Traditional Culture

Dumplings have their origins in the ancient dish known as jiaozi (角子). Dumplings, originally called "Jiao Er", are said to have been first invented by Zhang Zhongjing, the sage of medicine in China, with a history of more than 1,800 years. Dumplings, also known as water dumplings, are a staple food and local snack in northern China, and are also a food for New Year's festivals. There is a folk song that says, "Eat dumplings to celebrate the New Year." Dumplings are mostly boiled in water and filled with dough. There is a movie with the same name. In addition, Chinese special health food - dumplings, has gone to the world, loved by people all over the world. Such as Japanese dumplings, North Korean dumplings, Korean dumplings, Vietnamese dumplings, Mexican dumplings and so on.

Dumplings in its long process of development, the name of a variety of ancient times, "prison pill", "flat food", "dumpling bait", "powder angle" and so on. The name of the "powder horn" and so on. Three Kingdoms period called "crescent ravioli", the North and South Dynasties period called "ravioli", the Tang Dynasty called dumplings for the "supine crescent-shaped ravioli", the Song Dynasty became the "angle", the Yuan Dynasty called the "angle", the Yuan Dynasty called the "angle", the "angle", the "angle", the "angle", the "angle", the "angle", the "angle", the "angle".

In Chinese folklore, the New Year's Eve celebration of eating "dumplings" is a feast that cannot be replaced by any delicacies from the sea. It has been passed down for thousands of years in the Yellow River basin, the birthplace of the Chinese ancestors. "Dumplings", also known as "cross", is the meaning of the old and the new, but also adhering to the meaning of the gods, is a feast must be eaten, otherwise, the gods will remove your name in the yin and yang world, after death, will become a lonely ghosts are not on the books. Think about it, how much importance our ancestors attached to this ah! No matter what, in order to get rid of the bad luck of the year, you have to eat a "dumpling" on New Year's Eve. According to folklore, New Year's Eve is a day of war between humans, ghosts and gods, so everyone must participate in order to have good luck and peace in the coming year. Ghosts are also known as "Xi", and they are the ghosts that are created by the bad luck of the year on earth. "On the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, at the hour of midnight, when the old and the new have changed, the ghosts come out to do harm to the earth! At this time, it takes the concerted efforts of man and god to get rid of it. Every year on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, the Heaven will send the God of Power, "Nian", to come to the earth to subdue demons and get rid of ghosts, but "Nian" only has 90% of the power on New Year's Eve, which proves that "Xiu" is a very powerful ghost. This proves that "Xiu" is a very powerful ghost and must be assisted by human beings in order to get rid of "Xiu". Therefore, people have to light firecrackers at midnight on New Year's Eve to help the "year" get rid of the evil spirit "Xi".

On New Year's Eve, people eat dumplings, and then, men, women, and children firecrackers to help the gods get rid of the ghosts, and then devoutly put on the new Zao Wang Wang portrait, and in front of the God of Wealth and Zao Wang's portrait of dumplings to be offered to the Lord of the Food, in the hope that the coming year will be safe and auspicious and prosperous meaning. This is the origin of the custom of "firecrackers to get rid of the old year".

The original name of the dumpling is "Jiao Er", which is rumored to be the first invention of the Chinese medical sage Zhang Zhongjing. The story of his "cold-removing Jiao Er Tang" has been passed down in folklore to this day. According to the legend, when Zhang Zhongjing was the governor of Changsha, he used to cure people's diseases. One year, when the local plague was prevalent, he set up a cauldron at the entrance of the government office and gave up his medicine to save the people, which was y loved by the people of Changsha. After Zhang Zhongjing returned home from Changsha in time for the winter solstice, he walked to the bank of Baihe River in his hometown and saw that many poor people were suffering from hunger and cold, and their ears were frozen. It turned out that typhoid fever was prevalent at that time, and many people died of the disease. He felt very hard in his heart and was determined to save them. When Zhang Zhongjing returned home, there were so many people seeking medical treatment that he was very busy, but he always remembered those poor people with frozen ears in his heart. He followed the example of Changsha, and asked his disciples to set up a medical hut and a cauldron in a vacant lot in Dongguan, Nanyang, and opened the hut on the winter solstice, giving medicine to the poor to cure their wounds.

Zhang Zhongjing's medicine is called "Cold-removing Jiao Er Tang", which summarizes more than 300 years of clinical practice in the Han Dynasty, and its practice is to use mutton and some cold-removing herbs in the pot to boil and simmer, and then after cooking, these things are fished out and chopped up, and wrapped in dough to form an ear-shaped "Jiao Er ", boiled in a pot and distributed to patients begging for medicine. Each person two ears, a bowl of soup. People eat the soup to get rid of cold body heat, blood flow, two ears warm. The people ate it from the winter solstice to New Year's Eve, warding off typhoid and curing their frozen ears.

Zhang Zhongjing sheds medicine until the 30th day of the New Year. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, people celebrated the New Year and the recovery of the rotten ear, so they made New Year's food after the appearance of the ear and ate it on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year. People called this food "dumpling ear", "dumpling" or "flat food" and ate it on the winter solstice and the first day of the new year to commemorate the day when Zhang Zhongjing opened the shed and cured the patients.

Zhang Zhongjing was born nearly 1,800 years ago, but the story of how he made the "Cold-removing Jiao Er Soup" has been widely circulated among the people. Every winter solstice and the first day of the Lunar New Year, people eat dumplings, the heart still remembers Zhang Zhongjing's kindness, and "winter solstice not end of the bowl of dumplings, freezing off the ears of no one to care about" proverb it! Today, we don't need to use the Jiao Er to cure the frozen ears, but dumplings have become the most common and favorite food of the people.

Nüwa said

One of the reasons for this is to commemorate Pangu's creation of the heavens and the earth, which ended the mixed state, and the other is to take it as a homonym for "hun-hao", meaning "grain full of hoards". In addition, folklore has it that the folklore of eating dumplings is related to the creation of man by Nuwa. When Nuwa created man, due to the cold weather, the ears of the yellow earth people would easily freeze off. In order to keep the ears in place, Nuwa tied a small eye in the ear, tied the ear with a thin thread, and put the other end of the thread in the mouth of the yellow earth people to bite on, so that the ear could be considered done. In order to commemorate the achievements of Nüwa, the people made dumplings, kneaded the dough in the shape of human ears, filled with stuffing (thread), and ate them with their mouths.

Su Qiaosheng invented dumplings said

The origin of dumplings, in addition to the history of the book, folklore has another legend: once upon a time there was an emperor all day long ignoring the government only to focus on pleasure, the court of treacherous ministers to gain favor, loyal and good people victimized by the country's poverty, the people are full of grievances. One day, known as "Pan Su water" of the treacherous Pan Qi knocked on the emperor, said he had a good idea, can make the emperor immortal, the emperor listened to the heart full of like, busy asking: "Pan Aiqing, what is the magic method, quickly speak with me to listen! Pan Qi played: "If people can eat a hundred kinds of rice can increase life and prolong the immortal, the emperor can be ordered to recruit famous chefs around the world, so that he does three meals a day to make a new kind of meal, eat to a hundred kinds of rice, not as you wish?"

The emperor listened and nodded his head that is out of the notice: to raise the country to recruit.

In a few days, all over the country famous chefs have been sent to the capital, after the temple test, the high craft chef Su Qiaosheng was selected. From then on, Su Qiaosheng with his superior skills for the emperor to do ninety-nine fancy meals, the emperor is very satisfied. This night, Su Qiaosheng is very happy, thinking: tomorrow morning to make another meal can leave this hateful emperor to go home and reunite with relatives. But to the time of cooking actually do not know how to do the last meal, he thought of suicide to escape, but also thought of poisoning this eat and drink the people's flesh and blood of the emperor. Being sad, he suddenly saw some of the remaining mutton and vegetables on the case, then took up the knife to mutton and vegetables together chopped, haphazardly set aside on the seasoning, wrapped with white flour many small corner corner, and then placed in a pot of boiling water cooked as the last meal to the emperor. Su Qiaosheng is sitting dumbly waiting to die, who knows that the emperor ate this meal actually wearing pajamas ran into the kitchen and said: "Today's meal is the most flavorful, what is this called?" , Su Qiaosheng heard, a long sigh, and then looked up and saw this kind of flat things, faithfully replied: "This is the folk top grade ---- flat food." The emperor and stay Su Qiaosheng continue to give him cooking, Qiaosheng on this insatiable dim king angry, the next day will sneak away. The descendants learned to wrap flatbreads and eat them in honor of this chef. In this way, generation after generation, has been passed down to today.

Welcome, send off

Someone in the family has to go out of town, eat dumplings to see him off. When a family member arrives, dumplings are eaten to welcome him.

Spring Festival Customs

When it comes to New Year's Eve, what comes to mind for many northerners is a family gathering around to make dumplings. Dumplings are an essential part of the New Year's Eve dinner table for northerners. Mainly in northern China, making and eating dumplings has become an important activity for most families to celebrate New Year's Eve. As the saying goes, "When it's cold, eat dumplings to celebrate the New Year." Chinese New Year is the grandest annual festival of the Chinese people. In order to have a good New Year, in the old days, as soon as a farming family enters the threshold of the Lunar New Year, they start to busy themselves with the New Year. From the 23rd day of the Lunar New Year, commonly known as the "New Year", the countdown to New Year's Eve begins, with colorful lanterns, sticking up couplets, and cleaning up the courtyards in preparation for welcoming loved ones from afar and celebrating the Year of Reunion. In the north, the most important activity on the night of New Year's Eve is to make dumplings for the whole family.

According to the literature, the custom of eating dumplings on the occasion of the Spring Festival appeared as late as the Ming Dynasty. What is particularly noteworthy is that by the Qing Dynasty, the custom had become so widespread that it had been fixed. This custom is related to the ancient Chinese timekeeping system, which used the twelve earthly branches to record the time of day. Each day is divided into twelve periods, then the beginning of each day is Zi Shi, Zi Shi is equivalent to today's midnight 23:00 to 1:00 this time, then at the end of each year, the year 30 time, then this is not only the old and the new two days of the change, but the new and the old years of the change, the Chinese people called it "cross the child". Chinese people pay great attention to the boundaries, especially the boundaries of the old year and the new year, so at this time, we should engage in some rituals to pray for the good luck of the coming year, so at this time to eat dumplings, dumplings and this "Jiaozi" is exactly a harmonic, and dumplings also have such a rich symbol of good luck of the cultural connotation, so the northern Chinese people slowly formed the That's why northern Chinese people slowly developed the custom of eating dumplings on the first day of the Lunar New Year, at the time of the Jiaosi. For the Chinese people, who emphasize affection, on New Year's Eve, the snow falls noiselessly outside the window, the light inside the house is warm, and the pot is steaming hot. All the thoughts and blessings are wrapped into the thin dumpling skin! The red fire boiling water, the more it boils, the more it tastes, accompanied by the firecrackers of the old year and the new year, the dumplings, but also the expectations of the coming year.

It is the beginning of the first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year, and the dumplings are eaten to celebrate the "change of the year," which means "the time of the year" and "the time of the year. The word "dumpling" harmonizes with "饺", which means "joyful reunion" and "good luck".

In some areas, people eat dumplings with some side dishes for good luck. For example, eat tofu, symbolizing the happiness of the whole family; eat persimmon cake, symbolizing the success of everything; eat three fresh vegetables. Symbolizing the three suns. Taiwanese people eat fish dumplings, meat dumplings and hairy vegetables, symbolizing reunion and wealth. Some places will also put a dollar, five-cent, ten-cent coins wrapped inside the dumplings, meaning that in the new year of wealth and good luck.

Winter Solstice Customs

Every year on the winter solstice of the lunar calendar, rich or poor, dumplings are essential to the holiday meal, major supermarkets and shopping malls, such as dumplings are sold very "pretty". Proverb: "October 1, the winter solstice to, every family to eat dumplings." Why do we eat dumplings on the winter solstice? It is said that this custom is left behind in honor of the winter solstice medicine of Zhang Zhongjing, the "Sage of Medicine".

Zhang Zhongjing was a Nanyang Wudong people, he wrote "Typhoid Miscellaneous Diseases", the collection of medical practitioners of the great, by successive generations of medical practitioners as a classic. Zhang Zhongjing famously said, "Advance to save the world, retreat to save the people; can not be a good prime minister, but also should be a good doctor." During the Eastern Han Dynasty, he was the governor of Changsha and practiced medicine in the lobby. Later, he resigned and returned to his hometown to cure his neighbors. When he returned to his hometown, it was winter. He saw the villagers on both sides of the Baihe River were yellow and thin, starving and cold, and many people's ears were frozen. Then let his disciples in Nanyang Dongguan set up a medical shed, set up a cauldron, in the winter solstice day she "dispel cold Jiao ear soup" to cure frostbite. He put lamb, chili peppers and some cold-expelling herbs in a pot of boiling, and then the lamb, drugs out of the chopped, breaded into an ear-like "Jiao Er", cooked, distributed to the people who came to seek medication for each of the two "Jiao Er", a big bowl of broth. People ate "Jiao Er", drank "cold soup", warm body, two ears heat, frostbitten ears are cured. Later generations followed the example of "Jiao Er" and wrapped it into food, also known as "dumplings" or "flatbread".

Eating dumplings on the winter solstice is a way of remembering the kindness of Zhang Zhongjing, the Sage of Medicine, who made the soup to get rid of cold. There is still a folk song in Nanyang that says, "If you don't serve dumplings at the winter solstice, no one will take care of you if you freeze your ears off.

Sending off

Eating dumplings on the winter solstice is a way to look forward to the reunion, taking the meaning of peace and reunion.