Off-year is actually not "small". On the contrary, it has extremely strong annual flavor and cultural connotation. It is also called the Festival of Sacrificing Kitchen Stove, the Festival of Kitchen King, etc. In ancient China, the Spring Festival generally began on this day. Due to different local customs, the date of off-year is different. In ancient times, there was a saying that "officials, three people, four ships and five ships". The north used to be a political center and was heavily influenced by bureaucracy, so the off-year time was the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. While the south is far away from the political center, it has maintained a lunar new year of 24 in accordance with the ordinary people. The south and the north are different in time, and of course they are different in customs. In the last article, I introduced the dietary customs of the northern Chinese New Year. Today, let's take a look at what we eat in the southern Chinese New Year.

what do you eat in the south during the new year?

1. Zongzi

It is the custom of Zhuang people in Guangxi to eat Nianzong in the early years, which gradually affects Nanning people, so there is also a tradition that Nanning people eat Nianzong in the early years. Generally speaking, Zhuang people only make dumplings and eat zongzi during the Spring Festival, so they are called "Nian Zongzi" and "Nian Zongzi Nian Zongzi, which is a symbol of good luck". Guangxi New Year's Zongzi is different from the ones we eat during the Dragon Boat Festival. Most of the Dragon Boat Festival Zongzi are triangular ones with small heads, while the New Year's Zongzi is rectangular ones, usually wrapped in two or three kilograms of glutinous rice.

2. Rice cakes

Guiping, Xuanwu and other places in Guangxi have the custom of making rice cakes in the early years. Put glutinous rice flour supplemented with sesame seeds and sugar into a mold and press it into a round cake, which means "round and round" after steaming.

3. Annual Sugar Cake

According to the traditional custom, Fuzhou people should prepare annual sugar Cake to see off the cook who reported to heaven. There are many kinds of annual sugar cakes, such as inch dates, red paper bags, money cakes, taro cakes, stove candies, stove cakes, etc., which are all sweet, crisp and delicious. The main purpose is to stick the mouth of the husband and wife of the stove with sweets so that they can only tell good things when reporting their work.

4. Sugarcane

Fuzhou people prepare the most abundant tributes during their off-year holidays. Besides chicken, duck, fish, Taiping Yan, old wine and annual sugar cakes, sugarcane is also an essential food for offering sacrifices to the stove. Sugarcane is a ladder for the kitchen god to ascend to heaven, which means climbing up section by section. Sugarcane used for offering sacrifices to stoves should be kept intact with the head and tail slightly, so as to have the meaning of "increasing day by day".

5. Water chestnut

Compared with other places, people in Fuzhou are very particular about offering sacrifices to stoves. Apart from stove candy and stove cakes, meat and wine should be included in meat stoves, while sugar cane and water chestnut should be included in vegetarian stoves. Cooking candy and cakes are made of maltose, which will stick to the teeth and make them talk less and talk nonsense. Sacrificing the stove with water chestnut is a homonym taken from Fuzhou dialect, which means that good luck lasts from the beginning to the end of the year.

6. Twenty-four Tuans

Suzhou people eat "Twenty-four Tuans" on the twenty-fourth lunar year, which means that the Tuan Tuan is round and happy. In the past, people stopped traveling after eating off-year dumplings. Twenty-four dumplings are made of glutinous rice flour, and the fillings are fresh meat, shredded radish, bean paste, etc. After the dumplings are steamed, they should be printed, and various shapes of stamps are used to distinguish different fillings.

7. rice cakes

it is a tradition in many places in the south to make rice cakes in the next year. "The rice cake is getting taller every year", which means that people's life and work are getting taller every year. In the off-year festival, people steamed rice cakes, put red dates on them, and dipped them in sugar to sweeten the kitchen god, so that he could "say good things" to the Jade Emperor.

8. Tangyuan

In Huizhou, Guangdong Province, there was a custom of eating Tangyuan in the off-year period, which means "sweet and sweet". Tangyuan is sweet and glutinous. It is said that it can paste the mouth of the kitchen gentleman so that he won't talk in front of the Jade Emperor.