Is there a custom of eating wonton on the solstice in summer?

I haven't eaten chaos for years.

The custom of eating wonton

There is a proverb in northern China: "Winter solstice wonton, summer solstice noodles", which means that wonton and noodles are seasonal foods in winter solstice and summer solstice respectively.

In Jiangnan, every summer solstice, wonton is popular, and "winter solstice wonton" is changed to "summer solstice wonton", which shows the difference of food customs between north and south.

Summer solstice was also called "Summer Festival" and "Summer solstice Festival" in ancient times. "Jia Qinglu" said: "The summer solstice is the turning point, and the first, second and last hours of the sun are called' three o'clock', so people are cautious in their daily lives, and it is taboo to ban the curse and shave their heads ..." It can be seen that the ancients respected the summer solstice cautiously. Farmers hope that it won't rain from summer solstice to May 20th of the lunar calendar (called "Dragon Boat Festival" in ancient times) to ensure a bumper harvest. To this end, in the ancient summer solstice, people offered sacrifices to God to pray for disaster and prosperity. Li Zhou Guan Chun said: "With the arrival of summer, it will bring local things." The purpose of offering sacrifices to the gods during the summer solstice of the Zhou Dynasty was to eliminate epidemics, famine years and starvation. It is also recorded in Historical Records: "On the solstice of summer, music and dance are used to sacrifice the earth." In the Qing dynasty, the worship of gods became more popular from summer to the sun, and the Japanese had to eat pasta to show their respect for the gods. This shows that on the day of summer solstice, northerners eat noodles or Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou people eat wonton, all of which are pious sacrifices to God.

Wonton, which the ancients called "like a chicken laying eggs, rather like a chaotic image of heaven and earth", is homophonic with "chaos". When Pangu opened the sky, chaos began. It is wise to eat wonton. According to the elders, "if you eat wonton on the summer solstice, it will not be summer when it is hot." Eating wonton in the summer of solstice contains a good wish to pray for a safe summer.

According to historical records, in the court of the Song Dynasty, every summer solstice, the royal chef would pack a kind of summer solstice wonton for the emperor and his concubines to eat. In fact, the court of the Song Dynasty not only ate wonton in the summer solstice season, but also ate wonton in the other 23 solar terms of the year. Therefore, there was a famous pastry named "Twenty-four solar terms wonton" in the court of the Song Dynasty, and Gaozong in the Southern Song Dynasty especially loved wonton.

Of course, it is the custom of eating wonton on New Year's Eve in Changwu area.

People in Changwu have the custom of eating wonton on New Year's Eve, which is completely different from the meaning of northerners eating jiaozi. There is a folklore among them.

According to legend, during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a pawnshop in Changzhou. Because it owed 1,200 pieces of silver, it could not be repaid, so it went out in the snow on New Year's Eve and hid in an orphan temple to pay its debts. In the meantime, a farmer suddenly came and hid here because he owed someone 120 pieces of silver. Chaofeng sympathized with his predicament. It's better to give him a hand first and pay off his debts with that one hundred and twenty pieces of silver.

The peasants were so grateful that they paid off their debts. His wife wants to send a bowl of wonton to relieve his hunger and cold, in return for Chaofeng's kindness to relieve his emergency. The farmer immediately went to the field to pick up vegetables and hoe them down, but when he heard a thud, he bent down to touch them. It turned out that he broke a pottery altar, which contained thousands of taels of silver. The couple immediately cooked wonton and gave it to Chao Feng, who was hiding in the temple, together with 1,200 pieces of silver, so that he could pay off his debts that night.

Later generations praised their noble sentiment of sharing weal and woe, and they ate wonton every New Year's Eve as a souvenir. Nowadays, people eat wonton on New Year's Eve, and some of them are warm-up snacks after watching the Spring Festival Gala. The meaning is left to their own consideration.