The Tujia people practise a strange marriage custom. The brides are expected to cry before their wedding day. In the olden days, crying was expected to take place from up till 6 months before the wedding. Tujia families even employ matchmakers to teach their daughters to cry with gusto!
Why? I asked MH.
It is better to cry BEFORE the marriage than AFTER the marriage, he said. Oh ... so it was believed that one had to cry to ensure a happy and lasting marriage.
According to MH, this custom is still widely practised among the Tujia people of today, but of course, for a much shorter period of time. The girls are only expected to cry for a day or two before their wedding day. Interesting, eh?
Along the road right up to the Maozedong Bronze Statue Square were so many Tujia restaurants, big and small. The Tujia people enjoy sour and spicy food, pickled and cured food. Rice and corn are their staple.
The restaurant that we ate in was tiny and narrow, and it could only fit 4 round tables. The name of the restaurant was 乡里味土家菜馆. That roughly translates to English as a restaurant that serves village-style Tujia cuisine.
We sat down .... and fanned ourselves fervently .... phew .... we were all hot and sticky from being under the scorching sun. Then, food was served. The first thing which came to the table was ...
Pickled chopped chillies
This brings to the table 2 significant flavours of the Tujia cuisine - sour and spicy. But by Malaysian standards, this level of spiciness was tolerable. "Not spicy," we agreed unanimously.
The next dish was a must-have at Shaoshan.
Mao's Red Braised Pork
This is Chairman Mao's favourite dish, his "brain" food. Lol.
The pork belly meat was cut into thick chunks and stewed in a concoction of chillies, soy sauce and sugar. It's locally known as Red Braised Pork. At this particular restaurant, we were served chunks of pork belly as well as lean meat. However, you would be able to see that the dish was rather oily ... the meat was shimmering with oil and a layer of oil could be seen on the surface of the bowl. The lean meat was firm yet tender, but I would personally prefer if it were sweeter in taste.
A chunk of braised pork belly on my rice .... so fatty that I did not dare eat it. Connoiseurs would think that tihs was the best part of the pork as the layer of fat would just melt in the mouth ....
The rest of the items for lunch ....
Fish in Spicy Sauce
This was fresh-water fish, deep-fried and then cooked in a spicy fermented soy sauce. I quite liked it. Note a layer of chilli oil on the surface ....
Stir-fried preserved radish with cured meat
The cured meat tasted like smoky bacon .... but what I liked was the crunchy and salty radish which was very appetising with rice.
Fluffy egg omelette
Stir-fried angled gourd
Kelp and pork bone soup
Watermelon, courtesy of MH
Well, the watermelon was ripe, juicy, crunchy and sweet. Very nice indeed.
Inside the restaurant .....
A photo of Chaiman Mao takes the centrestage ....
More Chairman Mao memorabilia
So much for a Tujia meal .... some of the flavours were familiar to us though. Anyway, there was too much food for only the few of us .... we were stuffed full. Then it was time to move on to the next destination, Yiyang.
I quite enjoyed the braised meat. By the way, have you tried stinky tofu. The ones in Hunan is black in colour. Very pungent and flavourful.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you did, but I just found it much too fatty. I was actually scared to eat it. It's really not healthy. Yes, I did try the stinky tofu. Post coming up way at the end. Wait with patience, ok. :P
ReplyDeletewah looks nice! so much fatty food..haha
ReplyDeleteindeed! So scary ya?
ReplyDelete