Life style : Food and Diets of Mien

Food and Diets
      The food source: Miens get their food from various sources such as from their own agriculture and from nature such as the mountains and forests. The food sources of the Mien people are as shown below:

1.Food from them has grown.       Usually the Miens obtain their food from their agriculture, which forms the main source of their food, including rice and vegetables. They plant many varieties of crops in their farm. Some examples are rice, corn, cassava, sunflower, sesames, chilies, eggplant, tomato, gourd, pumpkins, beans, cabbage, garlic, taro, sweet potato, ginger, galangal, onion, cucumber etc.

2. Food obtained from nature.       Food can also be obtained from the forest. There are different kinds of food available from different seasons. The main kinds of food are mushrooms, bamboo shoots, rattan, banana flower, spinach etc. Nature also provides a source of proteins for the Miens in the form of meats from the boar, wild chicken, barking deer, birds, rabbit etc. The fishes, crab, shells, shrimp, turtle, vegetables, frog etc in the rivers and lakes are another source of food for the Miens. 3.Food obtained from their community.       Nowadays, every village has roads leading to them and has access to transportations, thus making it easier for the Miens to obtain foods for themselves. The villagers have business dealings with each other to buy or sell food. These food obtained from outside are easily accessible to their village, which consist of many kinds of seasonings such as sugar, fish sauce, shrimp paste, monosodium glutamate, salt, and other food like instant foods, vegetables and meats.

Preparation of food 1.Cook       Miens cook rice by pour the water from the boiled rice. The processes to cook rice, the rice grains are first placed into the pot and rinsed with water1-2 times and put on the stove for cooking. The rice is brought to boil and tested to see if it is cooked. When the rice is cooked, the water is then poured away and the pot is put back on the stove for the rice in the pot to dry.

2. To flavor the food.       Miens flavor their food by using the oil from lard to fry the vegetables, together with water and salt. Usually, Miens do not use knife to cut the vegetables, instead they use their hands to tear the vegetables into pieces. However there are exceptions such as eggplants, cucumber, and pumpkin, which are cut into filaments and then fry with lard. Mien principle to eat cooked food exception spicy minced meat salad. Miens’ food is generally salty. They do not use the chili paste like the locals but buy seasonings from the locals like salt, fish sauce, sugar and monosodium glutamate. Usually, Miens do not use fish sauce; they commonly use salt to give their food a salty taste.

Stove       Usually, Miens have 2 kinds of stoves - the Chinese earthen stove with a triangular stand ( it has three stones to support the pot) and a big stove to boil food for pigs or boil water for scalding the pig skin, for sick person to shower and for steaming sweetmeat. Moreover, they use this stove to boil alcohol. They have another stove to boil hot tea for the guests. Miens like to sit around the bonfire to exchange knowledge or experience with each other. Miens believe that there is a spirit living in the bonfire and will not pour water onto the bonfire nor turn their back to face the bonfire.

The pregnant women do not go close to the bonfire. Miens believe that the spirit from the bonfire will come to harm those who violate these rules by inflicting wounds, or by exploding etc.

The equipment used to prepare food.       1. Cooker (Change in Mien language) Now they use a crock bought from the market in the city. In the past they used the cooker that resembles a monk's alms bowl. Some households still use the cooker that does not have handles like that used in the past.       2. Pan (Chang Bean) for frying. Miens have a lot of pans.       3. Scoop. Miens do not like to use this tool. They often use a small paddle.       4. A ladle (Hang-Juey) they like to use  softwood to make a ladle like a paddle to mix rice when they cook because Miens cook rice by pouring water off from the boiled rice.       5. Chopsticks (Jeaw) Miens like to use chopsticks to eat. They are usually made from bamboo. They dye the chopsticks red because this color is considered auspicious and is often used in wedding ceremony. The other reason is to protect the chopsticks from fungus so that the chopsticks can last longer.

Food preservation.       Miens like to preserve meat so as to keep them longer, especially pork. They have many ways to preserve their food such as those below: Hang the meat under the kitchen roof above the stove. This allows the meat to be smoked from the cookings. This way the pork is kept longer. When they want to eat, they will just cut away the blackened layer from the smoked meat and cook. Ox-Sui, which is pickled pork. They chop the pork and cook it together with rice to make the meat tasty, and the cooked meat is preserved with salt and put into a jar to be sealed until when the meat is needed.   Or-Buan-Sui or pickled meat. They soak rice for around 2-3 hours and pound the rice, followed by mixing it together with pork and water. They keep this pickled meat in the jar and can be kept for a year. Ip-Or-Sui or meat fried to dry the lard and kept in a jar. Pickled bamboo (Bae-Sui) they pickle bamboo with salt. Pickled Chinese cabbage (Rai-Sui) they cut the Chinese cabbage into small pieces and soak them in some boiling milk-like water for around 4-5 days or until the vegetable turns sour. Pork skin or cracking (Or-Faw) Miens will fry the pork to get the lard, thence they get the cracking with out lard. They keep this together with lard or put some meat. They warm the cracking and meat when they want to eat or cook them with other food. Coarse rice       Miens eat coarse rice. They use a mortar to pound the rice and the mortar is important for the child spirit because they believe that the fetus between 3 to 9 months old will live in the mortar that they do not break the mortar.        Usually, Mien women will pound rice and prepare food for the family after they finished their housework. In some homes, they will pound the rice in the morning and this sound will wake everyone in their family up. The coarse rice is preferred because it is nutritious and tasty. The Mortar       There are 2 types of mortar. The first one requires manual pounding and is called Ta-Toi and other uses the energy generated by water and is called Oam-Toi. Miens do not pound rice at noon because the chickens will interfere. They will get rice bran from them pound for their pet. Nowadays, Miens usually take their rice to the rice mill because it is more convenient and less tiring since they do not have to pound the rice manually.

Food for people in different age groups. 1.Food for the women who are pregnant and women after giving birth.       They eat simple food like those that they eat every day including chicken, meat, egg, chilies and green vegetables but not wild animals and twin fruits. Miens give priority to the pregnant. The main course consists of rice and chicken with the herbs, and they do not eat eggplants, pumpkin, cucumber, gourd, banana flower, ripened banana, ripened papaya, cabbage, guava and fish.

2. Food for babies and children.       Food for the babies and children consist mainly of milk from their mothers. They will consume supplementary food when they are about 3-5 months old. The supplementary food for the baby are ground banana, boiled egg, soup, rice porridge with pork or chicken, rice with oil, water or sugar or salt, ground rice mixed with banana. Babies and children cannot eat tiger meat, wild cat, eagle and bees because they believe that babies and children will convulse when they consume these meats.      (is it better to take out children? Just mention babies because children can be from a few years old to 12 years old) 3. Food for the old and the elderly.       There is no special diet for the elderly. They eat the same food as the other people in the village, such as vegetable soup and spicy meat soup. However, the elderly do avoid spicy food and food that are not easily digestible. In the Miens’ tradition, they will prepare food and offer them to the elderly before eating.    4. Food for the people who are sick.       Food for the sick people are usually easy to digest and bland, such as boiled vegetables, grilled meats, soft-boiled egg, soft-boiled rice with salt, meat curry. There are some restrictions in diets for the various sicknesses. For people suffering from beriberi, they cannot eat pickled food; for people with skin diseases, they cannot eat meats; for people running a fever, to avoid eating sweet food, and people with injuries to abstain from chicken, fish, frog and crab meat. The reason behind this is that these foods will slow down or prevent recovery.

5. Food for ceremonies or cerebrations.       Foods for cerebrations or ceremonies are special. They usually use pork or chicken meat as the main dishes. The food used in the ceremony or celebration will  be shared with people who attended the ceremony after the ceremony or cerebration. The food used can consist of a large variety, including food that they can buy from outside.