In the past, the solstice in summer, like the solstice in winter, was an important folk festival in China. Before the Qing Dynasty, Solstice was a national holiday. People get together with their relatives at home to avoid the heat, which is also called "summer break". According to Wenchang Miscellanies in the Song Dynasty, "Hundreds of officials have three days off from the summer solstice." Since it is a festival, there must be food. So, in the traditional customs from summer to the sun, what foods do people pay attention to?
As the saying goes, "Solstice noodles in winter and Solstice noodles in summer in jiaozi", eating noodles in summer generally refers to noodles, that is, the length of noodles (strips) means that the solstice days in summer are long. In the north, it is most suitable to taste the flour ground from freshly harvested wheat, and the nutrients in fresh flour are also high; In addition, after the summer solstice, the weather is even hotter, and cold dishes and cold noodles are common on the table to cool off the heat. On this day from summer to Sunday, noodle shops in Beijing's streets are the most prosperous, whether it is "cold noodles" or "noodles with soy sauce", or "noodles with Zhajiang Noodles, noodles with scallion oil, Dandan Noodles, beef noodles" and so on.
Not only in the north, but also in the south, there is a saying that "winter is the sun, and summer is the sun." In the south of the Yangtze River, the custom of "eating noodles on the summer solstice, one thread a day is shorter" has a long history. There are many kinds of noodles in the south, including shredded pork noodles, Yangchun noodles, three fresh noodles, Daoxiao Noodles, crossing the bridge rice noodles and so on.
When it comes to mutton, many people think it is an indispensable food for winter tonic. How to eat mutton in summer? In fact, after the summer solstice, it will soon enter the dog days. It is necessary to eat some mutton in order to better expel the moisture in the body and supplement the nutrients lost by anorexia and metabolism. Therefore, there is a folk saying that "a bowl of mutton soup in summer does not need a doctor's prescription" and "eating sheep in summer is healthy and aphrodisiac".
In Xuzhou, Jiangsu and other places, people go to restaurants, mutton restaurants and barbecue stalls in summer solstice and dog days, and eat mutton and mutton soup sweating, and feel comfortable all over. It can be said that there are "volts" to share and heat to share. ...
As the saying goes, "The solstice wonton in summer and the solstice group in winter bring together people who are healthy in the four seasons." In Wuxi and Yixing, Jiangsu, people eat wonton on the solstice in summer. Old people say: eating a bowl of solstice wonton in summer will make it less prone to heatstroke this summer; In addition, eating wonton also means "chaos and harmony". Eating wonton at home, the soup is generally equipped with seaweed, shrimp skin and other ingredients rich in protein, calcium and iodine, which not only supplements the minerals and vitamins lost by sweating at high temperature in summer, but also helps the elderly and children to eat some seaweed and shrimp skin, which is also very good for strengthening their physique.
In Taizhou, Zhejiang and other places, there is also a saying that "the soup from summer solstice is not soup, but a flat food, similar to wonton and shaped like jiaozi". The fillings are generally shrimp skin, peanuts, water bamboo, pickles and dried bean curd.
In the past, before and after eating old grain and harvesting new wheat at home, that is, when the new grain was not ready, people would pick some immature wheat, pour the green wheat grains into a stone mill after cooking, grind them out like noodles, and then mix them with seasonal vegetables, garlic, sesame oil, pepper, salt and other seasonings to eat cold or stir-fry them with eggs.
In addition to wheat, in the northwest, people pick immature wheat and highland barley, stew them in a pot, grind off their shells and chew them. They taste waxy, tough and delicious.
In addition to the above traditional foods, the weather will become more and more sultry after the summer solstice. So try to have a light diet and eat less greasy and spicy food. To quench thirst and dispel summer heat, you can drink more mung bean soup, sour plum juice, tremella, or fresh vegetable juice and fruit juice, and drink less sugar-containing and electrolyte-rich drinks and cold drinks such as cola and soda.
Time is like running water, and nearly half of the year has passed in a blink of an eye; The day of midsummer is also a time for crops in the field and students to grow up and work hard. Years of hard work and hard work are the days of the recent autumn harvest. No matter how busy and tired you are, don't forget to eat at the right time, supplement nutrition at the right time, make your body better and spend the summer solstice safely and healthily ~