The Yaos are an ancient ethnic group in China and one of the longest-lived ethnic groups. Mainly distributed in the mountainous areas of several provinces and regions in southern China, it is a typical mountain ethnic group in southern China. They mainly engaged in farming, practiced rotational farming, and also engaged in hunting, fishing and gathering, and their handicraft industry was more developed; the settlement area produced high-quality red rice and medicinal materials.
The staple food of the Yao residents is mainly corn, rice, sweet potatoes, etc., and the daily dishes include soybeans, rice beans, pumpkins, peppers and poultry and livestock. The Yao people of Guangxi Jinxiu Dayao Mountain use "bird basins" to catch migratory birds, which are pickled into pickles, which is a delicacy for entertaining distinguished guests. Part of the Yao people in the northern Guibei region are popular for "playing oil tea", that is, frying tea leaves in oil, seasoning with ginger, pepper and salt, and brewing fried rice, fried beans, rice flowers and the like, which has a special flavor.
In the past, the Yao people often added corn, millet, sweet potato, cassava, taro, beans and so on to rice porridge or rice. Sometimes the "simmering" or "roasting" method is also used to process food, such as simmered sweet potatoes and other potatoes, simmered bitter bamboo shoots, roasted tender corn, roasted corn and so on. The Yao people who live in the mountainous areas have cold food habits and the production of food, all of which are considered to be easy to carry and store, so the staple food, the side food and the rice dumplings are their favorite foods. During labor, the Yaos all have a picnic on the spot, and everyone gets together and takes out the dishes they bring to eat together, while the staple food eats the food they carry.
Commonly eaten vegetables include various melons, beans, greens, radishes, peppers, as well as bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, fungus, bracken, toon, yellow flowers and so on. The Yao region is also rich in a variety of fruits. Vegetables are often made into dried vegetables or pickled vegetables. Some Yao people in Yunnan like to make vegetables very light, basically boiled with salt and white water. Some are directly boiled in white water, dipped in dipping water prepared with salt and peppers to maintain the original taste of various vegetables; meat is often processed into bacon. The Yao cooked meat in Guangxi is generally fried, boiled, seasoned with salt, and less condiments; while the meat is made into a very rich dish, fresh meat or bacon, first fried and roasted brown, and then cooked.
The Yao people love to eat pickled foods. "Bird's Su" is a famous food with a unique flavor of the Yao people, which is marinated with bird meat. The captured birds are washed, dried, mixed with rice noodles and salt, placed in a small tile altar, sealed with banana leaves, and eaten after a few days. The Yao family often uses "bird sushi" to entertain distinguished guests. Sometimes, pigs, cattle, lamb, etc. are also marinated in this way.
The Yao people also like to eat insect pupae, often eating pine pupae, kudzu pupae, wild bee pupae, bee pupae and so on. The Yao people also like to use the characteristics of the mountain areas to process and make cane sugar, sweet potato sugar, bee candy and so on.
Most of the Yao people like to drink alcohol, generally home with rice, corn, sweet potatoes and other self-brewed, often drink 2 or 3 times a day. The Yunnan Yao people like to use mash to brew water and drink wine, and when they go out, they often use bamboo tubes to hold water when drinking.
The Yaos also like to use sencha such as cinnamon and mountain ginger, believing that this tea has the effect of refreshing and clearing fatigue. The Yao people in many areas like to play oil tea, not only eating and drinking themselves every day, but also using oil tea to entertain guests. During the Qingming Festival, every household must make dyed flowers and rice to eat.
The banquet guests included the "toasting tea bath and receiving wind wine" known as the "Three Gifts of the Yao Family"; the "bowl of wine skewers" for the vips of the whole village; the "offering of fresh food" of mountain treasures and wild meat; and the "dragon intestine seat" with the name of "water dragon intestine" to receive the wind. In addition, there are "door-to-door hanging red wine" to mediate civil disputes, and "fried beans and boiled eggs" that announce the severance of diplomatic relations.
Among them, many food customs are quite interesting, such as a marriage proposal with a bag of meat and two gourd rice wine, the woman agrees to accept the meat and does not agree to pierce the gourd; the son-in-law often has the act of "burying eggs" and decides to choose according to its changes; the girl marries to give the cokeed soybeans to the neighbors; the divorce ceremony is "broken bamboo tube", the divorcing parties each mention a barrel of wine, exchange drinks and cut the broken bamboo tube and then break up in harmony.
The Yao people who worship pan urns forbid dog meat and turtle meat; the Yao people who worship Milota forbid eating sow pork and eagle meat; the vast majority of Yao people forbid pork and snake meat; the first few days after maternal childbirth; dogs, cats, snakes, and frogs are forbidden to be used to worship gods; and after hunting animals, they must first sacrifice to the mountain gods before they can be divided and eaten.
The festival of the Yao people is generally because there are many people, and the rice is not cooked in an iron pot, but steamed with wood Zhen, and the aroma of this rice is even stronger. Every festival. The Yao family also has to make rice dumplings. Festive dishes are mainly chicken, duck, fish, pork, tofu, vermicelli and various vegetables. The Yao people of the Wuling Mountains like to make tofu rounds (holy water tofu brewed --- the first brew of the Yao family's eighteen brews) during the festival, and the "lotus bandage (rice noodle meat)" is wrapped.
Panwang Festival is held only once every few years. In the past, during the Panwang Festival, livestock were slaughtered in large quantities and sacrificed. The festival is held every year, usually in the third month of the lunar calendar, when young men go up the mountain to hunt and go down the river to catch fish; women are to wrap rice dumplings and steam five-colored sticky rice. In the evening of the Chinese New Year's Eve Hua Basket Yao must first give a piece of meat and a ball of rice to the dog to eat, called the sacrificial dog, and then the family can eat. They believe that the grain species was brought by the dog, and the sacrifice of the dog was a pre-prayer for the abundance of grain. Festive dishes should be colorful, in addition to chicken, there are also river fresh and hunted mountain fowl game and tofu.
In some places, the Yao people also cook black rice on the eighth festival of April. In Jiangshui County, Hunan Province, Yao girls eat flower eggs, make flower dumplings, and eat flower sugar every year when the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar celebrates the "Picnic Festival". When the girls ate flower eggs, flower candy and flower sticks, the boys were not allowed to peek, and the offenders were punished. Jugetang is a large-scale entertainment activity for Liannan Paiyao to worship ancestors and celebrate harvests, mostly after the 16th day of the 10th month of the lunar calendar, and the length of time varies, about 3-9 days. At that time, the family will be equipped with water wine, glutinous rice and rice to entertain guests, many Yao young men and women will take the opportunity to choose the right person, once the men and women are in agreement, the parents of both sides can say goodbye through the matchmaker, and take pork and wine as gifts. When the wedding is held, a large feast is held, and according to the traditional custom, the wedding banquet must be attended by the village elders, and the bride and groom must drink a cup of wine.