Yi people have a set of social etiquette and dietary customs. Yi people are hospitable, and all guests in the family should treat each other with wine first. Banquets are big or small, giving gifts to cows and gradually killing sheep, pigs and chickens. When slaughtering animals, the animals should be brought to the guests to show respect. Cattle and sheep don't have to be treated with a knife, crushed or killed by hand. Therefore, it is called killing animals, and its technique is extremely agile. Animals are often skinned before they die.
When entertaining guests, there is a certain habit of seating. Generally, we eat on the floor around the pot farm, and generally let the guests sit on the top of the pot farm, which is called "the next two pots". Evaluate Yi, who sits at the right head of Hu Village, and call him "Mud Wood"; Helpers, women and relatives sit at the bottom of the pot, which the Yi people call "Xiajiguo". When there are many guests, it will be postponed to the right.
The order of wine is based on the Yi proverb, "Cultivated land is from bottom to top, with wine on the top and wine on the bottom". Sit first, then sit. "Wine belongs to the elderly and meat belongs to the young." After serving wine to distinguished guests, the elderly or elders should be given first, followed by young people. Everyone is involved.
In rural areas, regardless of weddings, funerals and weddings, there is a custom of "six in the morning and eight in the evening". That is, six bowls of lai in the morning, such as tofu, braised pork, Sichuan-style pork, Chinese cabbage vermicelli, pig blood and peanuts. Eight bowls of lai in the evening, such as yellow strips, braised pork, crepe sand (fried pig skin), thousand pieces of meat, cold white meat, braised sausage, peanuts and so on. Stew a bowl of chicken when you are well off. Yi people are good at baking, frying, boiling, mixing and other cooking techniques, with salty, fragrant, spicy and hemp taste, especially at making milk cakes.
Yi people's daily drinks include wine and tea, and wine is used to entertain guests. There is a folk saying that "Han people value tea, Yi people value wine".
Most Yi people are used to eating three meals a day, and their staple foods are miscellaneous grains, noodles and rice. Yi people in Shousha River, Anning River and Dadu River basins often eat a lump of rice for breakfast. Lunch is mainly Baba, and all tables are available. Among all Baba, Baba made of buckwheat noodles is the most distinctive. It is said that buckwheat Baba has the effects of promoting digestion, relieving sweating and diminishing inflammation, and can be preserved for a long time without deterioration. Nuning, a traditional snack in Su Qiao, Guizhou Province, has become a well-known local snack.
Meat is mainly pigs, sheep and beef. Mainly made into "tuotuo meat", beef soup pot, sheep soup pot, or roasted sheep and piglets. Deer, bears, rock sheep and wild boar obtained by hunting are also supplements to daily meat.
The mountainous area is also rich in mushrooms, fungus and walnuts, and the vegetables produced in the garden make the sources of vegetables very extensive. In addition to fresh food, most of them should be made into sauerkraut, which is divided into dried sauerkraut and pickled sauerkraut. Another famous dish "Swordfish" is also the most common dish among the people.
Typical foods that Yi people often eat are: buckwheat cake, a staple food with Yi flavor; Paste sauerkraut meat, the home cooking of Yi farmers; Boiled suckling pig, a traditional food of Yunnan Yi people, is cooked in suckling pig and dipped in it. Crispy rice flour is a famous Yi-flavor snack in Yunnan, which is made of pea flour.