There are many kinds of Dai cuisine with strong national flavor. These dishes are good in color, fragrance, taste and shape, and have the characteristics of fragrance, sour, cold and spicy. From the production method, it can be divided into roasting, steaming, frying and pickling, and from the raw materials, it can be divided into meat, aquatic products, eggs, delicacies and vegetables.
Meat is mainly pork, followed by beef, and chickens, ducks and geese are often eaten. Dai people live by water, which is rich in fish resources, and fish is a common food in their lives. Eggs are home-cooked dishes. Vegetables include melons, beans, Chinese cabbage, green vegetables, radishes and bamboo shoots. There are python meat, muntjac meat, bamboo rat meat, pheasant meat, red deer meat, wild pork and so on.
Dai people have the custom of eating foreign objects. "Hundred Arts Biography" said: "Alien eaters: loach, eel, snake, mouse, dragonfly, salamander, dumpling, cicada, locust, ant, silicon, ground bee, etc." They also eat many strange foods, such as sand maggots in the sand and bamboo worms born in bamboo joints.
Drinking is a great hobby of the Dai people. On weekdays, I often drink some wine. On holidays, you must drink heartily. Dai people are good at brewing wine from Gu Mi, and a glutinous rice shochu produced in Xishuangbanna is famous for its mellow taste and sweet taste.
Most dishes of Dai people like hot and sour taste. Pepper, ginger, onion, garlic, pepper, star anise, citronella, coriander and mint are all indispensable accessories. Dai people also like to eat unique plants for health care, such as bitter cold vegetables, tender branches and leaves of Acanthopanax senticosus, water Jue vegetables, coriander and other green plants, because these vegetables have the functions of clearing away lung heat and detoxifying, improving eyesight and strengthening brain.