(154) Announcing the birth of an heir

In the last blog, I wrote about red eggs.

Actually, if the infant born was a boy, some other food would be sent to relatives earlier than 28 days. Before I brought my first born son home, my mother-in-law bought a big earthen pot. She bought a few urns of Chinese black rice vinegar and a few pork front trotters. She started a charcoal stove going at slow flame and the flame was not allowed to go out for an entire month.

Everyday she added cleaned and chunky pork trotter, old ginger, and the pungent black vinegar to the earthen pot. She served the delicacy to all and sundry who came to see the precious grandson. On the seventh day (perhaps because it was  a Saturday) my husband was dispatched with quite a few containers of vinegar pork and chicken cooked in ginger and rice wine to be delivered to relatives. That day she cooked and cooked until the house smelled like a Chinese restaurant.

My mother-in-law was a Hokien while my father-in-law was a Cantonese. The latter's opinion on the significance of the day to deliver such good tidings was because of the infant mortality rate in China in the by gone years. According to my mother, who is a Hakka, such food was sent on the twelve day after my brother's birth.

Interestingly, none of these was done for any of my daughters after their births. My youngest daughter asked if she herself could carry out such a tradition for her daughters, she could as long as her husband has enough money to finance such undertakings and there is man power to produce and deliver all those food.