What does beginning of winter custom in Hunan eat?

In beginning of winter, Hunan Province ate beginning of winter meat, radish, cat milk and other traditional foods.

1, radish

Changsha people once said: "Radish goes to the streets and pharmacies close." . Radish is a good medicine for health. People who don't like meat can eat radishes. Delicious radishes are on the market after winter.

From "Radish is better than ginseng" to "Eat radish in winter and ginger in summer without a doctor's prescription", this folk proverb is enough to illustrate the important position of radish in China's dietotherapy culture.

2, the beginning of winter meat

When people from Hunan come to see beginning of winter, they will kill chickens and pigs and put the meat in the shade to dry. This is the so-called beginning of winter meat. As the saying goes, "Eating beginning of winter meat is better than calf".

Changsha urban and rural residents used to make preserved fish and bacon around beginning of winter. Marinate the fish for four or five days and hang it in a windy place to dry. Then smoked with sawdust, chaff, orange peel and peanut shell, or smoked to golden red on a firewood stove, called "winter bacon", which can be stored until the next summer. Hunan people like bacon best and have a unique bacon plot.

3. Cat milk

Moldy tofu made in winter, commonly known as "cat milk", is one of the local specialties in Changsha. The common food fermented bean curd is called "cat milk" in many dialects in Hunan. This is because "rot" and "tiger" are homophonic in dialect, people dare not say beast, and cats and tigers are very similar, so they are called "cat milk", which embodies a psychology of seeking good fortune and avoiding evil.

Customs of Early Winter in Hunan Province

1, welcome the winter

Beginning of winter, beginning of spring, Changxia and beginning of autumn are collectively called the four seasons. Represents the beginning of each season. This is a very important festival. After a hard year, beginning of winter will treat himself well on this day. The proverb "beginning of winter fills the winter and fills the mouth" is the best metaphor. Cui Jinbao's Notes on Ancient and Modern Times: "Emperor Wen of Han put on a coat for the benefactor of the palace attendants in winter." It can be seen that on this day in early winter, people will do some very ceremonial things and pray for better and better next year.

2. Sacrifice to the Winter God

Legend has it that Xuan Ming, the winter god, is also the grandson of the emperor. Its peculiar shape can blow up the "Li Feng" that makes people sick. Therefore, when he was in beginning of winter, the emperor led his ministers to make sacrifices to Xuan Ming in the northern suburbs, hoping that the gods of winter would bless him and enable him to spend a safe winter. Even now, there is still a tradition that beginning of winter worships his ancestors on this day.

Step 3 bathe for the winter festival

He Dong, also known as Chongdong, had this custom in the Han Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, whenever winter began, people would take a bath, change clothes and celebrate exchanges, just like New Year's Day. In the Qing Dynasty, extended families would bathe and change clothes on this day, put on exquisite clothes to visit their elders and relatives, and exquisite men and women would also have fresher clothes to bow to each other, which is called winter worship.