Yuanxiao, as a food, has a long history in China. According to folk legend, Yuanxiao originated from King Zhao of Chu in the Spring and Autumn Period. On the fifteenth day of the first month of a year, King Chu Zhao passed the Yangtze River and saw floating objects on the river, which were a sweet food with white outside and red inside. To this end, King Zhao of Chu asked Confucius, who said, "This duckweed fruit is also a sign of the revival of the Lord." While eating Yuanxiao on the Lantern Festival, people should also eat some festive foods, such as rice porridge or bean porridge poured with gravy in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. However, this food is mainly used for sacrifices, and it is not a holiday food. In the Tang Dynasty, Zheng Wangzhi recorded this in the Record of the Chef: "Dieting in the middle of the year, going to the oil hammer." It can be seen that the Lantern Festival food oil hammer appeared in the Tang and Song Dynasties.

In the Song Dynasty's Miscellaneous Notes on the Year of the Year, it was said: "The scorching hammer was the most prosperous and lasted for a long time on the Shangyuan Festival." It shows that the oil hammer is the festival food of the Lantern Festival in Kaifeng, Henan Province.

What kind of food is an oil hammer? According to the record of Taiping Guangji in Song Dynasty, the hammer stuffing was taken out of the silver box after the oil was heated. Use things to group them in a good soft surface. Put the ball hammer in the pot and cook it. Take it out with a silver policy and soak it in a new well water. Then put the oil hammer into the oil pan, fry it for three to five times and take it out. It tastes "crisp and beautiful, unspeakable."

The oil hammer in the Tang and Song Dynasties was what later generations called Fried Yuanxiao. With the development of 1000 years, the methods and varieties of oil hammer have quite local characteristics. In Guangdong province alone, there are "Tongxin Fried Pile" in Panyu, "Ludui" in Dongguan and "Fried Pile" in Jiujiang, etc., which can be said that the food style still exists in Tang and Song Dynasties.

In the Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty, flour silkworms were eaten. Lu Yuanming's "Miscellaneous Notes at the Age of Years" said:

People in Beijing regard mung bean powder as a branch of soup, boiled glutinous rice as pills, and sugar as mash, which is called yuanzi salt fermented soybean. Cooking soup with mixed meat is called salt and black bean soup, and it is like making silkworms every day, all of which are eaten on the Yuan Festival.

In the Song Dynasty, a novel food for the Lantern Festival was popular among the people. This kind of food was first called "Floating Yuanzi" and later called "Yuanxiao", and businessmen also called it "Yuanbao".

In the Ming Dynasty, people called this glutinous rice dumpling Yuanxiao. Its preparation method is to use glutinous rice flour, with walnut kernel, sugar and rose as stuffing, and roll it into water, which is as big as walnut. This is called glutinous rice balls in all parts of Jiangnan.

During the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Treasures Yuanxiao, specially made by the Imperial Kitchen, was famous for its delicacy in the ruling and opposition parties. As early as the Kangxi period, it was rumored by the ruling and opposition parties. Kong Shangren, the author of the famous drama "Peach Blossom Fan", once had such a poem about the eight-treasure Lantern Festival: "Ziyun Tea House pours nectar, and the eight-treasure Lantern Festival is made within the effect."

Ma Siyuan was a master of making Yuanxiao in Beijing at that time, and his Difen Yuanxiao was famous far and near. Fu Zeng's "Shangyuan Zhuzhi Ci" wrote:

Sweet-scented osmanthus is filled with walnuts, and the rice is like a pearl well. See that Ma's family is good at dropping powder, and try to sell Yuanxiao in the wind.

What is sung in the poem is the famous Majia Lantern Festival.