Xiamen people's Mid-Autumn Festival Cake Culture
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, there are customs and habits in various places. Today we come to know about the Mid-Autumn Festival play bo cake (trekking cake) of Xiamen people. Bo cake, a traditional Mid-Autumn Festival activity in Xiamen, Fujian Province, began in the early Qing Dynasty and was invented by Zheng Chenggong when he was stationing troops in order to relieve the soldiers' homesickness and encourage morale. It has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a unique folk custom in southern Fujian today. In November 2019, the "List of Units for the Protection of Representative Projects of National Intangible Cultural Heritage" was announced, and the Mid-Autumn Festival Folk Culture Research Association was qualified as a protection unit for the Mid-Autumn Festival Cake Project.
The past and present lives of Bo Cake
Mid-Autumn Festival Cake, originating in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, is a traditional folk activity unique to southern Fujian that is extended by the cake culture. Nowadays, Bo Cake has evolved into a kind of mass entertainment activity during the Mid-Autumn Festival of Xiamen people. The so-called play bo cake is a combination of the results of six dice throws to determine the participants' prizes, and the traditional prizes are mooncakes of different sizes. In the activity of playing Bo Cake, there are 1 champion, 2 pairs, 4 three reds, 8 four advances, 16 two moves, and 32 shows. Since ancient times, people have even linked this kind of game to people's luck in the next year. Bo cake was originally derived from the Court Game of the Tang Dynasty——— "Dice Play", which is the prototype of the Bo Cake Game, which has a history of more than 1300 years. With the rise of the imperial examination system, "dice play" gradually evolved into a game such as the "Zhuangyuan Bureau" that pinned the candidates' wishes for "high school".
In the southern Fujian region, mid-autumn festival cake has also become a commercial activity and mass game. According to the "Fujian FengwuZhi", in the southern Fujian region, there is a custom of "grabbing the yuan cake" during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The custom of Minnan Bo cake is a happy, that is, a good color head, most people are willing to believe that the people in Bo Zhongzhuangyuan, a year of luck will always be particularly good, this is of course because the Bo cake activities poured people's emotional sustenance, especially in Quanzhou, Xiamen city. Therefore, minnan people always attach great importance to the Mid-Autumn Festival, and even have the saying of "small Spring Festival, big Mid-Autumn Festival".
In the new era, there are more new "hui cakes" in bo cakes, no longer traditional moon cakes, but made up of practical items, such as: shower gel, shampoo, etc., can also be food, such as: jelly, potato chips, cola or whatever, anyway, what you want can be used to make "will cake", as long as it is combined according to the number of cakes. Maybe it's because people just want to have fun in the festival, and make it more practical.
Xiamen people's yuan cake
Bo Cake Folk Garden
In Xiamen, there is a Mid-Autumn Festival as the theme of the park - Bo Cake Folk Garden, come here, you can deeply understand the history and customs of Minnan Bo Cake, both to increase insight, but also to personally experience the fun of Bo Cake, if you go out to travel during the Mid-Autumn Festival, you can go to Xiamen Bo Cake Folk Garden to take a look at the Xiamen people's Bo Cake culture.
Xiamen Bo Cake Folk Garden is located in the Haicang Bridge Tourism Zone, is the only tourist attraction in the country with the theme of Bo Cake activities, is to package xiamen's most joyful folk activities straight, integrate historical anecdotes and southern Fujian customs, to create a comprehensive tourist attraction of nearly 20,000 square meters. According to the historical origin of Bo Cake and Keju, Xiamen Bo Cake Folk Garden combines unique terrain conditions to carefully create a unique Bo Cake cultural landscape, so that every tourist can gradually appreciate the long-standing Bo Cake culture when visiting.
Xiamen Bo Cake Folk Garden takes Xiamen's national intangible cultural heritage - The Mid-Autumn Festival Bo Cake Activity as the main experience content, integrates the historical anecdotes of Bo Cake and the unique customs of southern Fujian, carefully creates a unique Bo Cake Cultural Landscape such as "Xiucai Road", "Township Test Platform", "Jinshi Steps" and "Zhuangyuan Ding", and builds the first Bo Cake Folk Customs Exhibition Hall and the main building of the Bo Cake Activity Experience - "Zhuangyuan Building". This is the first Bo cake theme scenic spot in China that integrates sightseeing, experience, entertainment, catering and shopping.
Visitors can participate in different levels of game at each attraction to win prizes of different value. From the entertainment games prevalent in the imperial palace, to the popular "Bo Zhuangyuan" activities among the candidates for the imperial examination, to the customs of bo cake loved by modern Xiamen people, it is a relatively complete and systematic introduction to the bo cake culture that originated and developed.
Xiamen Bo Cake Folk Customs Park has the country's first Bo Cake Culture Exhibition Hall with an area of more than 700 square meters, with the theme of "Ancient One Bo" and a two-story exhibition hall of "Bo Cake Seeking The Ancient" and "Bo in the Present Dynasty". In addition, the Zhuangyuan Building is the main building for tourists to experience the Bo cake activities. Visitors can also experience Xiamen's unique Cake Festival and experience the good luck of winning the "Champion". Strolling along "Xiucai Road", you can feel the long history of Bo cake culture, and you can also personally taste the "Zhuangyuan Banquet", which is a good place to experience Xiamen culture. Visitors can participate in different levels of game at each attraction to win prizes of different value.
Xiamen Bo Cake Folk Customs Museum
Traditional gastronomic experience
So what are the delicious things to do in the Bo Cake Folk Garden? Among them, the Minnan Sea oyster frying - "ten years of cold window" is the representative. Oyster fried is the most popular folk snack on both sides of fujian and Taiwan. It is cooked with fresh sea oysters and green onions, a pinch of sweet potato flour, sautéed in a saucepan until almost cooked, and then mixed eggs. This delicious snack made of "torment" is quite similar to the situation of the ancient students who read hard for ten years, both of which need to endure a "hardship" to create a result.
There is also fried stuffed tofu - "Golden Jade Mantang", which is also one of them. The color of the outside of the tofu is yellow chengcheng, like the color of gold, and the inside of the tofu is white and tender, like a white jade, so it is called "golden jade full of halls". In addition, I was also impressed by the pot boy five-flavor pancake - "Show meets the soldier". Pot boy five-flavor crepes are home-cooked delicacies in southern Fujian, mixed with five-flavor dishes and wrapped in dough skin, which makes them taste different. And we often say that "Xiu Cai meets soldiers, there is no reason to say clearly", even if there are a thousand reasons, they are all stuffed in the stomach, unable to tell other people, this scene is similar to the pancakes wrapped in five flavors of dishes, and the two are interesting.
And Tong'an sealing meat- "Jinshi turning over", is even more interesting. "Tong'an sealing meat" is a famous dish in Xiamen Tong'an tradition, this dish will be the whole piece of meat in the pot, covered into the cage steamed, on the table before lifting the lid, so it is called "sealing meat". Authentic Tong'an sealing meat is very tender, put chopsticks on the sealing meat, chopsticks can be cut open in the process of falling. There is an interesting allusion about "Tong'an Feng Meat": during the Ming Zhengde period, Lin Xiyuan, a famous eunuch of Xiamen Tong'an Science, was a private school teacher in Yuekou Village outside Tong'an Nanmen. He usually likes to taste Tong'anFeng meat, but because the family is surrounded by disciples, he had to cut the wood into a chicken leg and soak it in soy sauce to relieve his hunger. In the twelfth year of Ming Zhengde (1517), Lin Xiyuan was admitted to the jinshi and returned to his hometown. The squires hurriedly set up a sumptuous feast and washed the dust for him. During the banquet, Lin Xiyuan only tasted the mountain treasures and seafood on the table, and seemed to want to stop talking. When the squires saw the situation, they thought that there was something wrong with the hospitality, and they were worried and uneasy, and hurried to pick up the harpoon meat and toast. At this time, Lin Xiyuan suddenly asked, "Why is there no dish of 'sealing meat'?" The squires were dumbfounded for a moment, thinking they had heard it wrong. It turned out that although the "sealed meat" at that time was delicious, it seemed vulgar and could not be a big scene. But since Jinshi had already ordered this dish, the master hurriedly ordered the people to prepare quickly. Since then, "sealed meat" has gone from ordinary folk dishes to major restaurants.
Finally, there is a winter vegetable steamed sea bass - "Fish Leaping Dragon Gate". In ancient times, winter vegetables were poor peasant dishes, and sea bass was generally eaten by rich and noble families in southern Fujian, and Hanmen students ate this dish before catching the exam, hoping to get rid of poverty through the imperial examination. For some people, one of the goals of the Yubo Cake Folk Garden is food, just like a classic: I have crossed the mountains and the sea, and also through the sea of people... Until you see those stomach-pounding delicacies, this is the only answer to visit the Bo Cake Folk Garden. (China Weekly: Liang Fengying)
Minnan Sea oyster frying
Fried stuffed tofu
China Weekly
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