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.