What is the symbolism of eating rice cake on New Year's Eve?

1, rice cake is also known as "nian nian gao", and "nian nian gao" harmonized, meaning that people's work and standard of living improved year by year.

2, from the literal meaning, rice cake is full of auspicious meaning, "year" and "sticky" homophonic, can be understood as a new year or reunion cohesion meaning, and "cake" Harmonized with the word "high", meaning rising step by step, coupled with the fact that rice cakes have a wide variety of flavors, almost becoming a must-have food for every family.

3, as early as the Han Dynasty, when the people on the rice cake has "rice cake", "bait", "mochi" and other names. In the ancient books also recorded the production method of rice cakes, that is, after steaming glutinous rice, while hot pounded into patties, and then cut into the size of a peach kernel, placed in a cool place to dry, eat before frying in a pot, rolled on the sugar can be eaten.

4. Legend has it that during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, after King Fu-chai of Wu built the capital of Suzhou, he indulged in drinking and sex all day long, and his general Wu Zixu sensed that there would be trouble. Therefore, when Wu Zixu was building the wall of Suzhou, he made bricks with glutinous rice and buried them underground. Before the king of Wu gave him a sword to force him to kill himself, he instructed his relatives, "After my death, if there is any famine, you can dig three feet under the city for food."

5. After Wu Zixu's death, the war between Wu and Yue started again, and the city was deprived of food. At that time, when the New Year was approaching, the townspeople remembered Wu Zixu's words, and scrambled to dig three feet into the ground, and they really got the glutinous rice bricks to fill their hunger. From then on, the people of Suzhou made rice cakes in honor of Wu Zixu every New Year's Day, and gradually, the custom of eating rice cakes on New Year's Day became popular all over the country.

6, it is said that the earliest rice cake is used for worship, in the New Year's Eve to worship the gods, in the year of the ancestors, to later become the Spring Festival should be the food, year after year to send a good hope. Eating rice cake is not only a delicacy, but also has a good meaning, expressing the wish to "be high every year". This is a good way of expressing hope that continues to this day.

7, the style of rice cakes have square yellow, white rice cakes, symbolizing gold, silver, meaning that the New Year wealth, the former has a poem called the rice cakes: rice cake symbolizes a little deep clouds, white as silver yellow gold. Years of hope for high time to profit, pious and silent wish to look forward to the wealth coming.