Tag Archives: Fuyulou Tulou

Eating Hakka food in a Fujian tulou

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What is it like living in a Hakka village? On our recent trip to China, we spent one day and night living in a Hakka tulou and eating Hakka food for a true Hakka experience. We slept in the 138 year-old Tulou Fuyulou in Fujian province. We ate all our meals here–home-style fare with satisfying simplicity.

Our Hakka Meals

For lunch, simple stir-fry dishes appeared on the table such as tomatoes with eggs, eggplant with bits of pork, chicken with mushrooms, and beef with green peppers. The soup paired local bamboo shoots with mustard greens and sliced pork. We loved the dumplings stuffed with bamboo shoots and mushrooms. The host said the chewy dumpling dough contained  mashed cooked taro and tapioca starch. The Hakka classic steamed pork belly with preserved mustard greens (kiu ngiuk moi choi) arrived last. My favorite dish was the eggplant which resembles the recipe for Braised Eggplant, Pork, and Mushrooms in The Hakka Cookbook (page 93).

After a few hours exploring the village, we returned to eat dinner. The chef allowed us to watch him in the kitchen as he and his staff cooked our dinner. He dipped small whole smelt into a batter and deep-fried the tiny fish until crisp, just like my mother did in California. For the soup, the cook heated frozen precooked beef balls in a light broth or water.  She poured the boiling hot broth and meatballs over chopped celery, green onion, and a small handful of chopped fresh squid in a large serving bowl. The boiling liquid instantly cooked the raw ingredients.

To prepare Ginger Duck, the chef chopped half a steamed duck into bite-sized pieces and stir-fried the duck with garlic, lots of sliced fresh ginger, and green onion. He added a little light and dark soy sauce, and a generous splash of water. A drizzle of cornstarch slurry to the cooking liquid lightly thickened the sauce as it came to a boil.

 

 

 

 

A couple of stir-fries followed. Soy sauce lightly seasoned potato sticks with pork strips. Blanched bamboo shoots, pickled mustard greens, and green onion cooked together for simple vegetable. Local greens with slightly bitter leaves wilted briefly in water, then a beaten egg was drizzled in the liquid, to create egg flower-like swirls. We sipped the local sweet rice wine to end another satisfying meal of Chinese comfort food eaten at a Hakka tulou.

A visit to the Hakka tulou

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Chuxi Tulou Cluster

Last week, I visited some of the earthen structures built by our Hakka ancestors known as tulou (??) located in Yongding County in Fujian Province in China. The large tall structures with thick load-bearing rammed earth walls were designed to keep out bandits and house a group of families. Many are designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Chuxi Tulou Cluster

During the Cold War, it is said when viewed from space their unusual shapes and sizes looked like missile sites or nuclear reactors. On the ground, inspectors found that they were simply large homes for a group of Chinese families.

Many were designed with a distinctive round shape. Built in a circular shape to thwart bandits, these multi-story homes were virtually earthen fortresses. Their round shape made it easier to defend with no corners for enemies to hide behind. The tall height gave them a better vantage point to attack their enemies. Thick walls kept bullets and attackers out.

Families lived together, each usually occupied a vertical section of the round, sort of like a pie-shaped wedge. In most of the  tulou we visited, the bottom floor was the communal area with kitchen and ancestral hall. Upper floors were for sleeping and storage.

Zhenchenglou at Hongkeng Tulou Cluster

We spent the afternoon and night at Hongkeng Tulou Cluster to experience the life in a Hakka village without the crowds. Early in the morning, we visited the double-ring Zhenchenglou tulou built in 1912 built by a tobacco knife trader.

We slept at the138-year old Tulou Fuyulou Changdi Inn. At this square-shaped tulou, we ate Hakka meals in the courtyard, tasted the family’s local teas–oolong, orange, and flower–and slept upstairs in the bedrooms retrofitted with Western toilets. As we toured the village, we saw families cooking dinner, tending their vegetable gardens, children playing, and mustard greens drying in the courtyards. It’s a quiet life. These days mostly seniors and children occupy the village. Most of the young people have gone to the big cities to work and make money.

The Chuxi Tulou Cluster, inhabited in the 14th century by the Xu clan dates back to the Ming dynasty. This picturesque Hakka village contains primarily round and rectangular shaped tulou. Unfortunately the oldest and largest one, Jiquing Lou, was closed for renovation when we there.