Why Eat Dumplings at Winter Solstice

Why Eat Dumplings on Winter Solstice

The main reason for eating dumplings on winter solstice is to commemorate the medical saint Zhang Zhongjing's winter solstice medicine. Folk proverb: "October 1, the winter solstice to, families eat dumplings." In fact, dumplings were used medicinally during the Eastern Han Dynasty, when Zhang Zhongjing wrapped some cold-expelling herbs in the dough to cure illnesses and avoid frostbite on the patient's ears.

Dumplings are a time-honored folk food, and eating dumplings is also a folk tradition unique to the Chinese people during the Spring Festival, Winter Solstice and New Year's Eve. They are very popular among the people because they are meant to mark the end of the year. Dumplings are also called jiao er, flat food, boiled horn, hoop tie, and children and grandchildren biscuits, originating from the ancient horn. The original name of the dumplings "Jiao Er", is China's Nanyang Dengzhou, the medical sage Zhang Zhongjing first invented, has a history of more than 1,800 years.

When Zhang Zhongjing resigned from his post and returned to his hometown, it was winter, and he saw that folks on both sides of the White River were thin and hungry, and many of their ears were rotting from the cold. So he asked his disciples to set up a medical hut in Dongguan, Nanyang, and on the winter solstice, he gave out "Cold-expelling Ear Soup" to cure the people's frostbite. The practice of "Cold-expelling Jiao Er Tang" is to put mutton and some cold-expelling herbs in a pot of boiling, and then fish out the mutton, medicine and chopped, with a bread into an ear-like, cooked and distributed to the people who come to seek medicine. People who ate the "Cold-removing Ear Soup" were cured of their frostbitten ears. To this day, there is still a "winter solstice to eat dumplings, will not freeze off the ear" said.