It is best to eat spring pancakes for breakfast at the beginning of spring.

The beginning of spring is the first solar term after the Lunar New Year. Northerners have a custom of eating spring cakes at the beginning of spring, commonly known as "biting spring". In spring, everything comes into being. Stir-fry the fresh and tender vegetables until fragrant, roll them up with pancakes, and bite into them to taste the "flavor of spring."

Spring pancakes are different from ordinary pancakes. They are made with hot noodles and are so thin that they are translucent and very chewy. Eating spring pancakes is not something you eat casually. You have to eat them from one end to the other, which means "starting and ending".

Customs of the Beginning of Spring

Welcoming the Spring is an important activity at the Beginning of Spring. Preparations must be made in advance and a rehearsal is carried out, commonly known as spring performance. The Spring Festival is held on the day before the beginning of spring, with the purpose of bringing back spring and the God of Jumang. A spring official is set up to welcome the spring, and this position is filled by beggars or prostitutes, who also announce the beginning of spring. In the past, there were pictures of the God of Light and the Spring Ox in the imperial calendar every year. In the "Dianshizhai Pictorial" in the late Qing Dynasty, there were "turtle seeds announcing spring" and "bronze drums to drive away epidemics", which were all important activities of the Beginning of Spring Festival at that time.