[Festival Family Banquet: Harmonious Reunion] Pearl Taro Meatballs

Overview

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional folk festival in our country. Eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival is a long-standing custom, but people in different places have different meanings in eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In ancient times, the Mid-Autumn Festival was an important festival for farmers. In northern rural areas, rice and millet are harvested only once a year in autumn. When the autumn harvest season comes, looking at the harvest of a year of hard work, I think that the god of the land and my ancestors are secretly blessing me. Moreover, August 15th is the birthday of the Earth God, so we should make it more lively. When worshiping the god on August 15th, one of the tributes is taro. Boil the whole taro and put it on a plate, or put the rice noodle taro (rice noodle soup made with taro) in a big bowl and put it on the table to offer thanks to the earth god. Nowadays, this kind of ceremony to thank the gods no longer exists, but the custom of eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival has remained. Southerners use taro when worshiping the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is said to commemorate the historical story of the Han people killing the Tatars (referring to the Tatars, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty) at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. When the Han people revolted and overthrew the tyrannical rule of the Mongols in the Yuan Dynasty, it was on the night of August 15th. After the Han people killed the Tatars in the uprising, they sacrificed their heads to the moon. Later, it was of course impossible to use human heads to worship the moon every Mid-Autumn Festival, so taro was used instead. To this day, in some places, peeling taro skin when eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival is called peeling ghost skin. Eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival means to ward off evil spirits and eliminate disasters, and it also means not believing in evil spirits. "Chaozhou Fu Zhi" written by Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty said: During the Mid-Autumn Festival, when playing with the moon, peeling taro and eating it is called peeling ghost skin. Peeling ghosts and eating them is like Zhong Kui's spirit of exorcising ghosts, which is respectable. I remember reading an article before that taro means "harmony and reunion". A family gathering together to eat taro means that the family can be reunited in harmony.

Tags

• hot dishes
• home cooking
• glutinous rice
• minced pork
• starch
• sugar
• taro
• salt

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 Wash and soak the glutinous rice in advance.

   

2. 2 Steamed taro.

   

3. 3 Roll the taro into taro paste.

   

4. 4 Take out the taro paste and mix it with a little sugar.

   

5. 5 Knead the sweetened taro puree into taro balls.

   

6. 6 Marinate the pork with seasonings and stir until gelatinous.

   

7. 7 Wrap taro balls with minced meat.

   

8. 8 The meatballs are wrapped in a layer of glutinous rice.

   

9. 9 The prepared meatballs are neatly stacked on the steaming plate.

   

10. 10 Steam the prepared meatballs for about fifteen minutes.

    

11. 11 Decorate after serving.

    

12. 12 Cut the meatballs open to see the sweet taro paste inside.