"Dumplings on the first day of the month, noodles on the second day of the month" - according to the traditional custom in northern China, every year on New Year's Eve, after the New Year's Eve dinner, families start to make dumplings. When the clock strikes twelve at midnight, at the beginning of the New Year, families sit together and eat dumplings amidst the sound of firecrackers to welcome the New Year. Dumplings, as the "food of the new year," are an important part of Chinese food culture.

Dumplings are made by kneading dough into round strips, cutting it into small pieces, rolling it into a round, thin crust, and then placing a filling of minced meat, vegetables, and spices on the crust, wrapping it into a certain shape, and then putting it into a pot of boiling water to cook. They are often dipped in soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic, and taste delicious. The dumplings wrapped on New Year's Eve and eaten at New Year's Eve are called "New Year's Dumplings", symbolizing people's desire for a better life.

The shape of the dumplings is not fixed: the most common is the curved moon-shaped dumpling, which resembles a Yuanbao (yuanbao) and is used to "congratulate the New Year and wish for wealth"; persimmon or cotton-peach shaped dumplings are used to pray for a new year by using the sounds and shapes of the two types of food respectively. The persimmon or cotton-peach dumplings, people use the sounds and shapes of these two foods to pray for "good luck", and the shape of corn, wheat, sheep, chickens, etc., is a symbol of the "five grains and harvest", "six animals thriving "The idea is to make the six animals prosperous. If there is less filling in the end, and there is excess flour, then roll out the flour into a thick skin with a little meat filling inside, and pinch it into the shape of a wheel to symbolize "rolling forward, year after year".

Interestingly, when wrapping the dumplings, people often quietly wrap one or two cleaned coins in them. The person who eats it will be surprised and shout, "Money! I ate the money!

Some people say that the Chinese government has been trying to make the country more prosperous, but the Chinese government has not been able to do so, and the Chinese government has not been able to do so.

Some people also to the dumplings wrapped peanut rice (also known as the fruit of life), jujube, sugar, in order to bless the old man's health and longevity, and hope that the new year's light, like jujube, sugar, as red-hot, sweet.

Previously, it was also popular to eat "broken dumplings" on the fifth day of the first month of the new year, from the former poor peasants in the old society, hoping that all the holes in the previous year's debts to be plugged to avoid further famine and shortfalls. Of course, people today have forgotten this custom.

Dumplings also play an important role in folk wedding celebrations. Dumplings are "flat food" in northern Shaanxi farming villages. Bride entry, worship in-laws and friends and relatives into the bridal chamber, the mother-in-law will be smiling to a bowl of "children flat food ", the bride to eat, the mother-in-law pun asked: "raw? "At this time, the shy bride according to the custom to answer: "raw!"

The third day of the wedding, the groom accompanied the bride back to the bride's home, commonly known as "back to the door ". After arriving at the mother's home, honoring the old and recognizing the relatives, the sister-in-law to the brother-in-law to bring a bowl of "back to the door dumplings". The dumplings are called "Qi Dumplings". To make these dumplings, you don't put any meat in them, but just blow a breath into them. When they are cooked, the hot air makes the dumplings swell up and become round. Eaters who do not know the mystery, and bite, it will inevitably have the pain of hot air scalding mouth. This custom is called "playing with brother-in-law," and it is designed to test the cleverness and simplicity of the brother-in-law and to enhance the family's feelings for each other in the playfulness of the dumplings. On the twelfth day after a daughter gives birth to a child, her mother's family routinely brings dumplings to visit her. This is called "pinching the bones", meaning that after the daughter gives birth, the pelvis opens up, and the dumplings are used to "pinch" the pelvis back, so that she can regain her healthy body shape.

As the saying goes, "Dumplings are as good as they taste", and so they are often used to celebrate a good harvest. Farmers harvested new wheat, often wrapped a dumpling to celebrate. In the past, the Jilin Changbai Mountain mountain people, "put the mountain" dug treasure ginseng, back to the shack, "the head" said: "today eat a sweet it!

The ginseng pickers then made dumplings with their own hands and feet.

Dumpling changes

Dumplings have gone through a long process of development, the earliest record of dumplings is the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Zi Lie's "positive words": "Today's dumplings bait, crumbs of the end of the surface and Yee for the dry and wet size of the different".

Before the Ming Dynasty, dumplings were called "powder corner", "corner", "corner".

For example, in the book "Tokyo Meng Hua Lu" written by Meng Yuan Lao of the Northern Song Dynasty, when describing the palace birthday banquet, he said, "Where the imperial banquet is served to the third party, there is meat under the wine, salted edamame, popped meat, double under the hump, and jiaozi. "

Guangzhou people still call the deep-fried dumplings eaten at Chinese New Year (usually stuffed with ground peanuts and sugar) "Oil Jiao Zai", perhaps following the old name from the Song Dynasty.

The filling of dumplings in the Song Dynasty was already very elaborate. The palace banquet has the famous hump filling, the countryside also has fresh off the crab meat filling. Lu You, a great poet of the Song Dynasty, described the crab meat dumplings he ate in his "Poem on Drinking with Village Neighbors": "Crab for the Jungwan beauty, the fish boiled with chopped meat", "Jungwan"is an ancient nickname for dumplings.

Liu Xi of the Han Dynasty wrote in Diet. Diet" in the "stuffing hot" part, recorded the production process: will be mixed with a variety of seasonings of the meat filling, ball into a ball, wear up and baked to eat. Later, the meatballs were wrapped in a sheet of dough to make them unbreakable.

This is probably the origin of the name "Jongmyun".

Tulufan, Xinjiang, was once an essential part of the ancient Silk Road, and in 1959, archaeologists unearthed a bowl of crescent-shaped dumplings in a Tang Dynasty tomb in Astana, a suburb of Turfan, in the exact same shape as today's dumplings. In 1986, dumplings were again unearthed in a Tang tomb in Tulufan Sanbao Township. This suggests that dumplings were already in common homes more than a thousand years ago and spread to the Western region via the Silk Road.

Dumplings were already cooked in the Tang Dynasty by both "steaming" and "boiling" methods. Duan Chengshi's "Youyang Miscellany Chopper" recorded "cage on the jail ball", obviously "steamed dumplings". And "cage under the prison pill", also known as "soup in the prison pill", when the dumplings. Steamed dumplings are drier than water dumplings, and taste hard and chewy. The dumplings unearthed in Turpan are likely to be "Jungwan on the cage".

In fact, in the Jin Dynasty before the Tang Dynasty, the prison pill has been quite sophisticated. Jin Shuang Zhe in the "Cake Fugue", the production process of the prison pill, made a vivid and detailed description: do the prison pill flour, to sieve again and again sieve, make sure that the fine white as "dust flying white snow", the choice of sheep's bladder and pork ribs as a stuffing, fat and lean, flavorful; to the meat sprinkled with condiments, adjusted to salt and edamame, mix evenly; to the meat stuffing, mix evenly; to the meat stuffing, adjusted to salt and edamame, mix evenly; to the meat stuffing, mix evenly, mix evenly, and to the meat stuffing, mix evenly, mix evenly. and edamame beans, mix evenly; into a firm pill, in a cage drawer, until the pot of water boiled, but immediately on the pot, steaming; uncovering the pot on the table, thin skin stuffing tender, snow-white firm pills, the flavor is overflowing.

From the Jin and Tang Dynasties' "Jiewan", to the Song and Yuan Dynasties' "Jiaozi", to the Ming Dynasty's "Dumplings", which we enjoy today, the "Dumplings" are the most popular and popular food in the world, and the most popular food in the world. The history of the change of "dumplings", each era, have their own unique call, each era is different from the previous dynasty, but our favorite dumplings, but perfectly preserved, and become one of the still favorite food, especially at the time of the coming of the New Year's festivities, the family table, how can we be less than a delicious plate of The dumplings have been perfected and have become one of the most popular dishes today.