Old cooking ways offer taste of New Year spirit

HANGZHOU－Fan Chenhai, 69, stood under the eaves of a courtyard spinning the handle of a stone mill as light yellow rice milk trickled into a big wooden barrel beneath.

It was a typical day in the 12th month of the lunar calendar. Fan, a villager in Shuangxikou, a small mountain village in Zhejiang province, rose quite early.

He and his neighbors planned to make a typical local delicacy－rice cake－a normal preparation for the upcoming Spring Festival.

A special plant growing on the mountain was picked to offer a unique scent to the rice cake. Fan burned the plant using lit soybean stalks and poured the ashes into the water, boiling and filtering the mixture before combining it with the rice milk.

"Grinding requires skill," Fan said. "You must grind steadily in a fixed direction so that the rice milk will not flow backward."

Decades ago, rice cake was a special treat only had during Lunar New Year, as the locals barely had the time or rice to make the delicacy.

However, with increased income and more spare time due to the government's rural revitalization efforts, the once almost lost custom has returned.

After grinding the rice, neighbors gathered in Fan's home to help out with the next step of the process.

According to local custom, burning three sticks of incense before steaming rice cakes is a salute to the kitchen god, who is in charge of the stove of the human world in Chinese mythology. As the incense burned, Fan and his neighbors prayed for a promising new year. "It's also called 'the cake of a thousand layers'. While there will not be 1,000－dozens of layers will be baked," Fan said.

A full spoon of rice milk is poured evenly onto the layer underneath after the latter is steamed to a firm texture. The operation is repeated again and again. "It takes time and patience," Fan said.

The Spring Festival atmosphere became thicker as the steam filled Fan's kitchen and rose from the chimney.

Walks of life

While Fan steamed the rice cakes, two other families in the village were also busy preparing something special.

Ding Baoxiang, 85, lives in an ancient house made with clay tiles and walls, carved wooden windows and a square courtyard. Every Lunar New Year, people gather at his house to make steamed buns.

His steamed buns are even famed in surrounding villages for being soft and sweet. He said the secret lies in using special fermented water.

When the buns are finished, each one must be stamped with a red plum blossom. Red is believed to bring good fortune and wealth during the festival.

Brine Tofu is another must-have on the Spring Festival dining tables of the villagers. After grinding soybeans, Cai Chunying poured the soybean milk into a large pot and boiled it.

After boiling, stirring, adding brine, pouring the soybean curd into a prepared lint-free muslin cloth, twisting and squeezing, the soybean milk transformed into tofu.

"Three, two, one," Cai and her fellow helpers chanted as they turned the tofu bag over.

She said making tofu is both laborious and exciting, and brings a sense of ceremony that was disappearing, even in a remote village.

When the dishes were made and served, villagers sang and danced joyously and put on performances with local features. Men and women, adults and children all participated.

They were mimicking the "36 walks of life" in old times, such as harvesting lotus nuts, as well as folklore.

Bamboo flutes, a local musical instrument, were played and folk songs sung on an ancient wooden lounge bridge above a stream. The bridge has been sheltering villagers from rain and accompanied them for hundreds of years as a public space to rest and talk.

The New Year atmosphere will continue into the first lunar month.