Yao people take rice and corn as staple food, supplemented by sweet potato, taro, wheat, millet, sorghum, cassava and other miscellaneous grains. Vegetables include white gourd, pumpkin, water melon, radish, cabbage, mustard, pepper, eggplant, beans, amaranth, eyebrow beans and so on. Sometimes, wild Chinese holly, wild fern, fungus, fragrant letter and bamboo shoots are collected for cooking. The source of meat mainly depends on raising chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep, cattle and other livestock. Yao men like to hunt, and in the slack season, they go up the mountain to hunt wild game such as yellow pheasant, mountain pig, pheasant and hare as a supplement to meat. In terms of diet, besides having the same habits as the Han nationality, there are also their own unique foods.

Kang pork

is also called roast meat, which is the most common dish in Yao family. On the eve of the Spring Festival, pigs and cows are slaughtered, and every family makes roast meat. In addition to pork, it also uses beef, yellow meat and goat meat. Production method: cut the meat into long strips, marinate it with raw salt for 2-3 days, wash it with warm water, then string one end with bamboo sticks or vines, hang it in the oven cavity where the charcoal left after cooking is heated, cover the iron pan upside down on the oven, bake it for 7-1 nights, the barbecue becomes dry, then wrap it up, and hang it in the smoke shed above the stove pond for smoking, also known as bacon. The meat quality remains unchanged for many years.

Pork red sausage

Pig blood, vermicelli, salt and chopped green onion are used. Production method: Stir fresh pig blood, infiltrate a little rice slurry, mix with salt, chopped green onion and herbs unique to Yaoshan, and then pour into the pork sausage, tie the head and tail with a string every one foot long, and put it in a pot and cook it with slow fire. It is smooth but not greasy and has a unique flavor.

fragrant japonica barbecue rice

fragrant japonica rice is a specialty of Yaoshan, which is soft and mellow for cooking. Ingredients: fragrant japonica rice, garlic sprout, salt, soy sauce, etc. Production method: first cut the roast meat into diced meat, add some ingredients such as garlic sprouts, stir-fry until half-cooked, and shovel it for use. When the fragrant japonica rice is cooked until the water is dry and the steam rises, pour the ingredients on the rice noodles and mix well after 1 minutes. The rice smells delicious.

bamboo rice

lunch for the Yao family when they are farming or logging in the wild. Ingredients: rice, pickles, barbecue, etc. Production: Cut the newly cut bamboo into bamboo tubes with one end left as the bottom, wash them with water, then put the fully soaked rice and pickled vegetables into the bamboo tubes, separate them with bamboo leaves or leaves, seal them with wet mud, put them into an open fire to cook the rice until it is cooked, take out the bamboo tubes, and split them, so that the rice is soft and fragrant, with a slight fragrance of bamboo.