Fishermen's specific living customs are all around "ocean", "island" and "seafood", which also reflects the unique charm and life characteristics of marine culture.
First, the fishing island seafood customs
Since ancient times, fishermen have never left a word "fish" in their lives. Fishermen's customs of eating fish and seafood are really varied. Moreover, there are many ways to eat fish and seafood, which have been circulated since ancient times. At that time, people at the seaside ate fish, and the favorite method was stew, which was not only more refined, but also seasoned. At first glance, fish is actually today's drunk fish. Slice the fish first, sprinkle salt and spices into the jar or jar of the drunken fish, and pour the wine. Then, after the fish fillets are stacked layer by layer, the jar mouth or jar mouth is sealed and can be eaten after one month or two or three months.
Making fish-eating fish is quite popular in ancient and modern times. The Spring and Autumn Period began when the fish were cut dry. According to "Wu Di Ji", when the king of Wu fought at sea, he asked the soldiers to catch a large number of stone fish as rations, and then cut up the leftovers and take them back. Wu remembered the fish he had eaten in the sea and asked the rest. His companion said, "Let's bask in the sun.". Its delicious taste, fish because of the beauty of books, is for the word "Yan". Fish soup is the main flavor food in fishermen's seafood diet. Fish and crab meat can be used as the main raw materials to make soup. There are yellow croaker soup, pomfret soup, perch soup and crab broth.
It is precisely because fish soup is a common dish of island fishermen that it is easy to show the chef's skill. Therefore, from ancient times to the present, fishermen and sisters-in-law always regard making fish soup as a skill they must master, just like weaving a net. The fisherman's new wife is in her husband's house. When she takes off her new wedding dress, she will make fish soup for her in-laws. If the bride's fish soup is cooked well, it will soon spread throughout the fishing village and be praised and respected by fishermen. With the improvement of living standards, fish soup has become a delicacy for islanders. No matter on holidays or wedding banquets, there are refined fish soup.
Fish porridge and fish rice are also seafood-flavored foods. Fish porridge and fish rice are usually made with fresh hairtail. During the fishing season in winter, whenever hairtail comes on the market or on the winter solstice festival, fishermen's families in Donghai fishing island always like to make a pot of porridge or rice with hairtail for their families to enjoy. To make fish porridge and fish rice, it is generally necessary to choose 0.5 kg to 1 kg of fresh hairtail, remove the head, tail and internal organs, then "batch" the fish with a sharp knife, put it in a well-cooked porridge pot or rice pot, and add some chopped green onion or vegetables. In this way, white rice porridge, sparkling fish, delicious onions and exotic smells will make you eat.
The fish are frozen, and there are more (fish) every year. Every New Year's Eve, there will be several bowls or dozens of bowls of frozen fresh fish in the cupboard of every household on the fishing island, which is a unique seafood eating method for fishermen and is called "fish of the year". On New Year's Eve, when the old and the new turn, every fisherman will stew a pot of fresh yellow croaker, fresh fish without fish or fresh hairtail, put it in a bowl and store it in the cupboard. Because the temperature on the island is low before and after the Spring Festival, the fish in the bowl will freeze and will not deteriorate for several days. The fish left over from the previous year will be eaten slowly in a bowl in the new year, which means "there are fish left over every year".
Second, fishermen's drinking habits
It is the commonness of fishermen's life customs that fishermen have been accompanied by wine all their lives. But fishermen in Jiangsu, Shanghai and Fujian like to drink white wine; Fishermen in Zhoushan Islands love to drink yellow wine, which fishermen call old wine.
Fishermen drink old wine in many ways, which reflects their unique low-level taste.
Drink the wine sacrificed to Poseidon. The wine for offering sacrifices to the sea is divided into opening wine and thanking wine. Before going out to sea on the first day of spring flood, summer flood, autumn flood and winter flood, fishermen always gather on the beach in the harbor to hold a ceremony to worship the sea god, offering them wine, fish and three kinds of animals. After the ceremony of offering sacrifices to Poseidon, fishermen drank with bowls on the beach to strengthen Kaiyang's pursuit of the sea and get a bumper harvest in the flood season. This is the opening of foreign wine. The wine-thanking ceremony is a ceremony held by fishermen at the seaside to celebrate the harvest of a fishing season and thank Poseidon for his protection. After the ceremony, the fishermen carried the boat ashore, put it in a safe place, and then drank as much as they could. Once, the wine bowl on the beach in the harbor was held high and the wine overflowed.
Drink to celebrate the launch of the Long Mu. That is to say, after the completion of the new fishing boat and the ceremony of offering sacrifices to Poseidon, Ship Officer and Bodhisattva, the fishermen drank festival wine on their new fishing boat and prayed for good luck and peace. Fishermen in the East China Sea have two homes. One is to take the boat as home at sea, and fishermen work on the boat most of the year. In terms of time, they are more at home by boat. Moreover, there is no fishing boat and there is no way to support the family. Therefore, fishermen love and respect boats more, and make a grand festival for new boats to enter the sea, that is, the ceremony of "Long Mu launching (homophonic wealth)". Even if you are poor again, you should buy good water, wine and fish at this time, and invite the villagers and the crew on board to have a good drink before you can go to sea smoothly and return to Hong Kong with fish and shrimp.
Drink New Year's wine. Let's talk about drinking Chinese New Year wine first. Fishermen live in isolated islands on the sea and on the mainland across the sea, always accompanied by the sea. They pay more attention to the Chinese New Year holiday, so they also celebrate it by drinking. One is that it is rare for family members to get together and meet relatives and friends because they work at sea all the year round. In the long years when wooden sailboats were used, they didn't go out to sea for half a month before and after the Spring Festival. Many fishing villages and fishermen treat each other to "New Year's Eve" and get together to drink. Some began to invite each other on December 20 of the lunar calendar, mostly from the third day of the first month to the tenth day of October. Eating "New Year's Eve" has existed in Fishing Island since ancient times and is still very popular. Some fishermen simply take off their shoes and socks and walk barefoot in the mud when they are hot. Not only does the wine heat radiate through the soles of your feet, but you also drink a lot and you can't get drunk for a long time. In the past, in the fishing island, in addition to large-scale festivals such as dragon dancing and fish lanterns on the first day of the first month, eating "New Year's Eve" and drinking were the most lively and happy things for fishermen in the New Year. Besides, drink something else. Fishermen drink alcohol on holidays, with a variety of patterns and unique customs. According to the habit of fishing for islands, preparations for spring flood production will begin on the sixth day of the first month. For example, fishermen with nets should make trusses, tie nets and windows; Those who drag shrimp to catch spring fish must mend their nets and repair their boats. Therefore, no matter whether fishermen with boat nets prepare for the flood season for themselves or fishermen employed by shipowners go to work, there is a saying that construction will start on the sixth day of the month. Therefore, no matter the poor family or the rich family, they should make "New Year's soup and rice" to worship their ancestors again on the fifth day of the first month or one day earlier, and at the same time, they should prepare some tables and drinks for their husbands, fathers and brothers who are about to start another year of hard work, which is called "New Year's wine".
After the winter solstice, fishing boats fishing hairtail will go to Nanyang, and fishermen will also leave home for the second half of the flood season. Therefore, on the Diaoyu Islands, fishermen's housewives regard cooking winter solstice soup rice as an important activity, and carefully prepare wine and dishes for their relatives who are about to go out for war. There is a cathode sun from winter solstice, and the newborn sun is not very strong. Everyone needs "help" and "drink wine to help the sun". There is also a farewell ceremony to wish them a safe and fruitful return after leaving home for Nanyang in winter solstice.
Third, the unusual customs in fishermen's diet.
Fishing islands, fishing ports, fishermen in the East China Sea, especially fishing boats at sea, or fishing boats on the voyage, the customs of fresh fish and even the daily eating customs all show many differences, which are unique customs formed in the specific environment of fishing islands in the East China Sea. These unusual customs are not only passed down from generation to generation, but also have strict constraints, which must be strictly observed by both the fishermen on the island and foreigners. Otherwise it will be considered disrespectful or unlucky.
1. Taboos for eating fish
You can't turn over when eating fish. Fishermen eat fish, except hairtail, eel and other fish, whether it is yellow croaker, pomfret, giant salamander, grouper, tiger fish, etc., generally only the inedible fish internal organs are removed, and the "whole fish" is kept, and several cuts are made in the middle of the fish to allow seasonings such as oil and sauce to penetrate into the fish. After cooking, the whole fish was served.
When eating fish, the host usually orders fish with chopsticks first, invites guests to taste the first chopsticks, and then the host and guests eat together, which is very hospitable and warm. However, after eating all the fish here, you can't turn over the fish with chopsticks. Not only the host can't fish, but also the guests can't fish. It is always the host who holds chopsticks in advance and inserts them from the fishbone of the used fish on the upper side, and then carefully pulls out the whole needle meat for the guests to eat as a demonstration, and then the guests will automatically eat the unused fish under the skeleton according to the master's method without turning over the fish. When eating fish, not only chopsticks can't turn the fish over, but also the mouth can't say "turn the fish over". The host always says, "Let's eat together!"