The staple food of Yao residents is mainly corn, rice, sweet potatoes, etc.
Daily dishes include soybeans, rice beans, pumpkins, peppers, poultry and livestock.
The Yao people of Jinxiu Dayao Mountain in Guangxi use "bird basins" to catch migratory birds and pickle them into vinegar, which is a delicacy for entertaining distinguished guests.
Some Yao people in northern Guangxi are popular in "oil tea", which is a soup made of tea leaves fried in oil, seasoned with ginger, pepper, and salt, and brewed with fried rice, fried beans, rice crackers, etc., which has a special flavor.
Yao people's houses include bamboo houses, wooden houses, thatched houses and a small number of houses with mud walls and tiles.
The house is usually a three-room house, with a hall in the middle, a stove or fire pit in the front of the two rooms, and bedrooms in the back. There are bathing sheds or pig and cattle pens in front and back of the house.
The Yao people are an ancient ethnic group, mainly distributed in the mountainous areas of several provinces in southern China. They are a relatively typical mountain ethnic group in southern China.
They mainly engage in farming, practice shifting cultivation, and also engage in hunting, fishing and gathering. The handicraft industry is relatively developed; the settlement area produces high-quality red rice and medicinal materials.
In the past, the Yao people often added corn, millet, sweet potato, cassava, taro, beans, etc. to their rice porridge or rice.
Sometimes "simmering" or "roasting" methods are also used to process foods, such as simmering sweet potatoes and other potatoes, simmering bitter bamboo shoots, roasting tender corn, roasting cakes, etc.
The Yao people who live in mountainous areas have the habit of eating cold food, and their food is made with ease of portability and storage in mind. Therefore, rice dumplings and bamboo tube rice, which are both staple and non-staple food, are their favorite foods.
When working, the Yao people all have picnics on the spot. Everyone gathers together and takes out the dishes they bring to eat together, but each eats the staple food they bring.
Commonly eaten vegetables include various melons, beans, green vegetables, radishes, peppers, as well as bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, fungus, bracken, toon, yellow flowers, etc.
The Yao area is also rich in various fruits.
Vegetables are often made into dried vegetables or pickled vegetables.
Some Yao people in Yunnan like to cook their vegetables very lightly, basically cooking them in plain water with salt.
Some are directly boiled in white water and then dipped in dipping water prepared with salt and chili pepper to maintain the original flavor of various vegetables; meat is also often processed into bacon.
The Yao people in Guangxi generally cook meat by dry-frying, boiling, seasoning with salt, and using less seasonings. The meat must be made into very rich-flavored dishes. Fresh meat or bacon must be fried and roasted until brown, and then cooked.
cook.
Yao people like to eat pickled food.
"Bird Sauce" is a famous food with unique flavor of the Yao people, which is made from pickled bird meat.
Remove the feathers of the captured bird, wash it, dry it, mix it with rice flour and salt, put it in a small earthen jar, seal the mouth of the jar with a banana leaf, and you can eat it after a few days.
Yao people often use "bird wine" to entertain distinguished guests.
Sometimes, this method is also used to marinate pigs, beef, mutton, etc.
The Yao people also like to eat insect pupae, and they often eat pine tree pupae, kudzu pupae, wild bee pupae, bee pupae, etc.
The Yao people also like to use the characteristics of the mountainous area to process and produce cane sugar, sweet potato sugar, bee sugar, etc.
Most Yao people like to drink. They usually make their own wine at home using rice, corn, sweet potatoes, etc., and often drink it 2 or 3 times a day.
The Yao people of Yunnan like to use fermented glutinous rice to make wine for drinking. When going out, they often use bamboo tubes to hold the water for drinking.
The Yao people also like to use cinnamon, mountain ginger and other fried tea, believing that this tea can refresh themselves and relieve fatigue.
Yao people in many areas like oil tea. They not only eat oil tea every day, but also entertain guests with oil tea.
During the Qingming Festival, every household will make rice with dyed flowers.
Banquets include "serving tea, bathing, and enjoying wine" known as the "Three Rituals of the Yao Family"; "bowls of wine and skewers of meat" for distinguished guests of the village;
"Dragon intestine mat" to catch the wind, etc.
In addition, there is also the method of "hanging red wine at the door" to mediate civil disputes, and the "fried beans and boiled eggs" method of expelling people by announcing the severance of relations.
Among them, many food customs are quite interesting, such as bringing a package of meat and two gourds of rice wine to a marriage proposal. If the woman agrees, she will collect the meat and if she does not agree, she will pierce the gourd. When choosing a son-in-law, there is often a practice of "burying eggs", and the girl will decide the choice depending on the changes;
When getting married, burnt soybeans are distributed to the neighbors; the divorce ceremony is "breaking the bamboo tube". The divorced parties each carry a tube of wine. After exchanging drinks, they cut the bamboo tube and part ways amicably.
The Yao people who worship Panhu abstain from dog meat and turtle meat; the Yao people who worship Miluotuo abstain from sow meat and eagle meat; most Yao people abstain from snake meat; mothers abstain from lard in the first few days after giving birth; it is taboo to worship gods.
Use dogs, cats, snakes, and frogs; after hunting the animals, you must first offer sacrifices to the mountain gods before eating them separately.
Historically, the Yao people generally did not marry with foreigners, and the custom of recruiting brides was relatively common. This backward rule no longer exists.
Young men and women are relatively free to fall in love before marriage. They take advantage of festivals, gatherings and leisure time visits to villages to find spouses through singing. If both parties agree, they give each other tokens, "each cooperates, not the parents"; parents' consent is also required, please
Marriage can only occur after the matchmaker agrees.
Because there are so many people during festivals, rice is generally not cooked in an iron tripod pot, but steamed in a wooden oven. This kind of rice has a stronger aroma.
Every holiday.
Yao people still make dada.
The festival dishes are mainly chicken, duck, fish, pork, tofu, vermicelli and various vegetables.
The Yao people in the Wuling Mountains like to make tofu balls (Holy Water Tofu Stuffed---the first of the Yao family's 18 brews) during festivals and make "pouchouzha (rice flour with meat)".
Panwang Festival is only held every few years.
In the past, during the Panwang Festival, a large number of livestock were slaughtered and sacrificed.
The spring festival is held every year, usually in the third month of the lunar calendar. At that time, young men will go up to the mountains to hunt and go down to the river to catch fish; women will make rice dumplings and steam five-color glutinous rice.
On New Year's Eve, Hua Lan Yao must first give a piece of meat and a ball of cake to the dog, which is called a dog sacrifice, and then the family can eat.