Guide: Do you want to steal the festival? In Hunan and other places, there is a custom of stealing at night, which means "stealing melons is a blessing" and "sending melons to send children". Do you want to steal the Mid-Autumn Festival? How? Let me introduce it to you.
stealing pumpkins during the Mid-Autumn Festival?
In our traditional folk customs, pumpkin is an auspicious symbol in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it has become a favorite food for more people to eat, steal and send. Stealing pumpkins in Mid-Autumn Festival means "stealing pumpkins is a blessing" and "sending melons to send children".
On Mid-Autumn Festival night, people should encourage each other to steal pumpkins. If the host finds out, it means that you have met with good luck, and the host takes pleasure in it, which indicates that the family is blessed and will have a bumper harvest in the coming year. Some customs are to steal pumpkins and then give them to newlyweds or infertile couples who have been married for a long time. Inguane has the word "seed", which is homophonic with "zi", so it is called "stealing melons and giving them away". "South" is homophonic with "male", so it is best to steal pumpkins.
According to the old man, the custom of "stealing melons" and giving them to "boys" has its magical legend. According to legend, there was a couple in Tujia mountain village in ancient times, who were over half a hundred years old and had no children or daughters, but they had accumulated virtue all their lives. On the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th one year, the Emperor Niangniang passed by Tujia mountain village, and after hearing the villagers praising the virtues of the old people's kindness and helping the poor, she left one of her children in the melon shed and ordered the villagers to give it to the old people. So the villagers quietly sent the pumpkin shaped like a doll to the old man's bed. When the old man went to sleep, the pumpkin suddenly burst, and a lively and lovely baby jumped out of the pumpkin. The old man was so moved that he burst into tears and later spent his old age happily.
The word "melon" is an pictographic character. When the ancients made characters, they also drew the vines and whiskers. From Qin Zhuan's melon writing, we can see the shape of the melon: the vines and whiskers are on the top and sides, and the fruit is in the middle, just like "the melon is connected with the vine, and the vine leads the melon." In the Book of Songs, there is a sentence that "melons are full of tears". As the old saying goes, "the big one says melons, and the small one says tears". Melons, large and small, are knotted on long vines, symbolizing the offspring's reproduction, and one after another. Therefore, future generations are often used to congratulate their marriage and their descendants.
It is reported that "stealing melons" was quite popular as early as the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Qing Dynasty, because it catered to the folk psychology of choosing auspicious things and prospering future generations. According to the custom, whoever grows mature long pumpkins in his home can pick them at will during the Mid-Autumn Festival. After picking melons, people take off the pedicels and pour water into the melons, and then cover them tightly with a piece of corncob to show that they will send a boy. Then wrap a red cloth around the melon and let a five-or six-year-old boy carry it on his back and send it to the melon-picking home.
When we get home, people will learn the baby's crying. Couples who pick up melons will open the door and greet everyone, while carrying the children with melons on their backs to the bed. At this time, someone secretly pulled off the corncob at the melon pedicle, and the water in the melon came out to soak the bed. People deliberately exclaimed, "Oh, pee!" Everyone laughed. The next day, the couple who pick up melons will cook and eat the pumpkins they receive, and even eat the skins. After that, if the melon-receiving family gives birth to a child, the husband will send the melon-receiving family to give good news first, and then he will call the couple "Ga Gong" and "Ga Po", which means michel platini dopted mother.
Folks say that "stealing pumpkins" in Mid-Autumn Festival is related to the traditional custom of "worshipping round". The ancients had a world view of "the sky is round and the place is round", and "round" is synonymous with respecting heaven, good luck and all the best, and pumpkin has always been considered as one of the crops that best conform to "round".
pumpkin food is also a good medicine. Legend has it that a long time ago, there lived a poor family at the foot of Nanshan. There was a daughter named Huanghua, who suffered from famine in the past year. Huanghua's parents were old and dying. It was August 15th, and Huanghua found two round wild melons among the weeds in Nanshan. She picked them and cooked them for her parents. After the two old people ate it, they recovered. Later, Huanghua planted melon seeds in the ground, and the next year, it harvested many of the same round melons. Because it was picked from Nanshan, it was called pumpkin, and the custom of eating pumpkin to treat diseases on August 15th was passed down.
Pumpkins are ripe in autumn, and the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet brings together the whole family. Eating some pumpkins can enhance satiety and reduce fat intake. Pumpkins can be steamed and eaten directly, and can also be made into pumpkin rice, pumpkin pie, pumpkin porridge and pumpkin soup.
when purchasing pumpkins, pumpkins with the same volume should be heavier, complete in appearance and without black spots on the surface. When boiling pumpkin, because the skin contains a lot of nutrition, it is not suitable to peel it. At the same time, it can keep the taste of pumpkin when it is overcooked. If the local epidermis is ulcerated before cooking or smells of alcohol after cutting, it should be cut off before cooking.