Besides Hakka Year Cake (圓籠粄), the Hakka community celebrates Lunar New Year with a special delicacy called ‘Micang’ (Hakka Rice Cracker, also known as ‘Miceng’ and ‘Mitong’). Similar to chaguo (glutinous rice cake, 茶粿), the Hakka rice cracker is a rice-based product. Its main ingredients include sticky rice flour (粘米), glutinous rice flour (糯米), peanuts, sesame, and sugar (palm sugar or maltose).
In the past, when rice farming was the main subsistence activity of the Hakkas, farmers would turn their harvest into rice crackers by stir-frying the ingredients in an iron wok. However, as the villagers relocate and rice paddies are deserted, contemporary rice crackers are prepared using rice flour or pre-packaged rice cereal. Making Hakka Rice Crackers is a laborious and intricate process that demands both patience and concentration. A momentary lapse in concentration could lead to the crumbling of rice crackers. Wong, the village chief of So Lo Pun (鎖羅盆), made reference to a traditional taboo regarding the production of Hakka Rice Crackers. Before the Lunar New Year, Hakka women would seclude themselves indoors to make rice crackers in order to steer clear of interruptions and keep their imperfect rice cracker attempts hidden from others.
The art of creating Hakka rice crackers demands exceptional skills and expertise. Hakka women usually make them with the support of their family members. Unfortunately, nowadays, there are very few Hakka people who are proficient in making rice crackers, and the large stoves used for stir-frying rice grains are on the verge of disappearing. Thus, the customary practice of crafting rice crackers is now at risk of vanishing.