Jiaozi is a traditional folk food with a long history in China, which is deeply loved by people. There is a saying "delicious but not as good as jiaozi". During the Spring Festival, jiaozi will definitely become an indispensable delicacy at the New Year's Eve dinner.

Jiaozi originated from the ancient "chaos". As early as the Three Kingdoms period, there was a record of "chaos" in Guangya written by wei ren Zhang Yi. At that time, there was a crescent-shaped food called "Wonton", and its shape was basically similar to that of jiaozi now. By the Southern and Northern Dynasties, wonton had been "shaped like a crescent moon, and it was eaten all over the world", which shows that wonton was quite popular in jiaozi during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. At that time, when jiaozi was cooked, it was usually not taken out and eaten alone, but put in a bowl with soup, so people at that time called jiaozi "wonton". This way of eating is still very popular in some areas of our country. For example, when people from Henan and Shaanxi eat jiaozi, they should put some small ingredients in the soup, such as coriander, chopped green onion, shrimp skin and leek. When jiaozi developed into the Tang Dynasty, its shape and eating habits were exactly the same as those of jiaozi now, that is, it was fished out and put on a plate to eat alone. Song people began to call Jiaozi "Jiao", and the etymology of the word "Jiaozi" in later generations probably originated from this. This name and writing method can be found in later documents of Yuan, Ming, Qing and Republic of China. In the Yuan Dynasty, people called jiaozi a "flat food", which influenced the Ming Dynasty. "Wan Bu Miscellaneous Notes" written by Shen Bang during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty records: "New Year's Day ... as a patch food." Liu Ruoyu's "Proceedings" says: "Eat fruit snacks on the first day of the New Year, and eat the food on the plaque immediately." The "plaque" of "plaque food" in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties is now commonly used as "flat". "Flat food" may come from Mongolian. During the Qing Dynasty, some new appellations about jiaozi appeared, such as "jiaozi", "water snack" and "boiled beans". The increase of jiaozi's name indicates that it has different appellations in different regions in the process of communication, and it also indicates that the influence of jiaozi diet in the whole country is expanding.

The folk custom of eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival was quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Generally, jiaozi should be wrapped up before New Year's Eve 12. Some should be eaten on New Year's Eve, and some should be eaten at midnight. At this time, it is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Eating jiaozi means "making friends when you are young", and "Zi" is homophonic with "jiaozi", which also means "festive harmony", "reunion" and "good luck".

Why do you want to eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival? There are many legends about jiaozi among the people. First, to commemorate Pangu's creation and end the state of "chaos"; The second is to take its homonym with "chaos", which means "five grains are abundant" In addition, it is also said that eating jiaozi is related to Nu Wa's making people. When Nuwa's soil causes people, because of the cold weather, the ears of loess people are easily frozen off. In order to prevent the ear from being fixed, Nu Wa pricked a small eye on the ear, tied it with a thin thread, and put the other end of the thread in the mouth of the loess man to bite it, thus making the ear better. To commemorate the achievements of Nu Wa, ordinary people wrapped jiaozi, molded adult ears with flour, wrapped them with stuffing (thread) and ate them with their mouths. Therefore, it should be from this legend that the north eats jiaozi on the solstice in winter.

There are two important reasons for eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival: First, jiaozi is shaped like an ingot. People eat jiaozi in the Spring Festival, and get the sound of "making money into treasure". Secondly, jiaozi has stuffing, which is convenient for people to put all kinds of auspicious things into stuffing, so as to pin people's hopes for the new year. Until now, when people wrap jiaozi, they often wrap Jin Ruyi, sugar, peanuts, dates and chestnuts into stuffing. People who eat the best and sugar will mean that next year will be sweeter, people who eat peanuts will live a long and healthy life, and people who eat dates and chestnuts will have a baby early.

In some areas, when people eat jiaozi, they must match some non-staple foods to show their good luck. If you eat tofu, it symbolizes the happiness of the whole family; Eating persimmons symbolizes all the best; Eat three kinds of fresh vegetables. It symbolizes that Sanyang opens Thailand. People in Taiwan Province Province eat fish balls, meatballs and seaweed, symbolizing reunion and getting rich. There are various fillings and making methods in jiaozi. Even the same kind of jiaozi has different ways of eating: Daur people in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang want to cook jiaozi in vermicelli broth. Then even the soup with jiaozi to eat; Northerners eat jiaozi in the Spring Festival. Some people put sugar in their bellies in jiaozi, intending to eat sweet ones in the New Year. Some people put peanuts (called longevity fruit) in their stomachs with the intention that people can live longer after eating them; There is a jiaozi full of money, the intention is that whoever eats it will "prosper". Jiaozi is shaped like an ingot. In the New Year, the inner strips are cooked with jiaozi, which is called "gold thread goes through the gold ingot".

This kind of food in jiaozi not only brings happiness and blessings to people in the New Year, but also becomes an important part of China's food culture and an indispensable food for the Spring Festival. New year cake; New Year cake; rice cake

As a kind of food, rice cakes have a long history in China. China began to grow rice a long time ago and use it to make food. People in the Han Dynasty called rice cakes "rice cakes", "fish bait" and "glutinous rice", while Yang Xiong's book "Dialects of the Han Dynasty" already called rice cakes "cakes". The ancients also had a development process from rice cakes to rice cakes. In the 6th century A.D., the cookbook Historical Records contained the method of making "white cocoon candy", which said: "When cooked rice is hotter than rice in Chu Jiu, it should be cooked with rice, so it must be very cooked, and there should be no rice grains ..." That is to say, after the glutinous rice is steamed, it should be cooked with rice while it is hot, and then cut into peach pit size and dried. The method of grinding rice into cakes is also very early. The Book of Qi Yaomin written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty can prove this point. The production method is to screen glutinous rice flour with silk, then add water and honey to make hard dough, attach dates and chestnuts to the dough, and then wrap it with bamboo leaves and steam it. This glutinous rice cake has the characteristics of the Central Plains. The article "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of Jingshi" published during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty records that every time Beijingers "spit millet cakes on New Year's Day of the first month, it is called rice cakes", which probably comes from the homonym of "sticky cakes" in the north. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, rice cakes have developed into a snack that can be served all year round.

Eating rice cakes during the Spring Festival has different tastes in the north and the south. There are two kinds of rice cakes in the north: steaming and frying. In addition to steaming and frying, there are also methods of frying slices and cooking soup in the south. The types of rice cakes are: white rice cakes in the north and yellow rice cakes for farmers in Saibei; There are water mill rice cakes in Jiangnan; There is glutinous rice in the southwest; There are red turtle cakes in Taiwan Province Province. Sweet-scented osmanthus sugar rice cakes in Suzhou, red jujube rice cakes in Beijing and 100-fruit rice cakes are all good for the New Year. Most rice cakes are made of glutinous rice flour, which is a specialty of Jiangnan. In the north, there are sticky grains like glutinous rice, and sticky millet (commonly known as millet) was first introduced in ancient times. This kind of millet hulled powder is yellow, sticky and sweet after being steamed with water, and it is a delicious food for people in the Yellow River valley to celebrate the harvest.

It is said that rice cakes were originally used to worship gods and ancestors on New Year's Eve, and later developed into food for the Spring Festival. The rice cake is not only a kind of holiday food, but also brings people new hope with the passing of a year. As a poem in the late Qing Dynasty said: "People's hearts are high, and food is harmonious, so that the year is better than the year to pray for the year." It means that everything goes well every year. Laba porridge was originally a religious festival food of Buddhism. Dieting and Dieting Custom in the Year of China contains: Before becoming a Buddha, Sakyamuni traveled all over India to find the true meaning of life. When he arrived in the northern India, he was tired and hungry and fainted. At this time, a shepherdess saw this scene and quickly took out her lunch and fed it to Sakyamuni bit by bit. Shepherdess's lunch is a mixture of all kinds of food, including all kinds of wild fruits collected. Sakyamuni recovered after eating this delicious lunch. Later, he bathed in the Nielian River, sat under the bodhi tree and meditated, and became a Buddha in early December. Since then, every year on the day of "La Qi", monks in the temple have to hold fresh dried fruits and put them in washed utensils to stay up until dawn. The cooked porridge will be used to worship Buddha. At that time, monks in temples would recite scriptures and then drink porridge as a souvenir. This is the origin of Laba porridge. Buddhism spreads far and wide in our country and follows this custom. As for the ingredients of Laba porridge, almonds, peach kernels, preserved fruits, glutinous rice, soybeans and beans were mostly used in the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, people used walnuts, pine nuts and persimmon chestnuts. In the Yuan Dynasty, the color of porridge was crimson, also known as red porridge and vermilion porridge, and red raw materials such as red beans, lotus seeds, peanuts and red dates might be used.

In the Song Dynasty, Meng Yuanshen recorded in The Dream of China in Tokyo: On December 8th, "Buddhist baths were held in various temples, and seven treasures and five flavors of porridge were given to disciples, named Laba porridge". Everyone is a Japanese family and eats fruit porridge. "

According to the legend of Anhui people, Zhu Yuanzhang herded cattle for the landlord when he was a child. Because he could not cook, he often went hungry. One day, he found a hole in a hut. He leaned down and touched it, but it was a mouse's "granary"! There are rice, soybeans, red dates, chestnuts and other things, so he put these grains together in a pot and cooked a pot of hot porridge, which was delicious. After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he was tired of eating delicacies all day and wanted to change his taste. On the day of Laba, he suddenly remembered cooking porridge from a mouse hole when he was a child. Now he ordered the chef to cook porridge with all kinds of cereals. After eating, I was very happy and named this porridge "Laba porridge".

Since then, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties have followed this diet custom, which was the most popular in Qing dynasty. There is a poem saying, "Every Laba family cooks a double bow, and hazelnuts and peaches are dyed red. I like Jiao Er to look at it. The shadow of Buddha is endless. "

The famous Lama Temple Laba porridge contains diced mutton and cream in addition to grains such as glutinous rice and millet. Porridge noodles are sprinkled with red dates, longan, walnuts, raisins, melon seeds and green shredded pork.

Laba porridge, also known as eight-treasure porridge, is made of eight kinds of materials (such as longan, coix seed, cereal, glutinous rice, mung bean, red bean, kidney bean, peanut, etc. ).