What is the origin of eating jiaozi on the winter solstice?

The origin of eating glutinous rice balls from winter solstice;

Winter solstice is one of the 24 solar terms in a year. There is no fixed date in the lunar calendar 1 1 month, but this year is1February 22nd.

In ancient times, Emperor Yao ordered the Ho brothers to calculate the sun, moon and stars, and set the solar terms at the age of. In the Zhou Dynasty, with the winter festival, the king would hold a ceremony to worship heaven on the solstice of winter. After the Han Dynasty, every winter solstice, there will be ceremonies to worship heaven, gods, ancestors and Hedong. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, sacrificial ceremonies were more grand, and grand ceremonies were held as usual in various places. There is even a saying that the solstice in winter is as big as a year. On the day of the Ming, Qing and Winter Solstice, every family will pack jiaozi to worship the gods and ancestors, and then the family will gather around jiaozi to eat, which is called "adding years", so it is a folk custom to eat jiaozi in the winter solstice to make them one year older.

In the past, in the agricultural society, one or two days before the winter solstice, every family began to prepare sacrifices for the festival and prepare to make dumplings. First, the glutinous rice is soaked in water, ground into rice slurry with a stone mill, and drained, and it becomes a "round rice wife". The night before, all the families got together and rolled it into a circle. The circles are divided into red and white. The red one is called "Golden Circle" and the white one is called "Silver Circle". On the day of the winter solstice, before dawn, women get up and make a fire to cook jiaozi, first to worship their ancestors, and then the whole family will eat jiaozi. Therefore, eating jiaozi on the solstice in winter means not only the gradual return of the sun, but also reunion. Modern people prefer to regard it as a symbol of perfection.

The origin of eating jiaozi from winter solstice;

Every year, during the winter solstice of the Lunar New Year, jiaozi is an indispensable holiday feast for both the rich and the poor. As the saying goes, "October 1st is the winter solstice? Every household eats jiaozi. " This custom was left in memory of Zhang Zhongjing, a "medical sage", who gave up medicine from the winter solstice.

Zhang Zhongjing is from Gedong, Nanyang. Treatise on Febrile Diseases, written by him, is a masterpiece of doctors and is regarded as a classic by doctors in past dynasties. Zhang Zhongjing has a famous saying: "if you advance, you will survive;" If you retreat, you will save the people; " You can't be a good doctor and you can't be a good doctor. "When the Eastern Han Dynasty was the magistrate of Changsha, he visited the sick and took medicine and practiced medicine in the lobby. Later, he resolutely resigned and went back to his hometown to treat his neighbors. When he got home, it was already winter. He saw that the villagers on both sides of the Baihe River were sallow and emaciated, hungry and cold, and many people's ears were frozen. He asked his disciples to build a medical shed and a cauldron in Dongguan, Nanyang, and to give up "Quhan Joule Decoction" to treat chilblain on the day of winter solstice. He boiled mutton, pepper and some herbs for dispelling cold in a pot, then took out mutton and medicine and chopped them up, making ear-shaped dumplings with bread. After cooking, he distributed two horns and a big bowl of broth to everyone who came to ask for medicine. People ate "Joule" and drank "Quhan Decoction", and they were all hot, their ears were hot, and their frostbitten ears were cured. Later generations learned the appearance of Joule and packaged it into food, also called "jiaozi" or "flat food".

When you eat jiaozi on the solstice in winter, you will never forget the kindness of Zhang Zhongjing, a "medical sage", in "Quhan Joule Decoction". Up to now, there is still a folk song in Nanyang, which is called "jiaozi Bowl, and nobody cares about frozen ears." .