Tujia Community Rice

Tujia Community Rice

　　Community rice has existed since ancient times and is a food used by China’s Tujia, Miao, Dong, and other ethnic minority groups in rituals to worship the gods of earth and grain. Eating community rice is mainly done on the Community Day (i.e., the fifth Wu day after the beginning of spring), commonly referred to by folk as “passing the community” or “stopping the community.” The Wu day is associated with earth, making it a day to worship the Earth God, where people pray for a smooth year, abundant harvests, family harmony, and peace.

　　The Tujia people place great importance on “passing the community,” with every household eagerly participating. During this time, it is customary to make fragrant community rice. Poems such as Tang Dynasty’s “Community Day” – “Below Goose Lake Mountain the rice crops grow fat, pigsties and chicken coops half-shut at the gate. Mulberry and tung shadows slant as the Spring Community disperses, every home supports a drunken soul homeward.” and Qing Dynasty’s “Tan Yang Bamboo Branch Song” – “After the fifth Wu day, spring days grow long, good wine for deafness is widely sold. When smoke rises from kitchens after the New Year, white rice and green mugwort fill the air with community rice’s song.” offer true depictions of the Tujia people’s “passing the community.”

　　The method for making community rice is as follows: gather fresh community mugwort (fragrant mugwort or green mugwort) from fields, streams, or hillsides, wash and chop it, squeeze out the bitter juice, dry it, then mix it with wild garlic (shallots), shepherd’s purse, cured bean curd, cured meat, and other ingredients along with glutinous rice (a portion of sticky rice can be added, but it must first be cooked until semi-cooked before mixing with the glutinous rice), and steam or braise the mixture. The resulting dish is delicious, aromatic, soft, and suitable for all ages.

　　The Tujia people not only make community rice for their own families to eat but also regard it as a fine gift for relatives and friends. Hence the folk saying, “Give away your own first, then enjoy others’ leftovers,” which fully reflects the Tujia people’s simple and amiable customs.

　　Since community mugwort (fragrant mugwort) has excellent medicinal properties—being bitter and cold in nature—it can treat and prevent various ailments such as injuries, swelling and pain, tuberculosis, malaria, dysentery, and hemorrhoids. Therefore, community rice is a common dish in the Tujia people’s traditional medicinal cuisine.