatives and friends in the countryside to smoke a few pieces.

2. Taste glutinous rice cake

In some places in the south, there is a custom of eating glutinous rice cakes in the tenth month of the lunar calendar. In ancient times, glutinous rice cake was a traditional festival offering in the southern region. It was originally used by farmers as an offering to the cow god. There is a saying "On the tenth day of the tenth month, glutinous rice cakes are burned", which refers to the sacrificial event.

Ciba is made by steaming glutinous rice and then beating it through special stone grooves. It is very laborious to make ciba by hand, but the resulting ciba is soft and delicate and tastes excellent. Some are made of pure glutinous rice, some are made of millet, some are made of a mixture of glutinous rice and millet, and some are made of a mixture of corn and glutinous rice. In addition, sticky rice and glutinous rice are ground into powder and poured into a wooden mold with patterns carved inside, commonly known as "tuoba". The production of glutinous rice cake is very labor-intensive and requires several people to work together to complete it.

As the folk saying goes, "On the morning of October, glutinous rice cakes are burned." Here, "LuLuShao" is a very vivid Hakka language. "Lu" means rolling like a wheel, which means using chopsticks to roll up the glutinous rice dough, like a wheel, front and back, up and down, left and right, rolling it around with sesame seeds, peanuts and sugar; "Shao" means steaming hot. To eat glutinous rice cake, one must first keep it warm, secondly, play with it, and thirdly, compete (compare) with it. Only then can one enjoy it and experience the farmer's fun of "burning glutinous rice cakes in the morning of October".

3. Drying fish

During the light snow, fishermen along the coast of central and southern Taiwan will start drying fish and storing dry food. Schools of mullet will come to the Taiwan Strait around the time of Xiaoxue, along with swordfish, sandfish, etc. A Taiwanese proverb: The beans in October are so fat that you can’t see the end. It refers to the fact that in the Budai area of ​​Chiayi County, you can catch “bean fish” in the tenth month of the lunar calendar.

When it comes to drying fish, you usually have to choose big fish, because small fish will not have much meat when dried. After buying the fish, remove the scales. If the fish is large, you should fillet it under the spine and in the thick meat on the other side to make it easier for the brine to penetrate. Then cut open the fish and remove the internal organs. After cleaning the fish, it is generally not washed with water, as this will easily cause the fish to spoil. If you want to wash it, you must drain the water and wipe it dry after washing.

Then put salt, pepper, aniseed, tangerine peel and fennel into the pan and stir-fry until slightly yellow. Apply them evenly on the inside and outside of the fish. The amount of seasoning depends on your taste. After applying, you can place it flat in a relatively large container and let it dry in a cool place. After four to five days, turn the fish upside down in the container so that the seasoning is evenly absorbed. After another four or five days, you can hang the fish in a cool and ventilated place and dry it to any degree you want. Generally, it can be taken down after two or three months, chopped into sections, wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator.

4. Eat shaved soup

Around the beginning of the first snow, the Tujia people started their annual folk activity of "killing the New Year pig and welcoming the New Year", adding a warm atmosphere to the cold winter. Eating "Pao Tang" is a custom of the Tujia people. In the folk activity of "killing the New Year pig and welcoming the New Year", the delicacy made by carefully cooking the high-quality fresh pork that is still hot is called "Pao Tang".

The "meat in soup" that the Tujia people refer to is a freshly slaughtered pig that has been soaked in boiling water to remove its hair. Although it is already dead, people will cook the pork while it is still hot and soft before it cools down completely, that is, before it becomes a stiff piece of meat, into various delicious fresh meat meals, which is called "meat in soup". Some people also say that this is called "eating live meat" or "eating live food". Perhaps, this is also the nature of indigenous peoples who like to capture live prey.

This soup is made by using the pig's offal, such as the lungs, fat, brain marrow, etc., which are chopped up and mixed with glutinous rice, pig blood, and a small amount of hot pepper, pepper and other spices to make a sauce. Add an appropriate amount of salt powder, then pour it into the washed small intestine and put it into a pot to cook. Add some raw pig blood, pig bones, fat, lean meat, radish, cabbage, etc. to the soup, cook it in the pot with mountain spring water, and it will become a soup hotpot. Three parts pig blood and seven parts water. When the hot pot water boils, the delicious and rich flavor of the soup will come out.