The Hezhe people catch fish in winter, freeze some and preserve them in ice-houses.

Harvests depend on climate, and food materials depend on harvests. Eating customs depend on those food materials. Thus, climate affects the food culture.

As the coldest area in China, Heilongjiang Province has a long and cruel winter season. This not only brings many inconveniences to local people’s lives, but has resulted in a specific local food culture that is distinct from that of central China.

The Xinkailiu Neolithic cultural site, excavated in the area between the Great and Small Khanka Lakes in Mishan City, Heilongjiang Province, is believed to be around 6,000 years old. Numerous ice-houses used to store fish have been discovered at the site.

Expert analysis indicates that ancient Xinkailiu residents caught fish in autumn or winter, ate some and froze most of the fish for storage. This meant they have enough food supply during the severe winter.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the scholar Pang Wenying wrote The Records of Wenchang, describing his experience of eating a frozen pear when he visited the Liao State, which today consists of an area in three provinces in northeast China.

After being frozen, the pear’s skin turns grey or black. The grey and black mottled skin seems like an old man’s age spots on his face. So in Chinese traditional culture, elderly people over 90 years old are called “frozen pears.”  

In the Ming Dynasty, the director of the Board of Rites Han Rizuan’s son Hanke, a Buddhist monk, was exiled to northeast China in the early Qing Dynasty. He also described frozen pears in the poem Giving Pears as a Present.

The poem describes how Qing aristocrats living in the capital city Beijing still preferred the black and acid frozen pears produced in northeast China to more precious types of pears, tributes given to the royal family. This preference indicated the Qing aristocrats’ nostalgia toward their hometown—northeast China.  

The Hezhen people, living in the confluence area of three rivers—Heilongjiang River, Wusuli River and Songhua River, like to eat frozen fish. This tradition has a special name, called eating “baohua,” literally meaning wood shavings. Hezhen people catch fish in the winter and freeze fish outdoors. They then put the frozen fish on a wood cutting board to flake it. The curled pieces of fish flesh look like the wood shavings carved off by carpenters. Locals dip “baohua” with vinegar, saline water, leek flower sauce and chili oil. The cool and refreshing taste makes it the best appetizer for drinking wine in winter.