Because this is the last meal of the year, people living in farming times attach great importance to this meal. First, the whole family must get together for dinner. Even if someone in the family is stranded outside and can't get back in time, we should leave a place and chopsticks on the dining table to symbolize family reunion. It has abundant resources to reward the whole family for a year's hard work and dedication. It can be called a big meal for the youngest.

"Chronicle of Jingchu's Age" records that on New Year's Eve, it is necessary to cook several more meals, enough to eat for many days. Jiajing's "Guizhou Tongzhi" records that "leaving the old year: furniture at the end of the year is allowed as a reserve for leaving the old year and welcoming the new year. I also stayed for dinner, thinking that after five or seven days, I will be very happy if I have food, and there is hope for next year. This is called next year's meal. " These customs reflect people's expectation for the agricultural society for more than a year, and are good wishes for a bumper harvest and adequate food and clothing in the new year.

The court of the Qing Dynasty also held a New Year's Eve banquet every year. Besides the emperor and queen, there are some princes and ministers. New Year's Eve parties are usually held in Gan Qing Palace. Although the scale of this banquet is not large, it is very particular. This can be seen from the materials used for a table of New Year's Eve dinner in the forty-ninth year of Qianlong (1784).

According to the records, this banquet was divided into 65kg of pork, 3kg of fat duck/kloc-0, 3kg of vegetable duck, 3kg of fat chicken, 7kg of vegetable chicken, 3kg of pork elbow, 2kg of preserved belly, 8kg of small belly, 25kg of wild boar, 5kg of Kanto goose, 20kg of mutton, 5kg of venison/kloc-0, and 6kg of pheasant and fish. Judging from the food listed above, most of them are produced in the northeast.

This shows that the Qing Palace's New Year's Eve dinner has maintained the Manchu's dietary customs, and reflected the preference and unique psychology of the emperor and the court in the holiday diet.

In addition, among Manchus in Northeast China. There is a popular proverb called "thirty without eating", which means there is more than one fish every year. Therefore, no matter how poor and carefree people are, they should also get some fish and add it to the New Year's Eve dinner to avoid being laughed at by others.

The custom of New Year's Eve:

New Year's Eve, also known as except the sun, is the last day of the year and the most enjoyable day for people to eat New Year's Eve. A Qing poet Yi said: "On New Year's Eve, every family holds a banquet, and people of all ages get together to eat salty food, mostly in auspicious language. The name of this day is "New Year's Eve", and they want to call for "family entertainment". "December 30th is New Year's Eve. New Year's Day is the beginning of a year, and New Year's Eve is the end. Chinese people have always attached importance to "beginning and ending", so New Year's Eve and the next day's New Year's Day have become the most important festivals in China.

Although it used to be a period of Chinese New Year activities from the date of printing to the date of printing, the most solemn days from ancient times to the present are New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. In all parts of our country, there is a custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors on the afternoon of the twelfth lunar month. It is called "Resignation Year". Sacrificing ancestors on New Year's Eve is a big folk sacrifice. Families with ancestral temples have to open ancestral temples, and the door couplets, door gods and peach symbols have all been completely renewed. They also need to light big red candles, and then the whole family will burn incense in order of age to worship their ancestors.

Answer on 2023-01-11

Agreed 14