What does beginning of spring mean by eating sleeping melons?

Wogua is a pumpkin. China has been a big agricultural country since ancient times. The key is spring. There is a folk saying that "a year's plan lies in spring". In the past, beginning of spring was both an ancient solar term and an important festival. People are used to eating radishes, ginger, onions and bread on this day, which is called "biting spring". There is also a folk proverb, "Eat melons in spring and live to eighty-eight". Melon refers to pumpkin, that is, jiaozi who eats pumpkin stuffing or steamed stuffed buns with pumpkin stuffing on the day of spring.

In the Yuan Dynasty, Jia Ming also mentioned "pumpkin" in "Dietary Instructions". He said: "Pumpkin is sweet and warm. Eating too much can cause beriberi and jaundice. Eating the meat of the same sheep is irritating. Avoid eating with pork liver, red beans and buckwheat noodles. " But Columbus didn't arrive when he discovered America, and China didn't find any other wild pumpkins, so the "pumpkin" in the book is by no means what we call pumpkin today, but other melons. It's just that pumpkins are not suitable for eating with mutton now, so they are misinformed, and even lead to such erroneous statements as "Pumpkins have been introduced to China for a long time" and "Asia is also the origin of pumpkins".

The advantages of pumpkin are very obvious. It is also called "Migua" and "Migua" because of its large yield, easy survival and rich nutrition, which can replace grain in famine years. "The record of holding an urn in the northern book" said: "The older the pumpkin, the better. Huangzhou pork should be cooked with purple sand, with less water and slow fire. Steamed very ripe, sweet and greasy, very fragrant. " The so-called "Zizhan Huangzhou pork cooking method" is Su Dongpo's method of cooking Dongpo pork, which shows that people have regarded pumpkins as treasures.