When it comes to Chaoshan cuisine, it is always impossible to avoid a variety of kueh. "Seasonal kueh, seasonal prevention of seasonal diseases" seems to be the most devout food belief of the Chaoshan people, so during the New Year's Festival, the Chaoshan people's homes are often indispensable to the cantonese.
The Chaoshan song is sung like this: "Chaoshan people, cannibalism, sweet rice in oil, pomegranate, noodles in fried rice, soft rice in beef, vegetable head round card shell peach rice." "The living can sing the immediacy of "reporting the name of the dish".
When it comes to the Spring Festival, the "Shi Kun" of Chaoshan is "Ciqu Kun", also known as "Rat Shell Kun" or "Wu Kun".
Because of the word "rat" in the name, "rat qu kun" is always a bit intimidating at first glance. But in fact, it has no substantial relationship with "rats". The so-called "rat song" is actually a plant, the full name of the rat koji grass, and it is also named in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Koji, said that its flowers are yellow like koji, and can also be eaten with rice flour." Rat ears say that its leaves are shaped like rat ears, and there are white hairs that look like fur, so the northerners call it a mushroom mother. Buddha's ear, then the rat's ear is also blackmailed. ”
It can be seen that the so-called rat koji grass is more like its shape. As the name suggests, "rat koji" is a koji straw mashed juice and noodles.
Speaking of this, it is inevitable to mention what Qiantou said, the most devout food belief of the Chaoshan people, "seasonal do seasonal food, seasonal prevention of seasonal diseases." Rat koji grass is sweet and flat, and some can be used in medicine, according to the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and rice noodles, it can be a suitable food.
But if you trace the origin, the rat koji was not used for food in the first place. The most widely said is that during the war, people mixed rat koji grass with glutinous rice mill flour to make koeh in order to be able to feed their stomachs.
Of course, the rat koji is not the only one in Chaoshan that is eaten, and people in many places in the ancient folk will collect rat koji grass mash juice and noodles to make rice cakes and other foods every third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, which can avoid the time. In addition, the Qing dynasty Gu Jingxing also mentioned the rat grass in the "Wild Vegetable Praise", saying: "Born in February, the leaves are like rat ears, and the rice is pounded into cakes." Northerners eat cold food. ”
Regarding the Chaoshan people mostly eat rat koji in the Spring Festival, rather than the Cold Food Festival or the Qingming Festival, there is no classical explanation, only to listen to the old people to explain that the fresh rat koji grass juice is sweet and astringent, not very suitable, and needs to be dried and stored to its astringent entrance to retain only the aroma.
I think this is also the experience that the Chaoshan people have accumulated over the years.
If making kway teow is an important sense of preparation ceremony before Chaoshan years ago, then sending kway teow is another important sense of social ceremony when Chaoshan people celebrate the New Year. It is said that every New Year's Festival, many Chaoshan people's families, even if they do not make it, will buy some kon.
But enthusiastic Chaoshan people often worry about their own family's share after doing their own cantonment. So after making the kway teow, it was again a kway teow.
In the spirit of social etiquette, the party who receives the product will often return the corresponding product. In this way, the New Year has become a "battlefield" for many Chaoshan people to exchange small cantonments. Whose kway teow is good or not is secondary, and the heart and blessing are the most important in the "sending kway teow" link.
This exchange is not only reflected in the kon, but also in the "big orange".
In Chaoshan and New Year's Greetings, it is not a rule to worship the New Year empty-handed, at least (or indispensable) there must be a pair of large oranges, taking the meaning of "great luck and great profit". At the end, before the New Year, before leaving, the host family will definitely take out their own big oranges and exchange them with the big oranges of the visitors, which means to give each other auspicious.
Nowadays, many Chaoshan people no longer stubbornly pay attention to "seasonal kway teow", and kueh has become a food that is common throughout the year, or those who do not like kueh may not eat once a year.
But in the hustle and bustle of the city, the increasingly deserted New Year's Festival, who can deny that whenever we see all kinds of kueh products, we always suddenly think of the time when our mother and grandma were making kway teens in those years.