Speaking of the origin of beginning of winter's eating jiaozi, it dates back to the Three Kingdoms period. It is said that it was invented by Zhang Zhongjing, an ancient Chinese medical sage, and his story of "Quhan Jiaoer Decoction" is still circulating among the people. According to legend, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing was the prefect of Changsha, and then resigned and returned to his hometown. At that time, it was the middle of winter in Nanyang, where typhoid fever was prevalent and many people died.
So Zhang Zhongjing summed up the clinical practice in the Han Dynasty for more than 300 years, set up a medical shed, boiled mutton, pepper and medicinal materials for dispelling cold and warming up, wrapped it in flour bags into ear shapes, and gave it to the poor people with soup and food after cooking. After people ate it, they resisted typhoid fever and cured their frozen ears. Later, they imitated it and called it "Dumpling Ear" or "jiaozi", and it spread.
Jiaozi's cooking methods
There are various cooking methods in jiaozi, such as boiling, steaming, frying, roasting, etc. There is only one way to cook wonton. In the book Miscellaneous Department of Zhuyu Mountain House written by Song Xu in Ming Dynasty, three methods of boiling, frying and steaming in jiaozi are listed. At the same time, two methods of cooking wonton are introduced: one is boiling, the other is adding oil after boiling, and then steaming. This may be the way to cook wonton in Ming dynasty, but the main method is boiling.
Jiaozi's cooking method is mentioned in Yuan Anonymous's Complete Collection of Household Necessities Geng Ji. Wonton has always been regarded as another name of jiaozi. As for the origin and difference between the two, it has been explained above that jiaozi was differentiated from Wonton, and there have been many changes and developments since then, gradually widening the difference with Wonton.