Dietary custom culture

Double Ninth Festival, a climbing festival, is relatively weak in food customs, but it is also very interesting.

Drink. Mainly drink dogwood wine and chrysanthemum wine. As a symbol of the Double Ninth Festival, Cornus officinalis was often worn on the head by the ancients, or as an accessory, and made into "Cornus officinalis wine" for drinking. Han's "Huainan Wanbi Book" records: "Cornus officinalis should be planted in the well, and its leaves should fall into the water. People who drink this water will not have a plague. " It can be seen that the ancients believed that Cornus officinalis had the effect of eliminating plague. Therefore, since the Tang Dynasty, the popularity of drinking with Cornus officinalis has risen, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are two ways to drink Cornus officinalis wine: one is to soak Cornus officinalis in wine and add a little salt; The second is to make wine with dogwood. Summary of the Five Dynasties in the Late Tang Dynasty: "On September 9, northerners used Cornus officinalis to grind wine (making wine with crushed powder) and sprinkled it between doors to ward off evil spirits. Some people drink a little salt. " He also said: "Men choose 29 capsules, and women choose 19 capsules. Those who swallow with wine can avoid evil spirits. " Jiajing Anhui Times County Chronicle records: "Drinking dogwood wine will avoid bad luck with clouds." In the Ming Dynasty, Cornus officinalis was more likely to get drunk in the south than in the north. Shan Lan, poison and evil spirits are the main purposes for people to drink dogwood wine.

Therefore, Cornus officinalis is also called "evil-ward Weng". Chrysanthemum, on the Double Ninth Festival, is mainly used for drinking. Miscellanies of Xijing not only points out that Chongyang drinks chrysanthemum wine to make it live longer; The brewing method of chrysanthemum wine is also introduced: "Chrysanthemum is comfortable, and it will be brewed by mixing stems and leaves with millet until September 9 next year, so it is called chrysanthemum wine." Since then, it has been recorded in poems and notes of past dynasties that Chongyang drinks chrysanthemum wine, and its main function is to "prolong life". Therefore, chrysanthemum is also called "longevity customer".

Eat "Chongyang Flower Cake". The earliest record of Chongyang cuisine is Xijing Miscellanies, which reads: "On September 9, wearing dogwood, eating shelter bait and drinking chrysanthemum wine will make people live longer." "Peng bait", "Fa Yan Volume XIII" explains: "The bait is called cake; Or call it embarrassment. " As you can see, bait and cake are synonyms. Regarding the material of "bait", Jin Gan Bao thinks it is: "Bean crumbs are rice, steamed with the taste of jujube beans." That is, the cake is made of bean rice, and then the bean rice cake is decorated with jujube beans. This is the earliest "Chongyang Flower Cake". Since then, successive generations have appeared, with similarities and differences. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, according to the Chronicle of Jingchu, there were eclipses of "Ma Ge Cake" and "Colorful Cake" on September 9th in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, on September 9th, the imperial court hosted a banquet for hundreds of officials. "Gao" and "Gao" are homonyms, meaning "step by step". Therefore, after the Tang Dynasty, it was auspicious for Chongyang to eat flower cakes. In the Song Dynasty, the custom of eating "cakes" was beneficial. "Miscellanies at the Age of Years" records: "The Second Society and Chongyang still eat cakes, and Chongyang is still prosperous. The big rate is jujube, or millet, but also meat, as well as flour cakes, yellow rice cakes, or flower cakes. " It can be seen that the raw materials of cakes are flour cakes made of wheat flour and yellow rice cakes made of yellow wheat, and dates, millet and meat can also be added to the cakes. The variety has increased and the content has been enriched. Eating cakes in the Song Dynasty also produced many patterns. For example, flour cakes are usually steamed with sugar flour, topped with pork, mutton and duck, and inserted with Caiqi Yang, which is called "Double Ninth Festival cake". According to Miscellanies of Years Old, there are several deer on the cake, which are called "Gao Lu". The homonym "Lu" with "deer" means auspicious. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of eating cakes was still prosperous, but there were differences between the north and the south. There are many "jujube steamed flour cakes" in the north, which are called flower cakes; The name "flower cake" is very popular. In the south, it is usually made of flour and cooked with meat wrapped in flour. Yangzhou people also mix sugar, meat and noodles and steam them into cakes, and so on.

Today, on the Double Ninth Festival in the north, yellow wheat steamed cakes are still decorated with red dates, which also means "climbing up the mountain step by step".