Source: Hakka Wind Bone
Xiaoxia is the eleventh of the twenty-four solar terms, which is to tell everyone that the weather is about to start to heat up, and it is ready to spend a new summer.
It is said that the summer character of Xiao Xia is very similar to the boiling word in the seal book, which is also very similar to the meaning of Xiao Xia, is it like someone is quietly cooking the world, and it heats up a little bit.
For the Hakka, the festival is not only the essence of farming culture, but also a gospel for the majority of foodies.
The ancients even began to study what delicious food should be eaten in each festival, spring, summer, autumn and winter just have so many rich ingredients, made into food in different ways, and even with a festival, it is very ritualistic. Unlike other folk festivals, there is no fixed date and is held before the harvest. Its time is around the "little summer" in the twenty-four solar terms. The time to eat the new festival is now generally determined by the agreed speed or the government, and there are 100,000 people who eat the new festival on the same day, and once the time for eating the new festival is determined, the masses "rejoice in the big pu ben". A few days before the festival, every family will go to the door to invite grandma and grandfather, seven aunts and eight aunts and other distant relatives and friends to go to the house for the festival.
In the summer season, "eating new food" is popular everywhere, that is, eating new rice and drinking new wine. This is especially true of the Hakka. Due to the war and famine, the Hakka people continued to move south from the Central Plains. Because many plains are occupied by indigenous or early residents, the Hakka can only live in the mountains, open up land in the mountains, most of them live in a relatively difficult life, three meals a day rely on rice boiled into porridge to fill the hunger, or with millet grains as a staple food, it is not easy to eat a dry meal. On the day of eating the new year, men and women do not go out to work, and every household celebrates the festival. The men first go to the edge of the rice field and pick the full and ripe ears of rice for the ancestral graves, ancestral halls, shrines and other places. Women scoop the new valley into white rice and cook it into new rice. Festive dishes include chicken, duck, fish, meat and newly marketed vegetables, all steamed with rice flour. Before dinner, pay homage to the gods of grain, the land, and the king of Kang, and blow and play with dragon lanterns.
After the Hakka settled in the south, the younger generations had reverence for their ancestors' hard work and creation of fertile land, and since the last years of the Song Dynasty, a new custom of early rice ripening and sickle food has appeared in the folk after the annual summer. Before eating their first bite of new rice, people make the new rice into dry rice, brew it into new wine, prepare meat and eggs, and newly marketed bitter melon, loofah, and eggplant, which has a bitter and sweet taste.
According to the literature, the specific ritual is as follows: when the object is placed on the throne of the five grain gods, after burning incense and lighting the candle, it is necessary to read: "Please eat the new food of the five grain gods!" Thank you for the grace of the god of five grains, the five grains are abundant, bless the family with smooth strength, strong body, tight and tight. "When the incense is ashes, burn the coat paper. Then put the dry rice wine and meat dishes on your own table, read "Please ancestors (elders) taste the new", and pray three times with your hands. At noon, the villagers who have come to help the rice harvest are invited to eat new food together, exchange production experience, and jointly seek to develop the production plan.
The eating festival has a strong agricultural cultural color, it contains gratitude for the land and the gifts of nature, this simple feeling may be understood as piety and reverence for nature, respect and friendliness for laborers. The dry rice made from the rice grown by my own hands is fragrant and full of intimacy. Generally speaking, the people invited are the brothers of the country helpers. A long-awaited dry meal, coupled with characteristic wine dishes, tastes a little different. Nowadays, although eating dry rice is a common thing, the new custom of eating food is still prevalent in Hakka rural areas.
In the city, it is common to buy a small amount of new rice to cook with the old rice, and eat it together with newly listed vegetables.