Old cooking ways offer taste of New Year spirit

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.