What to eat during the Winter Solstice

Northerners eat wontons and dumplings

In Beijing, there is a proverb called "Winter Solstice Wontons and Summer Solstice Noodles". For other northerners who have the custom of not being as delicious as dumplings, it is also common to eat dumplings and wontons during the Winter Solstice.

In the frozen products section of the supermarket, you can see that the freezers are filled with quick-frozen dumplings and wontons from various brands such as Zhuangyuan, Hahaomei, and Wanchai Pier. People in different places have different names for wontons. For example, people in Guangdong call wontons, people in Hubei call them buns, people in Jiangxi call them clear soup, and people in Sichuan call them ciaoshou. People in Henan eat frozen ears on the winter solstice. It turns out that eating "Pinching Frozen Ears" is a common name for Henan people to eat dumplings during the Winter Solstice. It is said that eating dumplings can prevent people from losing their ears in the cold winter.

Eating glutinous rice balls in the Jiangnan area

There is an ancient poem: "Every family pounded rice to make glutinous rice balls, knowing that it was the winter solstice in the Ming Dynasty." ?In supermarkets in Jiangnan, large and small quick-frozen glutinous rice balls of various brands such as Missing and Haibawang are placed in conspicuous positions. Promoters from the manufacturers of each brand set up an induction cooker to deliver cooked glutinous rice balls to consumers. to try it and attract everyone to buy it.

It is understood that eating glutinous rice balls is also one of the traditional customs of the Winter Solstice. Chaoshan people in Guangdong call the winter solstice the winter festival. During the Winter Solstice, they also have the custom of eating glutinous rice dumplings, and there is a saying that if you eat the winter festival dumplings, you will be one year older (year). This means that if you eat the glutinous rice dumplings during the winter solstice, you will be one year older. The custom of eating glutinous rice balls during the winter solstice is particularly popular in the Jiangnan area. Before the winter solstice, people in the south of the Yangtze River often make dough from glutinous rice flour and wrap it with meat, apple, bean paste, shredded radish and other fillings to make glutinous rice balls. For people in Jiangnan, glutinous rice balls are a must-have food during the winter solstice. Because "Yuan" means "reunion" and "consummation", eating glutinous rice balls on the Winter Solstice is also called "Winter Solstice Reunion" to express blessings for family reunion in the coming year. In addition, in the Jiangnan water towns, it is also customary for the whole family to eat red beans and glutinous rice during the winter solstice.

Cantonese people eat meat during the Winter Solstice

For Cantonese people, the Winter Solstice is a very important festival, even more important than the Spring Festival. Therefore, the Cantonese people have a saying? Winter Solstice and Chinese New Year?

According to reports, on the Winter Solstice, most Cantonese people have the custom of adding vegetables and eating Winter Solstice meat. Among them, roasted pork is an indispensable traditional food on the Cantonese table during the Winter Solstice. In addition to worshiping their ancestors, the whole family prepares a table full of fish, meat, bacon and sausages, and eats the meal with laughter and laughter, hoping to pray for good luck and good fortune in the coming year. Some Cantonese people also have the custom of sending bacon to relatives and friends on the Winter Solstice. To this end, various supermarkets have carefully set up prosperous cured meat shops, which are filled with all kinds of cured meats, sausages, cured ducks, hams, bacon, bacon, etc., not only in bulk, but also in bags. , let the citizens get what they need. In order to attract citizens to buy, some supermarkets have sent staff to set up cured meat stalls outside the supermarket to sell cured meat products to passing citizens.

Quanzhou people? If you don’t go home during the Winter Festival, you will have no ancestors?

Every year in mid-November of the lunar calendar, approximately November 22 of the Gregorian calendar (or the day before or after), is the Winter Solstice Festival , also known as Winter Festival. The winter solstice is one of the 24 solar terms, and it is particularly valued by people. People in Quanzhou call the winter solstice "Winter Festival Xiaonian Dou". The emphasis seems to be slightly less, but it is also very grand during the festival.

Food for the Winter Solstice festival varies from place to place. Wontons are eaten in the north, dumplings are eaten more in the northwest, and glutinous rice balls and mochi are eaten in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The glutinous rice balls eaten by Suzhou people during the Winter Solstice Festival are also called "winter solstice dumplings". They are divided into two types: rice dumplings and rice dumplings. "Qing Jia Lu" says: "The larger ones with fillings are rice dumplings, and they are the first to be eaten during the Winter Solstice festival." The small ones without fillings are called powder balls, and they are a sacred product during the Winter Solstice. The "Dongjie Wan" eaten by Quanzhou people is actually the rice ball that Suzhou people eat during the festival as introduced in "Qing Jia Lu".

On the eve of the festival, every household wants to take pills. Available in red and white. ? Ball-making? Women in the fishing villages of Shenhu, Shishi and Chongwu in Jinjiang can make balls with fast speed and good quality. The balls are as small as fish-eye beads. It is amazing that they are rolling the winter festival balls at the same time. , and also use rice balls to make some small and exquisite fruits, animals, gold ingots and silver treasures to symbolize prosperity and wealth, commonly known as "making chickens, hens and paparazzi".

There is a saying in Quanzhou that "if you don't go home during the winter festival, you will have no ancestors." Therefore, those who are away from home will try their best to go home to celebrate the festival and pay homage to their ancestors. On the morning of the Winter Festival, sweet ball soup should be cooked to honor the ancestors, and then the whole family will have sweet ball soup for breakfast. Some people also leave a few rice balls on the door after the meal, saying "respect the door god". People in Quanzhou eat pills and call them "Tou Wan (round)" for Yuanxiao and "Wei Wan (round)" for Winter Festival. Rounding the head and tail means that everything in the family is perfect from beginning to end. However, the "Hui'an County Chronicles and Customs Chronicles" of the Jiaqing Period of the Qing Dynasty explained the eating of pills during the winter festival as follows: In November, the winter solstice, when Yang Qi begins to sprout, eating rice pills will stick to the door. When the yang is round and the yin is square, in the fifth month the yang begins to grow, and the millet is ripe before the grain, and becomes the horned millet, which resembles the yin, horn, and square.

When the yang begins to rise during the winter solstice, rice balls are made to resemble the yang, and the balls and circles are also similar to each other. The summer solstice is not considered a festival, it suppresses the yin. ? At noon, ancestors are worshiped, and the offerings include meat and vegetables. At night, family sacrifices are held, such as New Year's Eve, and tender cakes and vegetables must be included in the offerings.

During the Chinese New Year, it is customary to prepare tender cakes and dishes only during the Winter Festival, New Year's Eve and Qingming Festival. It is said that they all have the meaning of "wrapping gold and silver" and are intended to pray for the prosperity of the family. In the old days, those who belonged to a large and prominent family would open the gate of the ancestral temple on this day and hold an ancestor worship ceremony. Together with the ancestor worship during the Qingming Festival, they were collectively called the Spring and Winter Sacrifice. The rituals are very strict and the participants are very pious.

In Hui'an, in addition to worshiping ancestors during the Winter Festival, there are also some customs similar to the Qingming Festival. For example, if you can go up to the mountain to sweep tombs and donate money within ten days before and after the day, there is no taboo in repairing tombs and moving them.

As an important solar term, the winter solstice has many proverbs related to it. For example, if you eat on the Winter Festival, you will go to winter; if you eat on Qingming Festival, you will go down to the bitter pit. Astronomy stipulates that the winter solstice is the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere. After the winter festival, the temperature continues to drop and there is little farm work. It becomes the slack season, which is called "winter". During the Qingming Festival, the weather is warm, the vegetation is luxuriant, and agricultural production is mostly busy with spring plowing and planting. This is the most tiring stage for farmers, so it is called "entering the pit of suffering." But the busy farming season should not be forgotten during the leisure time, and the proverb reminds farmers in time: The sixth day of the hundredth day of the winter solstice is the Qingming Festival. ?106 days after the winter solstice is the Qingming Festival, so you should prepare for farming as early as possible. In addition, there are "Dry Winter Festival, Wet Year Dou". ?The winter solstice is at the beginning of the month, and the severe cold is in the year; the winter solstice is at the end of the month, and the severe cold is in February?. ?Before the winter solstice, the price of rice rises, and the poor children receive long-term care; before the winter solstice, the price of rice falls, and the poor children turn into poverty?, etc.

On the Winter Solstice in Yinchuan, Ningxia, you can also eat your brain!

There is a custom in Yinchuan that on the Winter Solstice, people drink rice noodle soup and eat mutton rice noodle soup dumplings. On the day of the winter solstice, the people of Yinchuan gave the mutton noodle soup a strange name: "Brain".

On the fifth day of the night, the housekeeper got busy early. He washed the purple mushrooms on Songshan Mountain and made soup. After boiling, he took out the mushrooms; put the diced mutton into the pot and stir-fried, stir-fried with water vapor and then added ginger, Stir-fry onions, garlic, and chili noodles. After the flavor is absorbed, add the chopped mushrooms to the diced meat and stir-fry again, then marinate with vinegar (to remove the poisonous smell of wild mushrooms), then add mixed noodles, refined salt, and soy sauce; the meat is rotten After that, add the fungus and day lily (day lily) and stir-fry briefly, add the clear mushroom soup. When the soup boils, add the cut flour cubes and soaked vermicelli, then add the leek, garlic sprouts, and coriander, and you are ready. Pot of mutton powder soup. This pot of soup is red with peppers, yellow with day lilies, green with garlic sprouts and coriander, white with vermicelli and vermicelli, and black with mushrooms and fungus. The soup is red, yellow, green, white and black, and the aroma is fragrant, making people salivate.

During the winter solstice, the common people call it the Ghost Festival. After the dumplings are made, a bowl is served first and a bowl is served to the neighbors. I couldn’t eat dumplings in the morning, so I bought Diaolu tri-tip pancakes and fennel pancakes and soaked them in powder soup. Dumplings stuffed with mutton powder soup and yellow radish are a common meal for Yinchuan people, but outsiders rave about it. It is rare to see such spicy and delicious dumplings in other places. This can be regarded as a special snack in Yinchuan.

Shanghai: Every household makes glutinous rice balls.

Eating glutinous rice balls during the winter solstice is especially popular in Jiangnan. There is a folk saying that eating glutinous rice balls makes you one year older. Tangyuan is also called glutinous rice balls, and eating glutinous rice balls during the Winter Solstice is also called "winter solstice dumplings".

Chocolate Tangyuan

Ingredients: 500g glutinous rice flour (glutinous rice flour), 250g chocolate, 100g chopped nuts and nuts, a little sugar.

Method: Mix the dough with warm water and rice dumpling powder, then break the dough into equal-sized pieces; break the chocolate into small pieces and crush them; flatten the dough and wrap the chocolate directly in the middle Crush nuts and nuts and a little sugar, roll them into balls, put them into a pot of boiling water and cook them before eating. Recommended Food for the Winter Solstice

1. Dumplings

Legend has it that Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in Henan Province, thought about the poor villagers. On the winter solstice, he set up a medical tent in the open space of Dongguan, Nanyang, to provide medical services to the poor. Dispelling Cold Jiao Er Soup (Jiao Er, now known as dumplings) makes people feel warm all over and hot in their ears after eating it.

Tips Cold-dispelling Jiaoer Soup

Method: First put mutton, chili and some cold-dispelling medicinal materials in a pot and boil. After they are cooked, remove the mutton and medicinal materials. Chop it into pieces, wrap it in dough into an ear-like shape, and cook it in a pot. Each person has a big bowl of soup and two pairs of delicate ears.

2. Wontons

There is a saying in old Beijing: "Winter Solstice Wontons and Summer Solstice Noodles". "Yanjing Chronicles" says: "The shape of Hufu's wontons is like a chicken egg, which is quite similar to the chaos of heaven and earth, so it is eaten during the winter solstice during the solar eclipse." In addition to the similarity in shape, "wonton" is also homophonic with "chaos".

3. Tangyuan

In the Jiangnan area, glutinous rice balls are an essential food during the winter solstice. This is a round dessert made of glutinous rice flour. "Yuan" means reunion and perfection. The glutinous rice balls eaten during the Winter Solstice are also called "Winter Solstice Reunion". There is a poem from the ancients that goes: Every family is pounding rice to make glutinous rice balls, knowing that it is the winter solstice in the Ming Dynasty. "Tangyuan" is divided into two types: "fenduan" and "fengyuan". "Qingjialu" says: "The big ones with fillings are glutinous rice balls, and they are the first to be sacrificed on the night of the winter solstice; It is also a sacred product. ?

4. Mutton

Many places in the north have the custom of eating dog meat and mutton during the winter solstice. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that mutton and dog meat have the effect of aphrodisiac and complement. In fact, in the Jiangnan area, Suzhou people also start to take supplements from the winter solstice, and what they eat is the famous Wuzhong Bookstore mutton.

5. Radish

There is a folk saying: "Winter solstice radish and summer solstice ginger, if eaten at the right time, there will be no pain." ? He also said: ? In winter, radish is better than ginseng. On the night of the winter solstice, it’s a good time to stew a pot of hot radish and pork ribs soup, and reunite the family to celebrate this time-honored Asian New Year festival.

There are many foods suitable for nourishing in winter, which can be roughly divided into three categories: flat tonic, warming tonic and nourishing. Generally speaking, hot foods are suitable for warming and tonic, for qi deficiency; cold foods are suitable for nourishing, for blood deficiency; flat foods are suitable for blood deficiency without qi deficiency, which is called flat tonic.

◆Pork, liver, kidney, lung, etc., eggs, hens, ducks, tofu, etc., celery, radish, longan, mushrooms, honey, bee milk, etc.

◇Nourish soft-shell turtle, crucian carp, mussels, kelp, jellyfish, pears, oranges, apples, bananas, lilies, sesame, mung beans, adzuki beans, peas, day lily, white fungus, bird's nest, etc.

◆ Warm and nourish mutton, beef and their offal, dog meat, rooster, goose, sea cucumber, squid, venison, jujube, walnuts, lentils, potatoes, onions, garlic, leeks, ginger , broad beans, wheat flour, alcohol, etc.

In addition to paying attention to the selection of food, you must also pay attention to cooking techniques: nourishing foods should be stewed, steamed or simmered in soup, with a light taste; warm tonic foods should be braised or braised in sauce, with a strong taste; flat tonic foods Food can be used in both ways, and the taste is mainly peaceful.