Dali Craft Flower Steamed Buns

Dali Craft Flower Steamed Buns

　　The main ingredients for making flower steamed buns are wheat flour, along with supplementary materials such as beans, dates, and pepper. The tools required are very common ones like scissors, combs, and kitchen knives. The techniques used include cutting, kneading, pinching, twisting, picking, pressing, rubbing, plucking, and pressing. In addition to being edible, southern Shanxi flower steamed buns also have strong ornamental value. They are a way for people to express their hopes and wishes.

　　　　During festivals, celebrations for the elderly’s birthdays, infants’ first month or first year, weddings, funerals, or ancestral worship, there is an old rural custom in the countryside of making flower steamed buns (also called dough flowers) as gifts or offerings.

　　　　Making dough flowers is also one form of “comparing skillfulness,” showcasing the dexterity and artistic imagination of simple and kind-hearted rural women. Every year during the Qingming Festival, when paying respects at the sacred ancestral site of the Chinese descendants, the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor, we can admire the exquisitely and diversely crafted dough flower art from various regions. These creations are elaborate and rich in meaning, expressing the deep and ancient sentiments of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor.

　　　　Dough flowers mainly use high-quality wheat flour as the primary ingredient. With the help of scissors, wooden combs, thimbles, fine bamboo tubes, lamp wicks, and more, skilled hands shape them into various floral decorations, which are then steamed over high heat. Before the steam from the freshly steamed flower buns dissipates, food coloring is applied to create vibrant, diverse shapes full of charm and liveliness.

　　　　The floral decorations on the flower buns mainly feature lifelike birds, insects, fish, butterflies, vegetables, fruits, monkeys offering peaches, and other elements of life, expressing reverence for ancestors, blessings for the elders, congratulations for newlyweds, and love and longing for a beautiful life. During the Dragon Boat Festival in May or when a baby reaches its first month, the maternal uncle’s family often gives the newborn nephew a specially made large round dough flower called “qu lian,” which is sculpted with images of fish, dragons, lotuses, and the like. Fish symbolize a bountiful harvest and surplus of good fortune; dragons represent smooth luck and rapid advancement; and lotuses signify blooming happiness and joyous occasions.

　　　　The content of flower buns commonly symbolizes good fortune and peace, embodying people’s profound and beautiful emotions. They reflect and express specific ethnic psychology and character.