Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - The 24 Solar Terms - Beginning of spring, why does everyone eat spring cakes?

Beginning of spring, why does everyone eat spring cakes?

Eating spring cakes in beginning of spring is a custom, which originated in the Tang Dynasty, meaning to welcome spring.

Eating spring cakes in beginning of spring is also called "biting spring". Because at the beginning of spring, when spring returned to the earth, everything revived and all kinds of vegetables sprouted, people began to try very early. The ancients wrapped seasonal vegetables in dough, rolled them into rolls, steamed them or fried them, and named them spring cakes, which symbolized the bumper harvest of grains and the symbol of spring, and gave them to each other to welcome the spring. Legend has it that eating spring cakes and all kinds of vegetables wrapped in them will make farm animals flourish. Some areas think that eating spring cakes wrapped in celery and leeks will make people work harder and live longer.

The earliest spring cakes were put on a plate with food, called "spring plate". The record of the Spring Festival can be found in "Local Records" at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty: "laity has no birthday, go to Pan. Five-hearted people are angry with the five internal organs. " The five spices here are spring vegetables. "Four Seasons Mirror" says that "there will be an eclipse of radish, spring cake, lettuce and spring plate in beginning of spring. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Spring Festival appeared on beginning of spring Day.

Eating spring cakes and lettuce in beginning of spring is one of the customs in beginning of spring, commonly known as chewing, biting or tasting spring. Eating spring cakes in beginning of spring means welcoming spring.

According to records, the shepherd's purse and spring cakes in the court of Song Dynasty are silk, golden rooster and jade swallow, which are extremely exquisite and each dish is worth ten thousand yuan. Spring cakes are as thin as cicadas. What is recorded here is the spring rolls (also called spring rolls) made by smearing fine flour on a 1 flat pan to make extremely thin and transparent cakes, which are used to wrap shepherd's purse stuffing and then fried. Spring cakes and spring rolls were symbols of spring in the eyes of the ancients.