What's the difference between north and south?

New Year's Eve, bearing the food culture, Chinese New Year culture and etiquette culture of China, is very rich in connotation. According to Lu Chunqiu Ji, the ancients beat drums to drive away "epidemic ghosts" on the day before the New Year, which is the origin of New Year's Eve. At that time, people thought that the New Year's Eve dinner had the functions of expelling epidemic diseases, exorcising evil spirits and strengthening the body. The earliest mention of the name of the New Year's Eve is Local Customs written in the early Zhou Dynasty in the Western Jin Dynasty: New Year's Eve is called "Feeding the Old Year", the invitation of wine and food is called "Farewell the Old Year", and the sleepless night is called "Conservative Year". The ancients liked to put a burning stove on the table, and the whole family ate New Year's Eve around the stove, so it was called "surrounding the stove". So what's the difference between the New Year's Eve dinner in northern and southern China? Let's first take a look at what the representative cities in the south eat for New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve in the South:

Xiamen hotpot and seafood

Eating New Year's Eve is called "eating 29 meals", and most people like to eat hot pot (warm pot) and "surround the stove" for family fun. Hot pot includes "Yipin Pot" (the whole pot has one grid), "Yuanyang Pot" (two grids) and "Four-color Pot" (four grids). From "a needle pot" to form a famous dish "a needle wealth". The soup is pork or chicken and duck soup, the main course is gold ingot (eggs) and silver ingot (pigeon eggs), and the whole hoof is called "He". Black stickleback cuttlefish tied with kelp is called "Wuji cuttlefish", chicken and duck wings are called "Pengcheng Wan Li" and winter bamboo shoots are called "Sheng".

Because the hot pot is steaming, the food is tumbling, and the good ingredients of Tonga are constantly being added. As the saying goes, "the more you eat, the more you burn." Xiamen people pay special attention to seafood, such as silver carp ("more than one year"), oysters, red shrimp, pearl mussels, snails, kelp, Nostoc flagelliforme tofu ("getting rich") and so on. In recent years, there are beer hotpot, tofu hotpot, meatball hotpot and assorted hotpot.

Potted vegetables, Nostoc flagelliforme, oysters, soybeans and rice cakes in Hong Kong

In terms of "eating", the signature dish with the most Hong Kong flavor is "potted dishes".

Hong Kong people often eat potted vegetables on New Year's Eve. A lot of food is cooked together and then put in a big wooden basin for the whole family to eat together. They taste it at festivals, weddings and birthdays. Especially at the beginning of the new year, relatives and friends get together to enjoy "potted dishes", which indicates that this year's financial resources are abundant, good luck and everything goes well. And the more you eat, the more blessed you are. The fuller you eat, the better you will be all year round. "Nostoc flagelliforme oyster sauce" is a stew of Nostoc flagelliforme and dried oysters, which means making a fortune and doing a good job in the market. As a symbol of the increasing holiday customs, the rice cake is an indispensable traditional food during the Spring Festival in Hong Kong.

Guangdong haocaitou gourmet

The reunion dinner is the highlight of the Spring Festival, which is not only colorful, but also very meaningful. Worship ancestors or gods before eating the reunion dinner, and burn incense before eating. Generally, there are chicken (planned), fish (more than one year old), oyster sauce (good market), lettuce (rich), yuba (rich), garlic (calculated) and so on for good luck.

In some places in Guangdong, eating reunion dinners is also very popular. If someone doesn't return from a long trip, there will be chairs and chopsticks on the dining table to symbolize reunion to show their nostalgia. If there are newlyweds, put an extra pair of bowls and chopsticks to add good luck for the coming year. This meal is usually specially prepared by the Communist Youth League that year, and it will not be finished until next year, which shows that the mind is willing but unable to do so.

Suzhou dried bamboo shoots, fish balls, egg dumplings.

Before preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner, traditional Suzhou families will buy some dried bamboo shoots and soak them early. Dried bamboo shoots have a good taste of "rising sun" And "making dried bamboo shoots" is more attractive and will make a fortune in the coming year. Fish balls and egg dumplings are essential on New Year's Eve. Meatballs symbolize reunion, and egg dumplings are golden in color, shaped like gold ingots, implying the way to make money. Fans should also be prepared. It is called "Silver Chain", and venetian blinds's meat is like "Golden Brick", which means making a fortune.

In Suzhou people's New Year's Eve dinner, vegetables and spinach are called "Chang Geng vegetables" because of their long stems. Because vegetables are dark green, they are also called "happy vegetables". Soybean sprouts are an essential dish for New Year's Eve, and they are called "ruyi dishes" because of their wishful shape. There must be fish on the New Year's Eve, and you can't eat all the fish on the table. No matter how much food you eat, you should also eat some rice. Adults made it clear that New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve must be eaten, otherwise it would be called "big food". A few boiled water chestnuts will be embedded in the rice, and they will be dug out with chopsticks when eating, which is called "digging gold ingots".

New Year's Eve in the North:

In the past, in Beijing and Tianjin, people usually cooked rice, stewed pork, beef and mutton, stewed chicken, and then cooked a few stir-fry dishes to make a New Year's Eve dinner. In Shaanxi, there are four big markets and four big markets, four big markets are stir-fried dishes and cold dishes, and eight big markets are mainly stewed vegetables and cooked food. The New Year's Eve dinner in southern Anhui is more abundant. Only meat dishes include braised pork, tiger skin, meatballs, moo Shu pork, steamed pork, braised pork, pork liver, pork heart, pork belly products, as well as all kinds of fried pork slices and shredded pork.

The New Year's Eve dinner in eastern Hubei is "three steamed", "three cakes" and "three pills". "Three steaming" means steaming whole fish, whole duck and whole chicken; The "three cakes" are fish cakes, meat pies and sheep cakes; "Three pills" are fish pills, meatballs and lotus root pills. In Harbin, ordinary people fry Ba, 10, 12 and 16 dishes, and the main ingredients are chicken, duck, fish and vegetables.

Gannan New Year's Eve 12 dishes. Some places in Zhejiang are the "Top Ten Bowls", seeking the color of "complete happiness", with chicken, duck, fish and various vegetables as the main ingredients. Nanchang, Jiangxi generally has dishes above 10, and the locals pay attention to four cold dishes, four hot dishes, eight big dishes and two soups.

1, creature

Northerners are used to eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival, which means "making friends when you are young". Because the white flour jiaozi is shaped like a silver ingot, the pots on the table symbolize the meaning of "getting rich in the New Year, and the ingots are rolling in". Some wrapped jiaozi and some coins sterilized with boiling water, saying that whoever ate first would make more money.

2. bacon

The position of bacon in Chengdu New Year's Eve dinner is definitely not lower than any other meat products. Generally, pork is soaked in salt for a few days and then smoked with cypress branches and leaves. The most unique thing is the delicious smell of smoke.

3, steamed bread

For northerners, steamed bread is also an essential food for Chinese New Year. Steamed buns in the New Year are different from steamed buns in peacetime. Many people say that the better the dough of steamed buns is fermented in the New Year, the more prosperous it will be in the coming year. The word "fat" means "getting rich" and "steaming" symbolizes a "thriving" life.

4.wonton

Eating wonton in the New Year takes its original meaning. Legend has it that Pangu created the world, making "light and clear gas for the sky, heavy and turbid gas for the earth", ending the chaotic state, and the universe has four sides. Then take the homonym of "wonton" and "mud hoard" to indicate that the food is full.

5. Fish

Fish is also indispensable for the New Year's Eve dinner. Leave a little, which means "more than one year". In Yinchuan, braised crucian carp and braised crucian carp are common dishes on the dinner table, which means "good luck". Fish must be cooked for 2~6 hours after slaughter. Put some bean paste when cooking braised carp, the fish will be very tasty.

6. Bean paste

In Beijing's New Year's Eve dinner, there is also a traditional dish that has to be mentioned-"bean paste", which is still a household name for old Beijingers. "Bean paste" is a cold dish made of skin, dried beans, soybeans, green beans and watercress. Refreshing and delicious, it's perfect with wine to appetize!

7. Raw radish

Some families in the north also buy raw radishes for New Year's Eve dinner, and each person takes a bite, which is called "biting spring". Because radish is commonly known as vegetable head, which means "good color head"

8. Long noodles

When southerners eat glutinous rice balls, the tops of the dining tables in some areas of northern China are steaming. Noodles on the dining table are also called longevity noodles. Eating them in the new year means health and long-term wishes. People in China have a long habit of eating noodles. Since the Tang Dynasty, noodles have become a symbol of wishing newborn boys a long life. Today, people in China must eat noodles on their birthdays. At the dinner table, it means a long time.

Many places will also have some non-staple food when eating New Year's Eve, in order to win a lucky lottery. Eat dates (spring comes early), persimmons (all the best), almonds (happiness comes), tofu (family photo), three fresh vegetables (three sheep open Thailand), longevity fruit (immortality) and rice cakes (rice cakes are getting taller every year). ...