What to eat on the winter solstice traditional customs

The winter solstice was regarded as an important festival in ancient times, and it was said that the winter solstice was as important as the New Year.

The customary foods eaten on the winter solstice include dumplings, soup dumplings, mutton soup, rice cakes, sweet potato soup fruits, glutinous rice cakes, rounds of rice cakes, brewing wine, mochi cakes, winter solstice noodles, winter festival pills, cinnamon yuanyuan roasted eggs, pumpkin pies, and deep-fried dim sum, etc. Most places in the north have dumplings on the winter solstice, which are eaten on the winter solstice. Among them, most places in the north have the custom of eating dumplings on the winter solstice, which has since become a winter solstice custom for most northern Chinese.　　

And the custom of eating mutton on the winter solstice is said to have begun in the Han Dynasty. People ate mutton and all kinds of nourishing food on the winter solstice, in order to have a good omen for the coming year. Now Shandong Tengzhou area, this day is known as the number nine, before the festival will give the elders such as mutton and other gifts, the number nine families to drink mutton soup.

Some areas in the south of the Yangtze River, it is more popular to eat dumplings, taking its meaning of reunion. Every winter solstice morning, each family grinding glutinous rice flour, and sugar, meat, vegetables, 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 to show their blessings.

In Hangzhou, rice cake is a traditional food for the winter solstice and is a seasonal food for the Lunar New Year. Rice cakes are steamed cakes made from sticky glutinous rice or rice flour and are eaten in many parts of China during the Spring Festival and winter solstice. Rice cakes have strips, blocks, round, rectangular, eating method is also sweet and salty, savory rice cakes generally in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, with green vegetables and mushrooms meat, etc. cooked into a savory, there is a like to dip in sugar, the rice cakes fried to slightly golden edible, salty and sweet with the mouth, soft and sweet.

In the traditional custom of Ningbo, sweet potato soup fruit is one of the must-eat delicacies on the winter solstice. The words "pang" and "turn" sound the same, and in Ningbo people's understanding, eating sweet potatoes on the winter solstice is to "turn" all the bad luck of the past year.

Eating winter solstice noodles, in the northern part of the "eat the winter solstice noodles, a day long line" saying, do not eat dumplings to eat noodles, depending on the region, the head of the cooking soup noodles have to pay attention to, some are made with old hen soup soup soup base, old duck soup, mutton soup, beef soup, and even donkey soup are available.

Noodles also have a meaning of long life and longevity in old traditional sayings. Whether it is handmade noodles, hand-rolled noodles, hollow noodles or solid noodles, cook the noodles, pay attention to the time to cook the noodles to cook the teeth of the elastic strength is not easy to stick, the time to cook the noodles should be controlled, cooked noodles quickly over a cool water, the noodles are not easy to stick at the same time but also more refreshing elastic.