It is a special custom of the old Suzhou people to eat a bowl of bacon and vegetable rice in winter. The cooked rice is fragrant and waxy with frosted Chinese cabbage, lean bacon and rice vinegar as raw materials, a brick stove and straw as fuel. Bacon paella is not included in Suzhou's famous recipes, but it never lacks diners who love it.

In fact, eating paella with bacon has another meaning, that is, eating salty kidney. Salty taste has been listed as the first of the five flavors since ancient times. After beginning of winter, the weather is getting colder, which is the most likely to hurt the yang of the kidney. Salty food into the kidney can play a role in tonifying the kidney. However, it should be noted that patients with hypertension should not eat too much salt.

Eat mutton

There are two big days to eat mutton in winter, one is beginning of winter and the other is the winter solstice. Mutton has the effects of nourishing kidney and liver, keeping out cold and eliminating dampness. Therefore, Suzhou people firmly believe that the warmth brought by a bowl of mutton soup is enough to resist the cold in a winter.

The cold wind blows, mutton is fat, and beginning of winter supplements it. Mutton is the first choice, and it's time to eat mutton again. Nowadays, people's common methods for mutton are nothing more than explosion, roasting, rinsing and stewing. Each method has its own flavor and characteristics, and contains different nutrients.

Mutton is warm and easy to get angry when eaten frequently. Chinese medicine pays attention to the dietotherapy method of "heat is cold". Therefore, when eating mutton, it is necessary to match cool and sweet vegetables, which can play a role in cooling, detoxifying and removing fire. Cold vegetables generally include white gourd, towel gourd, rape, spinach, Chinese cabbage, Flammulina velutipes, mushrooms, lotus roots, water bamboo shoots, Chinese cabbage and so on; Sweet potatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, etc. are sweet vegetables.

It is best to eat mutton with tofu, which can not only supplement a variety of trace elements, but also play a role in clearing away heat and purging fire, removing annoyance and quenching thirst. When mutton and radish are made into a dish, it can give full play to radish's coolness, eliminate stagnation and eliminate phlegm and heat.

Eat cream and nourish tonic.

It is an old tradition for Suzhou people to go to beginning of winter for tonic food in winter. In the old days in Suzhou, some large families also used red ginseng, longan and walnut meat to cook soup in winter, which had the effect of invigorating qi, promoting blood circulation and helping yang. Usually, every solar term in beginning of winter, Suzhou Chinese Medicine Hospital and some time-honored pharmacies will set up special tonic clinics to torment the citizens and sell winter tonic health products. What needs to be reminded is that the cream must not "follow the trend" and pay attention to "one person and one party". First, eat the "open road" to make tentative adjustments, and then make appropriate adjustments before prescribing a formal prescription.

Eat crab

The west wind blows, the crab's feet itch, and the crab beginning of winter disappears. After beginning of winter, there will be fewer and fewer crabs, but at this time, crabs are really great. Both male and female crabs, crab paste and crab oil are full, mellow and have the best flavor. With orange crab roe, white jade-like cream and white and tender crab meat, it is no wonder that Ms. Tang Guoli, Zhang Taiyan's wife, once said, "If Yangcheng Lake crab is not good, why should I live in Suzhou in this life?"

The most common way for Suzhou people to eat crabs is to boil them. The pronunciation of "boil" in Suzhou dialect is similar to that of "brake", so some people say that the original intention of hairy crabs is to boil crabs. Although this is just a statement, it is enough to prove that Suzhou people eat crabs with their original flavor.