People in Ninghai celebrate the Lantern Festival on the 14th night of the first lunar month. On the 14th night, the whole city makes soup dumplings and eats soup dumplings. There is a saying that "the 14th day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival, and every family cooks soup with clams."

Speaking of Ninghai people's distillation, it is quite interesting. There are a lot of raw materials piled on the desk.

The housewife chops the mustard leaves into pieces, then chops the winter bamboo shoots, pork, dried ham, carrots, peanuts, oil soaked in oil, dried tofu, broad beans, bean noodles, water chestnuts, mushrooms, sausages, shrimps, eels, dried cuttlefish, razor clams, and oysters.

Meat, etc., all cut into cubes, stir-fry in a pot, add water, pour in rice flour paste (or sweet potato starch, water chestnut starch, arrowroot starch, lotus root starch), then stir and stir, when it becomes sticky, add salt and MSG,

It’s ready to go.

The distilled fillings include the fragrance of winter bamboo shoots, the crispness of water chestnuts, the freshness of dried razor clams, etc. It’s really a mixture of flavors.

This smell is like the memories of teenage love in old age.

According to Ninghai custom, salty wine is eaten on the fourteenth night of the first lunar month and sweet wine is eaten on the fifteenth night of the first lunar month.

Sweet distillation is to add Sichuan watercress, candied dates, raisins, lotus seeds, longan meat, diced chestnuts, kumquat cakes, wolfberries, etc. to diced rice cakes or small glutinous rice balls.

Chinese people have the custom of "not eating from time to time", and they are particular about what they eat on any festival day. The writer Plantain Zi metaphorically said that eating mooncakes on August 15th is like a strictly metrical poem. If you eat it on the 15th day of every month,

Moon cake, then it became a jingle.

It was originally a metrical poem written on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month in Ninghai. Now you can eat it every day as long as you want.

Eat soup dumplings.

Wrapping and eating soup dumplings is a major custom of Ninghai people during the Lantern Festival. In the past, soup dumplings only had mustard mustard and tofu fillings, but now there are more than ten kinds of fillings such as pork, bamboo shoots, leeks, pickles, bean sprouts, and dried fragrant vegetables.

, wrapped in thinly rolled vermicelli, then made into soup dumplings and steamed in a pot.

Because it looks like a human ear, there is a saying in Ninghai: "Your ears are stuck to the soup stand", which is a metaphor for people who are hard of hearing and cannot hear what others say.

The soup dumplings can be eaten directly or cooked in soup.

By the way, peeled mustard greens should be added to the soup dumplings on the 14th night.

Eat wheat dumplings.

Wheat dumpling tubes are made of paper-thin wheat dumpling skins (rice tubes baked with rice milk are also used).

Make the crust and wrap it with sliced ??meat, egg skin, dried shrimp, bean noodles, rice noodles, mung bean teeth, shredded bamboo shoots, taro, shredded radish and other various vegetables. It is soft, delicious and has a unique flavor.

Eat oysters.

Ninghai people’s New Year dishes must include chicken, clams and oysters.

The fourteenth day of the first lunar month is the time to eat oysters in Xidian. In the cold wind, a group of seaside residents gather together to pry oyster shells with their scarred hands, which is impressive.

Oysters are very versatile in cooking methods, whether they are fried oysters with eggs or eaten directly with soy sauce.

Therefore, every Lantern Festival, every household in Ninghai will prepare these snacks early, and the family will sit together to taste them.

The unique local Lantern Festival culture has led to a folk proverb circulating in Ninghai since ancient times: "A big drum on the 30th night, a belly on the 14th night."