Pork Knuckles and Ginger Stew is a dish in traditional Cantonese cuisine. It is traditionally eaten by new mothers in Guangzhou to restore strength and health, and is presented to friends and family to indicate the arrival of a new baby.
Legend
According to legend in the early Ming Dynasty there lived a butcher who had the good fortune to marry a very pretty, kind and gumptious girl. However, their happiness was broken by the fact that even after several years of marriage, the wife was still without child. Now in traditional Chinese feudalism, there are three unfilial sins, and of these failure to bear a descendant to carry the family name is by far the most unforgivable. Therefore, the butcher’s mother forced the two to divorce.
The wife was heartbroken, leaving the family home she moved to a hut on a hill. However to her own surprise she found that she was now pregnant.
The butcher still loved his wife and visited her. When he received the news of her pregnancy, he was afraid that his wife and the newborn would be malnourished, so he brought her some unsold pork knuckles and stewed them in sweet black vinegar in a big pot together with ginger and eggs.
After several years, the child finally grew up. The wife forgave the butcher’s mother and returned with her son to the marital home and asked her son to take with him a pot of sweet vinegar stew as a gift for his grandmother. His grandmother was elated to receive him and the stew.
Thereafter, whenever a baby is born, the family will make a pot of sweet vinegar stew and share it with friends and neighbors.
Tradition
Pork Knuckles and Ginger Stew is not an everyday Chinese cuisine. It is a traditional postnatal therapeutic food in the Guangzhou region of China, eaten to aid the recovery of new mothers after giving birth. It helps in the recovery of maternal health from the fatigue of pregnancy in the first forty days of post-partum confinement known in Cantonese as choyut (坐月).
According to Cantonese custom, Pork Knuckles and Ginger Stew is used to celebrate the birth of a child. The new parents will distribute this dish to their relatives and friends to herald the arrival of the newborn twelve days after the baby's birth.
