Zhangjiajie's Big Bowl of Rice
"Man is iron, rice is steel, skip one meal and you'll starve!" "A tiger is fierce when it roars three times, a man is fierce with three bowls of rice." In Zhangjiajie, those who can't eat three big bowls of rice are often looked down upon. With remote fields and long mountain roads, how can you have strength to climb mountains and wade streams without eating several big bowls of rice? How can you tend crops? How can you raft and pole boats? For these three big bowls of rice, Zhangjiajie people...
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
"Man is iron, rice is steel; miss one meal and you'll feel hungry and weak!"
"A tiger is fierce with three roars; a person is strong with three big bowls of rice."
In Zhangjiajie, people who can't eat three big bowls of rice are often looked down upon.
The fields are remote, with many mountains and long roads. If you can't eat several big bowls of rice, how can you have the strength to climb mountains and wade through streams? How can you have the strength to tend the crops? How can you have the strength to raft and pole a boat?
For these three big bowls of rice, the people of Zhangjiajie struggle every moment and work every moment. What they think of is the three big bowls, what they do is for the three big bowls, and what they leave to their descendants is still the three big bowls. Among the three big bowls, the most beloved is the "big bowl of rice." The rice is produced in their own fields. Although they plant only one season a year and harvest only a few hundred kilograms per season, people have a special affection for the rice paddies that produce the big bowl of rice. That field is at the top of the ridge, thin and barren, where you can touch the sky above and see the valley floor below; with water there is a bumper harvest, without water there is total crop failure. But once planted with seedlings, there is hope, there is expectation, there is the life-saving big bowl of rice. The field must be plowed three times, the ridge plastered three times, fertilizer applied three times, water let in three times, and at midnight during the thunderstorm season one must rush to the "Thunder God Field." When torrential rain falls, one must never let the water run down the mountain, never let the cracked soil crack further; torches tied to ox horns, men and women turning out in full force, people and oxen circling in the field, enduring bitter hardship for a common goal.
There are many kinds of big bowl rice, and the delicious ones include: wheat rice, sweet potato rice, potato rice, mung bean rice, sorghum rice, rice, broad bean rice, corn rice, buckwheat rice... In hard times they ate: fern root rice, palm rice, radish rice, cabbage rice, kudzu root rice... The hardest to eat included: mugwort cake rice, palm cake rice, wild loquat rice, banana root rice... These "rices" used wild grasses, flowers, and fruits as the main ingredients, cooked into dishes with local characteristics. Among the big bowl rices, the most famous is called "Zhangjiajie porridge." "Zhangjiajie porridge" served as the staple food of poor families in the past; those who could not afford dry rice could only drink porridge. At the time there was a poem "On Cooking Porridge": "How is cooking rice better than cooking porridge? It's good to discuss with your children. One sheng can be used as three sheng, two days can serve as six days' grain. When guests come, just add water and fire; with no money, no need to ask about soup. Do not say it is bland and lacks flavor; within blandness the flavor is long." The big bowl of porridge was a kind of helplessness toward poverty. In childhood, facing the embarrassment of having no rice to cook, Mother would make porridge in various ways to fill our siblings' stomachs. We did not want to eat it, and Mother often taught us, "Eat more radish greens, and no illness will harm you," and humorously added: "When drinking thin porridge, stir it; when walking slippery roads, run"—making us laugh out loud. Later, in years of disaster, we could not even drink the big bowl of porridge, and Mother would always say with a faint sadness: "If only we had a big bowl of rice to eat, how happy we would be!"
People's longing for and pursuit of grain grew ever more urgent, and they attached great importance to the production, harvesting, storage, and keeping of grain, paying meticulous attention to every stage. When sowing rice seeds, they held the "Seed-Sowing Festival." Every household took out the seeds from the stilted houses, soaked them in water, and once the sprouts appeared, went out to sow. With a wave of the hand, the seeds scattered down like a line of poetry; with a sweep of the hand, the seeds scattered down like a wisp of spring breeze; with a spread of the hand, the seeds scattered down like a rainbow. Every household would bring out pig's head meat for a sacrifice. When transplanting rice seedlings, they held the "Seedling-Planting Wine" feast, with generous meat and drink to reward the planters, and blew the "seedling-planting suona" as the planters reveled in the fields, flinging mud at one another. Their bodies, hands, backs, faces, waists, legs, heads, ears, necks, noses, mouths... all were smeared with mud. It was said that the more mud one was covered in, the more everyone liked it. Mud represented bowl after bowl of rice; mud represented pile after pile of grain.
The custom of "mud-caking the granary" let the villagers feel the excitement and pride of producing grain. When harvesting rice, they held the "New-Taste Wine" feast. The host first went into the field to cut the first clump of rice, personally chewed and crunched the first grain of new rice, and shouted to the crowd: "My field—is the grain plentiful?" The crowd shouted back: "Plentiful—!" Then he roared: "My grain—is it sweet?" The crowd shouted: "Sweet—!" Then he roared again: "My grain—will it prosper?" The crowd laughed and shouted: "Prosper! Prosper! Prosper like a sow birthing a litter!" And so everyone got to eat big bowls of freshly harvested rice. Pile after pile of grain was stacked in the granary, pile after pile of grain was stored in the granary, and the scent of grain filled every village.
Because we had the means for big bowls of rice, because we had the temptation of big bowls of rice, from childhood we savored the joy that big bowls of rice brought, and we paid no attention at all to our table manners. When we boarded at school, the moment the cafeteria bell rang, we ran desperately to the cafeteria, and with a "bang" we'd tumble head over heels, our rice bowls dented out of shape. Afraid that someone would take away the big bowl of corn rice we had steamed, we often deliberately refused to line up, pushing with all our might until our whole bodies were covered in oil and rice. Holding our bowls, we were like a litter of piglets scrambling for food, our greedy looks astonishing to behold: we ate in big mouthfuls, we chewed in big mouthfuls, we swallowed in big mouthfuls—sitting, standing, squatting, lying, leaning... No sooner finished than we'd flop onto the desk for a nap. The teachers loved to mock our unrefined eating habits, often taunting us with doggerel: "Man is iron, rice is steel, eat it and you'll still be half-dead!"
Zhangjiajie big-bowl rice, as the staple food for the three daily meals of all ethnic groups in Xiangxi, has constantly updated its varieties as living conditions improved. For families of modest means, eating big-bowl rice was "filling the belly," staving off hunger, with no fuss about the staple—coarse or fine, all could be eaten. For families with better living conditions, eating big-bowl rice was "feasting" or "gourmet dining," with color, aroma, and taste all complete, even particular about fine vessels and fine dining. The staple grain was refined, the rice had to be top-grade, and mung beans and the like were cooked in to enhance nutrition and texture—transforming from mere sustenance into "culture." Zhangjiajie big-bowl rice has sustained generation after generation of honest, simple folk in northwestern Hunan, and sustained village after village of curling cooking smoke in northwestern Hunan.
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