Dai family banquet
Most Dai people have the habit of eclipsing two meals, taking rice and glutinous rice as their staple food. Dehong Dai's staple food is japonica rice, while Xishuangbanna Dai's staple food is glutinous rice. Usually, it is eaten immediately. People believe that japonica rice and glutinous rice will not lose their original color and fragrance until they are eaten immediately, so they do not eat overnight rice or rarely eat it, and they are used to pinching rice with their hands.
Migrant workers often have meals in the wild, and they can eat with banana leaves or rice, along with salt, chili pepper, sour meat, roast chicken, Nanmi (which means sauce in Dai language) and moss pine. All dishes and snacks are mainly sour, such as sour bamboo shoots, sour pea powder, sour meat and wild sour fruit; I like to eat dried sauerkraut, and its preparation method is to dry the vegetables, then boil them in water, add papaya juice to make the taste sour, and then dry them and store them. When eating, put a little cooking or put it in soup. This kind of sauerkraut is eaten almost every day by Dai people in some places. It is said that the reason why Dai people often eat sour dishes is because they often eat sticky rice food that is not easy to digest, and sour food helps digestion.
It is a unique flavor dish of Dai people to eat with moss. The moss eaten by the Dai people is the moss on the rocks in the river in spring, preferably dark green. After fishing, it is torn into thin slices, dried in the sun and put on with bamboo sticks for later use. When cooking, the thick ones are fried in oil, and the thin ones are roasted with fire. After being crispy, they are crushed into a bowl, then the boiling oil is poured, and then the salt is added to stir, and the glutinous rice balls or bacon are dipped in food, which is delicious.
Cooking fish, mostly made of sour fish or grilled citronella fish, in addition to making fish chop naan (that is, baked fish and mashed with coriander and other seasonings), fish jelly, roasted fish, white sauce eel and so on.
When eating crabs, they are usually chopped into crab sauce with shell and meat for rice. The Dai people call this crab sauce "Crab Nanmibu".
Bitter gourd is a daily vegetable with the highest yield and the most consumption. In addition to bitter gourd, there is also a kind of bitter bamboo shoots in Xishuangbanna, so there is also a bitter flavor in the Dai flavor. A representative bitter dish is a mixed dish of beef skin and cold dishes cooked with ingredients such as beef bile.
Religious food customs
Dai people generally believe in Buddhism spreading from the south to the upper seat, and many festivals are related to Buddhist activities. During the Bath Buddha Festival (Water-splashing Festival), besides wine and vegetables, there are also many snacks with Dai flavor.
There are also crispy rice made from fried glutinous rice mud. The more important festivals are Summer Festival (September 15 in Dai calendar) and Summer Festival (February/0/5 in Dai calendar 15 in Dai calendar), all of which are Buddhist festivals spread to the south. The Dai people in Xinping, Yuanjiang, Jinggu and Jinping celebrate the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, etc., and their contents and activities are generally the same as those of the local Han people. Typical foods include dog meat soup pot, dried pork, salted eggs and dried eel.
Festive food customs
In Dai society, every family has to help in building a house. When a new house is completed, it is necessary to congratulate the new house. The young man goes upstairs first, carrying the bull's head and singing blessing song. The mature man carries the box, and the married woman holds the bedding. The girls carry the food in turn. Then they set up a tripod on the fireplace, put it on the tables, buy wine and prepare dishes, and sing the song of congratulating the new house. The villagers also send some auspicious gifts to their owners.
"Catch the yellow chicken" is a way for young men and women in Xishuangbanna to seek love by eating rumors, that is, the girl takes the braised chicken to the market for sale. If the buyer is the girl's lover, the girl will take the initiative to take out the stool and let him sit next to him. Through conversation, if the two sides are in love, the two will hold the chicken and carry the stool to the Woods to pour out their feelings; If the buyer is not the girl's lover, the girl will double the asking price; Another example is "drinking a little wine". When a man and a woman are engaged, the man picks up dining tables and goes to the woman's house for a treat. When the guests disperse, the man is accompanied by three male companions and the woman and her three female companions, and a table is set. "Eating a little wine" means eating three dishes: the first one is hot; The second way is more salt; The third course should have sweets. It means hot, deep and sweet.
On the wedding day, weddings will be held at both parties' homes, mostly at the women's home first. At the wedding reception, the table should be covered with green banana leaves, and the dishes include blood flourishing (white flourishing) symbolizing good luck, rice cakes and various dishes. Before the banquet, the bride and groom should do a tying ceremony, that is, the wedding ceremony uses a white thread to bypass the shoulders of both sides, and two white threads are tied to the wrists of the bride and groom respectively, symbolizing purity. Then, the elderly people pinch the glutinous rice into a triangle and dip it in salt, and put it on the vertex of a tripod on a fireplace, letting it fall off naturally after burning, symbolizing that love is as solid as iron. The bride in Daping Township of Yuanjiang should sit on the bench with the groom after going through the door, eat glutinous rice mixed with four eggs and drink two glasses of wine; Dai brides by the Yuanjiang River pass through the door, and the man gives each farewell party 4 pieces of meat, 4 ribs, 4 meatballs and 4 pieces of crispy meat before eating dinner.
Sacrificial food custom
Dai people also worship the social gods in their villages. Dai people call it "going to Raman" or "Piman", which is a protector. They worship twice a year. Before planting seedlings, they pray for a bumper harvest, and after the autumn harvest, they give thanks. They collectively kill a cow or a pig, and each family prepares tributes and sends them to the room where they worship the social gods. After reading the sacrificial words, everyone will eat. New members of the club should offer chicken, wine and bacon strips to the social gods.
In Menghai and other places, the custom of slaughtering cattle and eating cowhide by fish still remains. Western version of a tribal god, some sacrifices must be black cattle and white pigs. The Dai people in Yuanjiang and New Equal Land generally worship Dragon Tree and Dragon God. When the Dai people on Yuanjiang River sacrifice Dragon Tree in the third month of the lunar calendar every year, the whole village will kill the red bull, and before killing it, they will paint it with white ash and put red and green cloth on it. In the same month, pigs will be sacrificed to "Heaven and Earth" in order to protect the safety of livestock.
Among the Dai people, especially in some remote areas, there are still some taboos in cooking, such as: burning firewood from the roots first; Do not cross the fire pit; You can't just move the tripod on the fireplace and so on.
Sour meat
Traditional dishes of Dai nationality are made from beef after pickling and then frying. It is characterized by strong sour flavor and can help digestion. The method is to wash fresh beef with rice washing water, cut it into large pieces, put it into a pot, add fresh pepper leaves, salt and rice, mix well, put it into a crock, pour in white wine for compaction, cover it, seal the jar mouth with plant ash and mud, and marinate for one month. Cut the salted beef into shreds and stir-fry with green garlic sprouts.
Huoshao fish
Traditional home-cooked dishes of Dai nationality are characterized by softness, tenderness, sweetness and original flavor. The preparation method comprises removing gills and viscera from fresh fish, cleaning, mixing chopped green onion, Jiang Mo, minced garlic, minced green pepper, minced green Jiang Ye, minced coriander, minced wild pepper leaves, mint, minced fennel leaves, minced citronella leaves, powdered Amomum tsaoko, monosodium glutamate, salt and cooking wine to make stuffing, filling into fish belly, folding the head and tail, and tying with citronella.
Pickled cow head
Traditional home-cooked dishes of Dai nationality. Its preparation method is to remove hair and hoof shells from cow's head and feet, cut them into pieces and boil them, remove bones, cut them into strips, put them into a pot and soak them in rice washing water for 3-4 hours, then take them out and wash them with cold water, then put the wild pepper leaves, red pepper powder, ginger and garlic paste into a beef pot, add salt and white wine, mix well and taste, put them into a crock for compaction, cover and seal, and get the product after half a month. When eating, it can be steamed and fried. It is a cold dish with wine, crisp and sour, spicy and cool.
Suanjiao
Suanjiaoshu
In winter and spring, the sky is high and the clouds are light, and the wind is crisp. When you walk into the Dai village, it is easy to see a kind of fruit tree-Suanjiao, which is particularly popular among local people. Its tree is tall, its trunk is rough, its branches are sparse, and its branches are hung with strings of brown hooked pods. Suanjiao, also known as Suanjiou, Tamarind, Luohuangzi, Prunus mume (Hainan), "Muhan" (Dai language), Tianmukan and Tongxuetu, is a tropical and subtropical evergreen tree of Sumeriaceae, which only contains Suanjiao 1 species and has two types: sweet type and acid type. Suanjiao likes hot climate, with an average annual temperature of 18? C—24? C, areas with annual rainfall of 500-1200mm can grow normally.
Insect food
The Dai area is humid and hot, and there are many kinds of insects. It is an important part of Dai food to make various flavor dishes and snacks with insects as raw materials. Insects that are often eaten are cicadas, bamboo worms, Okumo, terrapin, ant eggs and so on.
Catching cicadas is in summer. Every evening, when the cicada community is in the grass, the cicada wings are soaked with dew and can't fly. Women quickly pick cicadas into bamboo baskets and bake them in a pot to make sauce. Cicada sauce has the medical functions of clearing away heat and toxic materials, relieving pain and swelling.
Dai people generally like to eat ant eggs, and they often eat a kind of yellow ant that nests in trees. When taking ant eggs, the ants are driven away first, and then the eggs are taken. Ant eggs vary in size, some are as big as mung beans, and some are as small as rice grains. They are white and bright, washed and dried, and fried with eggs. They are delicious and can be eaten raw or cooked. When eaten raw, they are made into sauce, and when cooked, they are fried with eggs. Commonly used sour fruits and bitter melons.
Special drink
Dai people are addicted to alcohol, but the degree of alcohol is not high. It is brewed by themselves and tastes sweet. Tea is a local specialty, but Dai people only drink big leaf tea without spices. When drinking, only stir-fry it on the fire until it is burnt, and drink it slightly after brewing. Chewing betel nut, mixing with tobacco and lime, all day long. Because of long-term chewing, the lips and teeth are black, and the mouth fluid is like blood, which makes people think it is beautiful. Pottery-burning industry is relatively developed, and most of the eating utensils are fired by women.