Salty Tea Drinking of Yugur Ethnic Group
“The tea with no salt is like water”
As other animal husbandry nationalities, the catering life of the Yuku people cannot leave meats, milk and tea. Especially the milk tea, they almost drink milk tea every day and on each meal, and gradually form the habit and addiction. Especially the old people, for the addiction of tea, they will feel headache or nod, and even have a runny nose or shed tears if they do not eat on any day, just like developing serious diseases.
The cooking methods of Yuku milk tea are, firstly cook the brick tea pieces with appropriate volume of caoguo, ginger slices in the water. When the tea becomes thick, put into fresh milk and salt, use scoop to repeatedly stir and mix the tea with the milk, and it is done. When drinking it, firstly put into parched flour, butter and qula (grain-shape milk products), and then fill with cooked milk tea. According to traditional habits, generally the Yuku people do not drink bland milk tea or sweet milk tea, but only drink salty tea. They believe that “the tea with no salt is like water”, so, salt is the indispensable companion of the milk tea.
Besides milk tea, “minced-meat sausage”, “zhiguogan” and hand grabbing mutton are the favorite traditional national local foods of the Yuku people. The making methods of minced-meat sausages: to mince the mutton of sheep’s neck and tenderloin, mix them with flour, onion, chives and other condiments, and then fill them into the sheep’s large intestines, and boil them and get them done. The making methods of zhiguogan: to mince the sheep’s liver, lung and other internal organs, mix them with flour, onion, ginger, garlic, salt and other condiments, use tripe oil to roll them into meat rolls that are in the length of about 30 centimeters and the width of 4 or 5 centimeters, boil them ripe and it can be eaten. The minced-meat sausage and zhiguogan have unique local flavor, people never feel tired of eating them, and they are the delicacies of the Yuku people to entertain guests.
