Are there any customs and traditions in food and drink around the winter solstice?

? The winter solstice is one of the twenty-four solar terms, and is one of the most important. The winter solstice is an astronomically divided festival, known as the "short day" and "short day to". The winter solstice is celebrated with different customs and traditions in different parts of the world.

The winter solstice along the southern coastal areas of western Guangdong, Chaoshan, Zhejiang part of the continuation of the traditional customs of ancestor worship, and in some places, also worship the gods of the sky, the gods of the land, kowtow to the gods. The traditional dietary practices for the winter solstice include roasted pork with ginger rice, rice cakes, dumplings, mutton soup, glutinous rice, and winter solstice dumplings (soup dumplings) and other foods.

1, rice cake

Hangzhou people eat rice cake on the winter solstice, eat rice cake from the late Ming and early Qing dynasties until now Hangzhou people in the winter solstice are happy to eat rice cake. In every winter solstice to do three meals of different flavors of rice cakes, winter solstice to eat rice cakes, year after year to grow taller, figure a good luck.

2, winter solstice group (dumplings)

"Great winter is like a year, families eat dumplings". Eating soup dumplings popular in Jiangnan, soup dumplings, also known as soup dumplings, is a kind of glutinous rice flour made of round dessert, "round" means "reunion", "complete", so the winter solstice to eat soup dumplings also called "Winter Solstice Dumplings". And Jiangnan is the main producing areas of rice, Jiangsu Yangzhou, Nantong, Wuxi, Zhenjiang and other places in the folk have winter solstice to eat dumplings food custom.

In some areas in the south, it is more popular to eat winter solstice ball (winter solstice pill), taking its meaning of reunion. Every winter solstice morning, each family grinds glutinous rice flour, and sugar, meat, lai, fruit, radish and other fillings, wrapped into the winter solstice ball, not only from the family to eat, but also will be given to friends and relatives in order to express the blessing of the meaning.

3, glutinous rice

Hunan and Hubei area, in the winter solstice that day must eat red bean glutinous rice.

4, dumplings

In many areas in the north of China, every year on the winter solstice, there is the custom of eating dumplings. According to legend, the medical saint Zhang Zhongjing, when he returned to his hometown to see the frozen people, he used mutton and some cold-expelling herbs and dough, wrapped in the appearance of an ear, made a kind of medicine called "cold-expelling ear soup", alms to the people to eat. Later, every winter solstice, people will imitate do eat, formed a custom.

5, winter wine

Suzhou since ancient times, there is a saying, "the winter solstice is not drinking winter wine is to freeze all night". Whenever the winter solstice, Suzhou people's family dinner table, will certainly appear is the flavorful and delicious winter wine. Suzhou people and the winter solstice, there is always a bowl of winter wine can not give up. Winter Wine is a kind of low strength rice wine with the addition of osmanthus flowers and some Chinese herbs. Since Jiangnan is a rice-producing region, it is popular to brew rice wine. And Suzhou produces osmanthus flowers.

6, mutton soup

In Sichuan is the winter solstice to eat mutton soup, mutton is winter can be described as winter nourishment of the first.

7, roasted meat and ginger rice

Guangdong people eat roasted meat and ginger rice on the winter solstice, winter solstice this day, most of the Guangdong people have a "dish" to eat the winter solstice meat custom. Chaoshan area has a "winter festival pills, a food on the New Year" folk proverb, commonly known as "add years". Hakka people believe that the winter solstice water flavor is the most mellow, so the Hakka people winter solstice brewing has become a custom.

After the winter solstice, it is officially winter, so, for us, the winter solstice is a very important "turning point" it.