Five Cereals (China) - Modern Ritual and Culinary Usage

Modern Ritual and Culinary Usage

Some assortment of 5 grains or small dry bulk crops such as beans continue to be used in Chinese ritual contexts, as in the Southern Chinese "Min Nan (Hokkien) Traditional Custom (Taboo) (閩南民间禁忌)" of creating a folk Daoist stove to cook “Chui Zhao Fan (hkk: Cui Zao Pheng),” a meal for the Kitchen God in which such an assortment of 5 dry seeds are placed into a slot in the chimney of the stove. In this context, casual worship practices may simply use beans of 5 different colors instead of 5 different types of cereals or crops.

Culinarily, for voluntary human consumption rather than offerings to spirits, Chinese cuisine is not known for any single recipe using all 5 categories or any subset of analogously differentiated species, so there is no notable dish in the way there are a generally agreed Five-spice powder mix of Chinese seasonings or the varying ingredients used in the single dish ba bao fan (八寶飯) or "eight treasure rice" noted under Glutinous rice.

Used individually or in combinations of just a few ingredients at a time, however, the possibly hundreds of "Wǔgǔ" crop species and their various parts such as leaves, stalks, seeds, flowers, and roots, especially if all the beans and grains are included categorically, underpin much of Chinese cuisine and indeed most cuisines globally, since they include a large portion of starchy foundation foods and ingredients.

Chinese culinary expressions of Wǔgǔ include pastas such as noodles, wonton and spring rolls, buns and breads, many steamed, the use of soy and other Wǔgǔ in sauces and oils and as fermentation aids or principal ingredients in beer and alcoholic beverages, in tofu and cheese-like foods, steamed or boiled then possibly stir-fried or deep-fried or baked starch bases of meals such as fluffed rice, chow mein or puffed shrimp chips, gruels such as congee, and a wide range of savory, salty, sour, and sweet applications including fillings for pastries such as bean pastes of every available color in moon cakes and in ba bao fan (八寶飯) or "eight treasure rice" noted under Glutinous rice, as well as dilute beverages such as rice milk in which Wǔgǔ items may be suspended in water or otherwise in liquid solution.