Delicacies
Flowery flour buns (Huamo)
By Jiang Yilingzi (Chinaculture.org)
Updated: 2011-05-11 11:20
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Skylark huamo
Cut out a small piece of dough and rub it several times. First, make the body of a bird. Then rub a small piece of dough into short noodles, press them flat, paste them on the back of the bird and make the wing of the bird with a comb. The last step is making the beak. Then a singing skylark is done. The average time a woman takes to make the dough sculptures is four minutes for the skylark.
Custom
In China, huamo was related to the customs of funeral and sacrificial rites. Nowadays, when paying respects for the dead on Tomb-Sweeping Day (the Qingming Festival), people still keep the ancient customs of watering the graveyard and offering huamo as sacrifices to ancestors. Also, people use huamo to pray for safety and luck in the next year and express their wish of happy life.
In addition, huamo is used as a gift. In the home of a person who just got married, huamo are sent by his relatives as a congratulatory gift. The huamo with a picture of dragons and phoenixes was called long feng cheng xiang (dragons and phoenixes show prosperity). The huamo in the shape of a chain of locks expresses the hope that the newly married couple will live to an old age happily.
According to folk custom, when returning to her parents’ home, a married woman must bring half a basket of huamo with her. The ring-shaped huamo presented to her parents and other elders expresses the wish that the elders should have a long life as the ring goes round without the end. The huamo are decorated with a bat and a deer as a symbol for the hope that the couple can spend their remaining years in happiness.
Huamo shaped like a rabbit and tiger are given to children to show the wish that a boy should be as strong as tiger and a girl as lovely and clever as a white rabbit. Huamo in the shape of birds is used to show that children will be good at singing and dancing like birds.
