Why do you eat glutinous rice balls on Lantern Festival?

Yuanxiao is also called Tangyuan. Eating Yuanxiao is a traditional custom, and people have different opinions. It is said that before the Spring and Autumn Period, King Zhao and Chu passed the Yangtze River on his way back from the countryside and saw something floating on the river. It was white with yellow in color, and there was a kind of pulp as red as rouge in it, which tasted very sweet. People didn't know what it was, so Zhao Haoqi sent someone to ask Confucius. Confucius said, "This duckweed fruit is also a sign of the master's revival." Because this day is the fifteenth day of the first month, on this day in the future, Zhao Haoqi ordered his men to imitate this fruit with flour and cook it with red stuffing made of hawthorn. There is also a saying that Yuanxiao was originally called Tangyuan. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there was a maid-in-waiting named Yuanxiao, who was very good at making dumplings. Since then, the world has been named after this maid-in-waiting. These two legends are not recorded in historical materials, so they are not credible. The earliest record of eating Lantern Festival can be traced back to the Song Dynasty. At that time, Yuanxiao was called "floating dumplings", "dumplings", "lactose dumplings" and "sugar dumplings". According to historical records such as Pingyuan Xu, Guangji Four Years Old and Ode to Daming, Yuanxiao, as a timely food to celebrate the Lantern Festival, began in the Song Dynasty. Because we must eat "Zi Yuan" during the Lantern Festival, people named it Yuanxiao. Yuanxiao was very precious in the Song Dynasty. Jiang Baishi wrote a poem, "Guests look at Yujie with a hook curtain. The baby in the city came for a while, and the flower shelf in front of the curtain had no choice but to refuse to pay back the money. " The "treasure" in the poem refers to Yuanxiao. Lantern Festival was originally just a day set by Mohadas in ancient India for their national religion Buddhism. On the fifteenth day of the first month, monks and nuns get together to pay tribute to the Buddhist relics, which is an auspicious day to participate in Buddhism. The original name of Yuanxiao in China actually refers to glutinous rice balls. Speaking of glutinous rice balls, everyone knows their appearance and shape, which will make people drool unconsciously.

Eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month, as a kind of food, has a long history in China. In the Song Dynasty, a novel Lantern Festival food was popular among the people. This kind of food was originally called "Floating Zi Yuan", later called "Yuanxiao", and merchants also called it "Yuanbao". Yuanxiao, or "Tangyuan", contains sugar, roses, sesame seeds, red bean paste, cinnamon bark, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste and so on. And wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a circle, you can be vegetarian and have different flavors. It can be boiled, fried and steamed, which means happy reunion. Jiaozi, Shaanxi is not wrapped, but "rolled" in glutinous rice flour, or boiled or fried, warm and round. At the same time, we should eat some seasonal foods. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, rice porridge or bean porridge was poured with meat and poop soup. However, this kind of food is mainly used for sacrifice, not holiday food. Until the Tang Dynasty, Zheng's Record of Chefs recorded: "Go on a diet in the middle of the year and get rid of the oil hammer." According to the Record of Sorrow for the Past, which is quoted from Tai Ping Guang Ji and Lu Shi ZaShuo, the method of making oil hammer is similar to that of frying Yuanxiao in later generations. Some people call it "the pearl in oil painting". On the fifteenth night of the first lunar month; Lantern Festival; night of the 15th of the first lunar month；Lantern Festival；yuanxiao

In the Tang Dynasty and Lantern Festival, silkworms were eaten. Wang Renyu (1880- 1956) recorded in the "Tianbao Legacy of Kaiyuan": "The custom of artificial sericulture is still left over in the Song Dynasty, but the food in different seasons is richer than that in the Tang Dynasty." Lu Yuanming mentioned in Chronological Miscellanies: "Beijingers use mung bean powder as a branch to make soup, glutinous rice as a pill, and sugar as a mash, which is called Zi Yuan salted soybean. Cooking soup with mixed meat is called salt and black bean soup. Every day, it is like making silkworms, and it is eaten in Yuanjie. " In the Southern Song Dynasty, the so-called "lactose dumplings" appeared, which should be the predecessor of glutinous rice balls. At least in the Ming Dynasty, people called this kind of dumplings Yuanxiao. Liu Ruoyu (born in 154 1 year) recorded the practice of Yuanxiao in the Proceedings: "Its preparation method is to use glutinous rice flour, with walnuts, sugar and roses as stuffing, and roll it with water, which is as big as walnuts, that is, the glutinous rice balls called in the south of the Yangtze River." During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the "Babao Lantern Festival" specially made by the chef was famous for its delicacy in the ruling and opposition circles. Ma Siyuan was a master of Lantern Festival in Beijing at that time. His glutinous rice dumplings are famous far and wide. Fu Zeng (born in 1688) wrote: "Osmanthus fragrans is full of walnuts, and the rice is like a pearl well. Watch Ma Jiahao drop powder and try to sell Yuanxiao in the wind. " The poem is about the famous Majia Lantern Festival. In the past thousand years, the production of Yuanxiao has become more and more exquisite. As far as dough is concerned, there are glutinous rice noodles, sticky sorghum noodles, yellow wheat noodles and corn noodles. The contents of fillings are sweet, salty, vegetarian and everything. There are also so-called sweet-scented osmanthus candy, hawthorn candy, assorted foods, bean paste, sesame seeds, peanuts and so on. Salty with lard meat stuffing, can be fried and fried for Yuanxiao. There is also a spiced Lantern Festival composed of mustard, garlic, leek and ginger, which means hard work and long-term progress. The production methods are also different from north to south. In the north, Yuanxiao is made of reeds by hand, while in the south, jiaozi is made of palms. Yuanxiao can be as big as a walnut or as small as a soybean. Cooking methods include taking soup, frying, frying, steaming and so on. With or without stuffing, it's just as delicious. At present, Yuanxiao has become a ready snack. You can have a bowl at any time to relieve your hunger.