Stories in China's Food Culture

1. Every Spring Festival, especially in the north, jiaozi is an indispensable delicacy on the table.

Jiaozi is usually wrapped before 0/2 o'clock on New Year's Eve and eaten at midnight, because this is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Zi means "Zi Shi", Jiao is homophonic with Jiao, and eating jiaozi means "Jiao Zi", which means "happy reunion" at the moment when the New Year and the old year intersect.

Eating glutinous rice balls in the Spring Festival means that the whole family will be happy in the new year.

In Sichuan, we should have jiaozi for breakfast on New Year's Day. They are called "Yuanbao" and "Deyuanbao". People in Yangzhou will eat Sixi Tangyuan on the first day of the New Year, which means that everything goes well with their families.

3. Rice cake

At first, the rice cake was only used to worship ancestors and gods, and later it gradually became a traditional food during the Spring Festival. Eating rice cakes in the Spring Festival mostly appears in the south, mostly in red, yellow and white, which embodies the good wish of a rich grain and a rich life.

4. Spring rolls

In some areas in the south, they don't eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival, but eat spring rolls. In ancient times, in the spring, the daily bread was very thin, also called pancakes. Eating with several kinds of lettuce is called "spring plate". At the beginning of spring every year, we eat spring cakes, which is called "biting spring".

5. Babao rice

Eight-treasure rice is an essential food for Shanghai people's traditional New Year's Eve dinner, which symbolizes reunion, auspiciousness and peace. Fuzhou people must eat Taiping Yan at festivals, weddings, funerals and gatherings of relatives and friends, also known as flat-fleshed Yan. The so-called "no banquet, no swallow, no year, no swallow".

People's Daily Online-Taste of the Year on the Tip of the Tongue | How much do you know about China's Spring Festival food culture?