Rice cakes have a history of more than 2,000 years, and they are very famous in Southeast Asia, Europe and America. There is also an allusion here. During the Spring and Autumn Period, King He Lv of Wu ordered Wu Zixu to build "He Lv City". After the completion, a grand banquet was held to celebrate. Only Wu Zixu is unhappy. He predicted that the king of Wu was arrogant and did not take precautions against Gou Jian and Fan Li, the king of Yue, and the country would perish sooner or later. After returning to the camp, he secretly told his entourage: "After my death, if the country is in trouble and the people are hungry and cold, you can dig three feet under Xiangmen (one of the six main gates in Suzhou) to get food." As expected, Wu Zixu was later framed and killed, and Wu was wiped out by the Vietnamese army. At this time, the capital is short of food and starving everywhere. Followers led the people to Xiangmen to tear down the city and dig the ground, only to find that the bricks of Xiangmen were not made of clay, but made of glutinous rice ground into powder. Since then, in order to commemorate and remember Wu Zixu's achievements and loyalty, people eat rice cakes in the Spring Festival.
The rice cake is not only a kind of holiday food, but also brings people new hope with the passing of a year. As a poem in the late Qing Dynasty said, "People's hearts are high, and food is harmonious, so that the year is better than the year to pray for the year."
In jiaozi and jiaozi, it is usually wrapped before New Year's Eve 12 and eaten at midnight. At this time, it is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Eating jiaozi means "making friends when you are young", and "Zi" is homophonic with "jiaozi", which means "reunion" and "good luck". There are many legends about eating jiaozi in the New Year.
In addition, it is said that eating jiaozi's folk language is related to Nu Wa's making people. When Nuwa soil caused people, the ears of loess people were easily frozen off because of the cold weather. In order to prevent the ear from being fixed, Nuwa put a small eye on the ear, tied it with a thin thread, and put the other end of the thread in the mouth of the loess man to bite, so that the ear would be fine. In order to commemorate the achievements of Nu Wa, ordinary people wrapped jiaozi, molded adult ears with flour, wrapped them with stuffing (thread) and ate them with their mouths.
There is also a legend that when Zhang Zhongjing was a magistrate in Changsha, he often treated the people. One year, when the local plague was prevalent, he made a cauldron at the entrance of Yamen, giving up medicine to save people, which was deeply loved by Changsha people. After Zhang Zhongjing retired from Changsha, he just caught up with the winter solstice and walked to the shore of the Baihe River in his hometown. He saw that many poor people were hungry and cold, and their ears were frozen. It turned out that typhoid fever was prevalent at that time and many people died. He was very upset and determined to treat them. When Zhang Zhongjing came home, many people sought medical treatment. He is as busy as a bee, but he always remembers those poor people with frozen ears. He followed Changsha's example and told his disciples to build a medical shed and cauldron in an open space in Dongguan, Nanyang, and open it on the day of winter solstice to send medicine to the poor to treat their injuries.
Zhang Zhongjing's Quhan Joule Decoction is a summary of more than 300 years of clinical practice in Han Dynasty. Its practice is to put mutton, pepper and some cold-dispelling medicinal materials into a pot and cook them, then take them out and chop them up, make them into ear-shaped Joules with flour bags, put them into a pot and cook them and distribute them to patients seeking medicine. Everyone has two charming ears and a bowl of soup. After eating Quhan decoction, people feel feverish all over, their qi and blood are smooth, and their ears are warm. People eat from the solstice of winter to New Year's Eve, fighting typhoid fever and curing frozen ears.
Zhang Zhongjing didn't give up taking medicine until New Year's Eve. On the first day of New Year's Day, people celebrate the New Year and the recovery of rotten ears. They cook food for the New Year like burnt ears and eat it on the first morning. People call this kind of food "jiaozi", "jiaozi" or "flat food" and eat it on the solstice of winter and the first day of New Year to commemorate the day when Zhang Zhongjing opened the shed to deliver medicine and treat patients. Zhang Zhongjing's history is nearly 1800 years ago, but his story of "Quhan Joule Decoction" has been widely circulated among the people. On the solstice of winter and the first day of New Year's Day, people eat jiaozi, and they still remember Zhang Zhongjing's kindness in their hearts. Today, we don't need charming ears to cure frozen ears, but jiaozi has become the most common and favorite food for people.