According to Minnan custom, the wedding table should be decorated with the main hall. If it's a funeral table and you can't go to the mourning hall, build a shed in the open space outside the door. It was my nephew 16-year-old wedding banquet, and Lao Wei and I were invited to the main table. I said to old Wei Tou, make yourself at home. Everything depends on my eyes.
The table is a square table, the chair is a conjoined bench, and the four-sided bench is covered with a square table, like a "back". Each table should seat eight, ten and twelve people, and avoid odd numbers, especially nine people, because "nine" and "dog" are homophonic in Minnan dialect. The row of seats must be "seniority", "the sky is the sky, and the underground is the mother and uncle". The first one on the left is the largest, so the mother and uncle should sit up. When every dish is served, even if you are hungry, everyone should watch mom and uncle "move chopsticks" first, and then there will be a "storm".
Minnan people "eat tables", and the general banquet is twelve or six dishes. When you meet a wedding table and a son-in-law table, you should have twenty-four dishes, commonly known as "twenty-four flavors" (eight seals, eight fried dishes and eight soups), which is very particular. In southern Fujian, six dishes are the most taboo. It is said that six dishes are for people who are about to die, which is also commonly known as "decapitated rice".
"Eating on the table" should be served together, and the order should be strictly regulated. However, "different winds in ten miles, different customs in a hundred miles" are slightly different from place to place.
When chicken soup is served in Quanzhou, no one moves chopsticks, because the guests can't eat until the host picks up the whole chicken with chopsticks. The ninth rule of Anhai is to avoid eating animal viscera and avoid indecent words such as "dog heart and liver" and "dog intestine and dog belly". In some places, when pigeons, chickens, eels and other dishes are served, guests will leave their seats, because there is a saying that "a chicken flies and an eel crawls". At this time, the relatives of the host should accompany smiling faces and make some courtesy invitations to persuade them to sit down. In the old society, the last dish was usually "wrapped in meat", commonly known as "filial piety bag", which was specially designed for guests to get back their filial piety. Now some people change to steam whole fish, which is called "one head and one tail".
In the past, when drinking at the dinner table, the host family bought a big altar of "sweet potato burning", and a distinguished guest came very kindly. He opened a bottle or two of good wine and put a big bowl in front of the drinker. The host poured the wine for the guests himself. "The jar mouth only pours eight points of wine for the guests." A good drinker can show the heroism of "drinking in a big bowl and eating meat in large pieces" at the banquet. Nowadays, this custom has changed greatly. Disposable plastic cups are usually used instead of wine glasses, and the type of wine is also chosen by the guests.