You may think Miao/Hmong people are wealthy as wearing splendid silver jewelry, but in reality, most Miao/Hmong living in mountains with poor transportation and far away from commercial cities, most Miao live in simple lifestyle.

Miao/Hmong food is quite simple even during holidays and weddings. The main food is rice. Other foods are yams, millet, corn, wheat, buckwheat, and sorghum. All of them are cooked in a bamboo steamer. The Miao like hot pepper and all their food is spicy. They also like sour flavor. Vegetables are their main dish. However, they do have a few interesting delicacies. Food displayed on their table is different from any other Chinese food.

Oil- Tea

If you go to Miao/Hmong village, you may feel shocked when the host serves you bowls after bowls of delicious oil-tea. You may feel forced to drink them all. Oil-tea is made of ginger, salt, and of course, oil. All of these ingredients are fried and mixed before put into a pot to boil with water. After the water is boiled, beans, peanuts, corn, glutinous rice, spring onions, garlic, and peppers are added. It is rich and tasty served in bowls with chopsticks. When you don’t want to drink any more, just put your chopsticks into the bowl and that signals you don’t want any more.

Sour Soup

Miao people have a saying that one can’t walk if he /she doesn’t eat sour food for 3 days. Sour food is so popular that almost every Miao family has a jar to contain a sour soup with different vegetables. The vegetables can be leeks, carrots, radishes and cucumber. These vegetables are cut into pieces and mixed together with glutinous rice flour, salty water and pepper. Put all these into a jar and the soup will be ready in about 10 days. Miao people like to cook sour food together with meat, chicken or fish.

Rice Wine

Like most Chinese liquor, Miao wine is made of rice. Wine toasting combined with singing and dancing are Miao’s special ways to welcome guests. For important guests, wine toasting start from the village gate all the way to their homes, usually 12 bowls along the way. The guests need to drink all these bowls of wine before arriving. If the guests can’t finish, they’ll be challenged and laughed at by the Miao people.

Miao/Hmong cuisine is rich and unique which reflect their history and interesting culture. In fact, Miao cuisine inspires the designs of Miao jewelry as well.

by Xiao Xiao @ InteractChina.com

About Interact China

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A Social Enterprise in E-commerce Promoting Oriental Aesthetic Worldwide"

Aileen & Norman co-founded Interact China in 2004 with specialization in fine Oriental Aesthetic products handmade by ethnic minorities & Han Chinese. Having direct partnerships with artisans, designers, craft masters and tailors, along with 10 years solid experience in e-commerce via InteractChina.com, we position well to bridge talented artisans in the East with the rest of the world, and bring you direct finely selected products that are of good quality and aesthetic taste.

So far we carry 3000+ goods covering Ladies Fashion, Kungfu Clothing, Home Furnishings, Babies & Kids, Painting Arts, Textile Arts, Carving Arts, Tribal Jewelry Art, Wall Masks and Musical Instruments. Our team speak English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, and serve customers worldwide with passion and hearts.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. We Need People with Similar Passion to Join Our Blogging Team!

If you have passion to write about Oriental Aesthetic in Fashion, Home Decor, Art & Crafts, Culture, Music, Books, and Charity, please contact us at bloggers@interactchina.com, we would love to hear from you!