Lianshan traditional white fin, the neighbors help together, a good peaceful and lively scene.
I am a native of Qingyuan Lianshan Zhuang. There is a custom in our Zhuang family for the New Year, that is, to invite neighbors and relatives and friends to help scoop up the white fins, and everyone gets together to talk and laugh, and it is happy and harmonious, full of festive joyful atmosphere.
It symbolizes reunion and reunion, and has a long history in Zhuangjia, which has been passed down to this day and has been listed as the intangible cultural heritage of Qingyuan City.
On February 9, 2021, the second and eighth of the year, the big guys got together again to scoop up the white fin and rejoice.
Nandu photographed by Yu Xiuhe
This is a white fin made into a flat round body, spread on a large dustpan to dry, which is the last step in the production process.
The traditional white rice should first be soaked in water for one night, washed the next morning, put in the basket to filter the water, put it in the wooden dumplings and steamed, until the steaming can be used with your fingers to knead the glutinous rice as a degree, and timely take out the steamed glutinous rice and put it in the stone spoon.
People pull out the steamed sticky rice and put it in the stone spoon next.
Glutinous rice is sticky, the pestle is very laborious, the hands and feet should be dexterous, and the young and strong people holding the wooden pestle keep taking turns to scoop down, and the skill can be seen in the production process.
Until the glutinous rice is no longer served and becomes a gelatinous paste.
The pestle holder should drag the gelatinous paste out while it is hot, put it on the bamboo dustpan that has been prepared with honey wax mixed with tea oil, and the skilled women divide the glutinous rice balls into lead ball-sized fin balls, and the other girls will shoot the sticky balls into flat circles and spread them on the large dustpan to dry.
The grandmother of the village skillfully used the tiger's mouth to pinch out the rice balls.
White fin is generally dried for five or six days, with slight cracks on the surface of the fin fin as moderate. Too hard will burst and break; too soft to tolerate bubble dipping. Finally, the dried rice dumplings are soaked in clean water, and the fresh water is changed every seven or eight days, which can be stored for three or four months.
Eating white fin, our methods are also diverse: you can eat it instantly, if you can eat sweets, you can dip them with honey or brown syrup, and if you eat salty food, you can dip them with soy sauce peppers. After soaking, it can be fried, seared and boiled. Today's young people still like to get together with friends for the New Year and eat barbecues.
White fin is not only a good gift for us, but also allows the giver to show the fineness of their craftsmanship in the degree of whiteness of the fin rice.
Children are sitting around the house, waiting for the adults to make the white fins ready, that is, to eat them, especially the atmosphere of the New Year.
Every year, the alleys are always bustling with noise, and they are very happy. Looking at the bouncing children, I remembered when I was a child, when I said to my grandmother, when I grew up, it was my turn to give you white rice.
With the continuous development of the times, the white fin has changed from a stone spoon to an automatic stirring, which is very convenient. But at New Year's Day, most of us still choose to use our hands, and so do I. We feel the fun and meaning of traditional customs, because in this way we have more "New Year's flavor" and "strong feelings" of the Spring Festival. I hope that the traditional white fin can still be passed on and carried forward in the future.