The origin of eating Yuanxiao.

Eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month, as a kind of food, has a long history in China. In the Song Dynasty, a novel Lantern Festival food was popular among the people. This kind of food was originally called "Floating Zi Yuan", later called "Yuanxiao", and merchants also called it "Yuanbao". Yuanxiao, or "Tangyuan", contains sugar, roses, sesame seeds, red bean paste, cinnamon bark, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste and so on. And wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a circle, you can be vegetarian and have different flavors. It can be boiled, fried and steamed, which means happy reunion. Jiaozi, Shaanxi is not wrapped, but "rolled" in glutinous rice flour, or boiled or fried, warm and round.

The main food of the Lantern Festival is Yuanxiao. Yuanxiao is also called "Tangyuan" and "Zi Yuan". It is said that Yuanxiao symbolizes family reunion, and eating Yuanxiao means family happiness and all the best in the New Year.

When and where the custom of eating Yuanxiao originated, people have different opinions. According to legend, before the Spring and Autumn Period, King Zhao and Chu passed by the Yangtze River on his way back to China, and he saw something floating on the river, which was white with yellow color, and there was a kind of flesh as red as rouge, which tasted sweet. People didn't know what it was, so Zhao Haoqi sent someone to ask Confucius. Confucius said, "This duckweed fruit is also a sign of the master's revival." Because this is the fifteenth day of the first month, on this day, Zhao Haoqi ordered his people to imitate this fruit and cook it with flour and red hawthorn stuffing. There is also a saying that Yuanxiao was originally called Tangyuan. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there was a maid-in-waiting named Yuanxiao, who was very good at making dumplings. Since then, the world has been named after this maid-in-waiting. These two legends are not recorded in historical materials, so they are not credible.

The earliest record of eating Lantern Festival can be traced back to the Song Dynasty. At that time, Yuanxiao was called "floating dumplings", "dumplings", "lactose dumplings" and "sugar dumplings". According to historical records such as Pingyuan Xu, Guangji Four Years Old and Ode to Daming, Yuanxiao, as a timely food to celebrate the Lantern Festival, began in the Song Dynasty. Because we must eat "Zi Yuan" during the Lantern Festival, people named it Yuanxiao.

Yuanxiao was very precious in the Song Dynasty. Jiang Baishi wrote a poem, "Guests look at Yujie with a hook curtain. The baby in the city came for a while, and the flower shelf in front of the curtain had no choice but to refuse to pay back the money. " The "treasure" in the poem refers to Yuanxiao.

In modern times, there are also stories related to the Lantern Festival. Yuan Shikai is not willing to be a big president, but also wants to be an emperor. Because his dream can't come true, he has been very upset. One day, his aunt said that she wanted to eat Yuanxiao. When' tis once spoken, Yuan Shikai gave her a slap in the face. Because Yuanxiao and Yuan Xiao are homophonic, Yuan had ordered his men not to say "Yuanxiao" again, but only "Tangyuan". Later, someone wrote a jingle about this matter: "Poetry goes back to the previous dynasty, and water is steaming and boiling." Hong Xian issued a ban on selling Yuanxiao along the street.

Yuanxiao is a round food made of glutinous rice flour, which is divided into solid and stuffing. There are sweet and salty ones with stuffing. Sweet fillings generally include lard bean paste, white sugar sesame, sweet-scented osmanthus assorted, jujube paste, nuts, sesame, almond, ginkgo, hawthorn and so on; Salty stuffing generally includes diced fresh meat, diced ham and shrimp skin. Yuanxiao made of mustard, onion, garlic, leek and ginger is called "Five Flavors Yuanxiao", which means hard work and long-term progress.

There are many ways to make Yuanxiao, and there are great differences between north and south. To make Yuanxiao in the south, glutinous rice flour is mixed with boiling water to make the skin, and then the stuffing is "wrapped"; To make Yuanxiao in the north, first knead the stuffing into a uniform ball, put it in a laundry basket covered with dry glutinous rice flour and shake it constantly. Add water from time to time, so that the stuffing is stained with more and more glutinous rice flour until the size is moderate. Yuanxiao is different in size, the big one is like a walnut, and the small one is like a soybean.

There are many ways to eat Yuanxiao, such as boiling, frying, frying and steaming. If solid Yuanxiao is boiled with fermented liquor, sugar and osmanthus, it has a unique flavor and is suitable for this supplement.

In addition to the Lantern Festival, a representative holiday food, there are many other holiday foods around the country.

Eat steamed bread and wheat cakes in Pujiang, Zhejiang. Steamed bread is made of dough, and wheat cake is round, which means "reunion of children and grandchildren".