What does Tomb-Sweeping Day eat?

April 5th in the Gregorian calendar is one of the traditional festivals in China, Tomb-Sweeping Day, with a history of more than 2,500 years. Besides sweeping graves to worship ancestors, Tomb-Sweeping Day's food customs are also rich and colorful.

Youth league; Sweet green rice ball

During his stay in Tomb-Sweeping Day, Jiangnan had the custom of eating green jiaozi. Green jiaozi is to mash a wild plant called "Pulp Wheat Straw" to squeeze out juice, then mix this juice with dry pure glutinous rice flour, and then wrap it in jiaozi. Jiaozi's stuffing is exquisite sugar bean paste, and a small piece of sugar lard is added when filling. Jiaozi cooked it and steamed it in a cage. When they come out, brush the cooked vegetable oil evenly on the surface of jiaozi, and you're done. Green glutinous rice balls, green as jade, sticky and soft, fragrant, sweet but not greasy, fat but not full. Green jiaozi is also a necessary food for people to sacrifice their ancestors in Jiangnan area. Because of this, green jiaozi is particularly important in the folk food customs in the south of the Yangtze River.

cruller

Tomb-Sweeping Day has the custom of eating prickly heat in both north and south of China. "Zanzi" is a kind of fried food, crisp and delicate, and was called "cold ware" in ancient times. The custom of forbidding fire and cold in the Cold Food Festival is not popular in most parts of China, but the prickly heat related to this festival is deeply loved by the world. The prickly heat that is popular in Han areas is different from the north and the south: the prickly heat in the north is generous and free, with wheat flour as the main material; The southern prickly heat is exquisitely made, mainly rice and flour. In ethnic minority areas, there are many kinds of prickly heat with different flavors, especially in Uygur, Dongxiang, Naxi and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Huanxituan

In Chengdu, Sichuan, fried rice is a group, worn with large or small threads and dyed in various colors. It is called "Happy Group". In the old days, it was sold all the way to the "Happy Temple" outside the north gate of Chengdu. There is a poem in the Qing Dynasty's "Miancheng Zhi Zhu Ci": "In front of the' Happy Temple', there was a band that was worried about buying food in the spring suburbs. Village drama is more beautiful than Jinsheng, and many people are drunk. "

Qingming snail

Tomb-Sweeping Day is the best time to eat snails. Because at this time, the snails have not yet propagated, and they are the most plump and plump, so there is a saying that "the snails in Qingming are worth a goose". Snails can be eaten in many ways. They can be fried with onion, ginger, soy sauce, cooking wine and sugar. You can also cook, pick snail meat, mix, drink, rot and simmer. If you eat properly, it can really be called "a snail is not worth a thousand things, and wine is not as good as food."

In addition, both the north and the south of China have the custom of eating nutritious food such as eggs, cakes, sandwich cakes, Qingming zongzi, steamed cakes, Qingming cakes and dry porridge in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Runbingcai

Every time in Tomb-Sweeping Day, Quanzhou people have the custom of eating "cake-moistening dishes". It is said that this is the legacy of the ancient Cold Food Festival.

The proper noun of "cake-moistening dish" should be spring cake. Tomb-Sweeping Day's eating moist cakes is not only unique to Quanzhou, but also popular among Xiamen people. According to legend, Cai, governor of Yunnan, Guizhou and Huguang in Ming Dynasty, was the pioneer of this way of eating. At that time, it was under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou government, so this way of eating spread and became a famous product in southern Fujian. However, the forms of spring cakes in different parts of southern Fujian are the same, but the contents are quite different.

black kerneled rice

Regarding the Qingming diet custom, we can't help but mention the "black rice" of the She nationality, because eastern Fujian is the settlement of the She nationality. On the third day of March every year, every household of the She nationality cooks "black rice" and presents it to relatives and friends of the Han nationality. Over time, the local Han people also have the custom of eating "black rice" in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Especially in Kurong County, people sacrifice "black rice" every year, which shows that China has been a big family where all ethnic groups live in harmony since ancient times.

Turtle and ring cake

"Chronicle of Jingchu's Age" records: "On the 150 th day of the winter festival last year, there was a strong wind and rain, which was called cold food. Three days without fire, make glutinous rice porridge. " Nakano Yoshi also said: "Cold food for three days is fermented cheese." Fermented cheese is a kind of almond porridge made of maltose. Until the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it was still the main food of the Cold Food Festival. In addition, Qi Shu Yao Min also recorded another food of the Cold Food Festival-rice cakes. Ice surface, a cold vessel, is made of honey and flour. Deep-fried to golden brown, it can be eaten, and the taste is extremely crisp and beautiful, which is quite similar to the current dim sum.

Zaoziyan

In Tomb-Sweeping Day in the Song Dynasty, in addition to the ready-made foods such as thick paste, wheat cake, cheese and milk cake, people also made a swallow-shaped pasta called "jujube flying swallow", which is said to be used to worship mesons. In the Ming dynasty, people still left some dates to swallow, and in the long summer, they were fried for the children at home. It is said that eating them can avoid eating them in summer.

green food rice

Volume 15 of Guang Ji in Chen Sui quoted Lingling Zongji, which recorded another kind of cold food "Jing Qing rice": "Erythrina leaves, fine holly, especially those who live near water. People live in cold food, their leaves are dyed with rice, blue and bright, and they eat Ziyang. It is called Torre sheep rice, and Taoism calls it green rice and stone hungry rice. The custom of eating cold food and dyeing green rice seems to be more popular in the south. Lang Ying (1487- 1566 from Hangzhou) mentioned the "green and white jiaozi" he ate at the Cold Food Festival in Volume 43 of Seven Manuscripts. This kind of green dumpling is made by adding Bromus inermis juice to glutinous rice, and the stuffing is mostly jujube paste or bean paste. Put new reed leaves on the bottom before steaming. After steaming, the color is green and lovely, with the fragrance of reed leaves. It is a very popular food in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Zituimo

Qingming is one of the 24 solar terms. The first day of this solar term is Tomb-Sweeping Day. Tomb-Sweeping Day is a traditional festival that is popular in Han nationality areas and ethnic minority areas such as Zhuang, Korean, Miao, Dong, Gelao, Maonan, Jing and She. At this time, the climate in most parts of China is getting warmer and plants are sprouting, sweeping away the yellow scene in winter. There is an agricultural proverb in the south of the Yangtze River that says "Qingming is connected with Grain Rain, so don't delay soaking seeds and ploughing", and that "planting trees is not as good as Qingming". Qingming, for farmers in the south of the Yangtze River, is a busy season for spring ploughing and sowing. The drizzle described by Du Mu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, in the poem Qingming is the catalyst for this busy farming season. In fact, in the rain and fog, there should not only be pedestrians who want to break their souls and hotels swaying in the wind, but also farmers who are busy plowing fields and bending over to transplant rice seedlings.