Nanzhao's 3 unique living customs and four major oddities

Three unique living customs in Nanzhao: These are living customs that even Nanyang people feel a headache when they first come into contact with, and foreigners cannot understand or swallow them.

Nanzhao's unique living custom 1:"Drinking herbal tea"(also known as lotus tea).

This kind of herbal tea is not a cold boiled water, but a food and drink that clears heat and detoxifies. According to the number of people, buy back 1-3 kilograms of pork ribs (ribs are the best), add about ten bowls of water to the pot, and then add green beans, lotus sprouts, reed roots, thatch roots, dandelion, rehmannia, cabbage, bamboo leaves and other Chinese herbal medicines that have been washed in advance. After heating to boil over high heat, stew the pork ribs and mung beans until they are done. People who love sweets can also add more rock sugar. Remove the Chinese herbal medicines and divide them. Many people in the county sell "herbal tea" additives such as reed root.

It can be boiled without ribs; it can be boiled with only a few Chinese herbal medicines without mung beans and lotus sprouts. The lotus greens used to make herbal tea are best "noodle lotus greens", but this kind of lotus greens is relatively rare and is not easy to distinguish. Nowadays, at Nanzhao people's wedding and funeral banquets, this herbal tea is also included as a big dish in the recipes, but generally only ribs, lotus sprouts, mung beans, and dandelion are available.

Nanzhao's unique living custom 2:"Drinking sweet broth".

Nanzhao people call "light" food without salt "sweet". Of course, those with sugar are also called sweet ones. There are two types of sweet broths.

One is made from a special cow (or sheep) broth restaurant on the street. Use a large pottery (jar) as a pot and make it into a very deep pot. Boil the cow (sheep) bones for a long time (it is unknown what ingredients are added), boil the meat until it is done, and skim off the floating foam and oil. Remove and cool the meat for easy slicing. Customers buy good meat as needed, and the owner adds hot soup to you. Someone bought another fire and ate it with high spirits. There are also some people who drink some "sweet soup" and then add some fine salt, chopped green onion, and chili noodles to the soup. This method is eaten as a meal. Especially in winter, more people drink it, which has the effect of nourishing and warming the stomach.

The other is to use a single old firewood hen or firewood duck and go to the pharmacy to buy several edible traditional Chinese medicines, such as angelica, cotton stilbene, yam, white beans, Cundong, jujube, etc.(usually about 50 grams of each), put them together and stew them for two or three hours. Eat meat and drink soup, remove angelica and cotton stilbene, and you can also eat the rest. This sweet broth has a much more comprehensive effect. Nourishing yin and tonifying kidney, lifting qi and promoting saliva. Looking forward to the winter solstice, almost every household will stew this broth. For those who are meticulous, they stew chicken, duck, beef, mutton, pork ribs, etc., even rabbits, pheasants, etc. in the "Five Tiger Soup".

When drinking this broth, most people skim off the oil on the surface. After eating, heat the rest to a boil and place it in the kitchen. It will not go bad if it is left for a few days.

Nanzhao's unique living custom three: "Gancier drinking".

The word "Ganci 'er" in Nanzhao dialect means drinking alcohol without preparing wine and vegetables. This kind of drinking method can only be drunk by three or five "right" friends after having dinner together, or by ordinary workers when they have nothing to do. This method is not used for formal banquets.

The owner takes out the wine bottle, pours tea, and hands over the cigarettes if there is any. It is all ready. Everyone guessed a punch and finished with their heart's content. Or a few people talking while drinking, which is also interesting. This is the "one center and two basic points" in the wine market: with wine as the center, there are two basic points: tobacco and tea. This kind of drinking method is absolutely impossible without basic skills.

In the past, Nanzhao people had two ways to entertain guests. One was a formal banquet. Eight plates were served at the top, four meats and four vegetables {four hot and four cold}, and then steamed buns were served. This was called "padding", which prevented guests from drinking on an empty stomach. The other is to entertain guests more casually. Eat first, then make four or eight dishes with wine after dinner, and put chopsticks back on the table to drink. In fact, this drinking method is scientific. Drinking alcohol without an empty stomach will damage the gastric mucosa. Unfortunately, now I have to follow the habit of other places and drink first.

There are four major weird things in Nanzhao's daily life: "Running outside with bowls when eating, pulling the quilt at both ends when sleeping, pulling out the pee pants tube, and squatting down when there is a bump." These four major monsters mainly existed before the 21st century. With the continuous improvement of people's living standards and changes in ideological concepts, these four major monsters have faded out in many places and groups of people.

No. 1 monster in Nanzhao: running away from home carrying bowls when eating.

This was a common phenomenon in rural areas at that time. When eating, a few households or more than a dozen neighboring households gather in one place (commonly known as the rice farm) with rice bowls. A few may have stones to sit on, while most of them squat against the roots of the walls and roots. Food markets are generally open areas that can be shaded in summer and warmed in winter. Some of them do not change in the seasons, and some of them change from winter to summer. In the past, people's labor intensity was high and their meals were large. Some people used large sea bowls or even small jars to hold a large bowl of grits soup (long sweet potatoes) and noodles at night), and put some leek flowers and radish cocoons on the side of the bowl. Then take a piece of gangzi steamed buns and pat them while eating, ranging from national affairs to local customs and customs. The happiness and emotion reflect the simplicity and kindness of the working people and their spiritual outlook that are not afraid of hardship.

The second monster in Nanzhao: The quilt is pulled at both ends when sleeping.

In the past, people were short of clothes and quilts, and even had not enough beds. Therefore, when sleeping, they adopted the method of sleeping in one quilt at both ends (called a couch in the dialect), which not only saved the quilt but also the bed, and in winter, they could rely on each other's body temperature to keep warm. If the weather is too cold and there are no more clothes and quilts to cover them, people will be so cold that they involuntarily pull the quilt towards them. This is "pulling at both ends". In poor families, not only do two people sleep in the same quilt, but many people even sleep in the same quilt.

The third monster in Nanzhao: Take out your pee pants.

There was no such Western-style trousers with open front that people wear now. They are all large crotch pants and wide trouser legs (so that the trousers will not be opened by bending down, crossing legs, etc. when working). Most people do not wear shorts, so when men urinate, they don't have to unbutton their trousers belt, and can do it by simply pulling the trouser legs up from below.

The fourth monster in Nanzhao: Don't sit down and squat down when there is a mound.

I don't know if this habit is due to the lack of stools in the past or a habit formed for convenience. Anyway, the whole of Henan people love to squat (the dialect is called "bone, bone clothing"). It takes a short time to squat in a rice field; when several people meet each other, they will burst into flowers in a secluded place. It's just that they don't have the conditions to sit. But sometimes I don't sit even when I have a stool, and I prefer bones there. I even saw miners in the canteen of the coal mine who ate on benches around the table.