"Eat Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month", as a special food for festivals, Yuanxiao has a long history in China. It was originally called "glutinous rice balls", but it was also called "Yuanxiao" because it was often eaten on Yuanxiao Festival, and businessmen also called it "Yuanbao". The common Lantern Festival is wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a round shape, and the fillings are rich and varied, such as white sugar, rose, sesame, bean paste, yellow cinnamon, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste, etc., which can be vegetarian and have different flavors. It can be boiled in soup, fried and steamed, symbolizing prosperity and reunion.
Meaning:
Lantern Festival is also a romantic festival among the traditional festivals in China.
Lantern Festival provides an opportunity for unmarried men and women to get to know each other in the feudal traditional society. Young girls in the traditional society are not allowed to go out for free activities, but they can go out to play together on holidays. Lantern Festival lanterns are just an opportunity to make friends, and unmarried men and women can also find objects for themselves by the way.
During the Lantern Festival, it is also a time for young men and women to meet their lovers.
Customs:
The custom of putting lights on Lantern Festival developed into an unprecedented lantern market in the Tang Dynasty, and after the middle Tang Dynasty, it has developed into a national carnival. The lantern market in Chang 'an was very large, burning 50,000 lanterns with various designs, and the emperor ordered people to make giant lantern buildings, with a height of 150 feet, which were very spectacular.
Since then, the Lantern Festival has developed continuously, and the time of Lantern Festival has become longer and longer. The Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty was "one day before and after Shangyuan". In the Song Dynasty, two days were added after the sixteenth, and in the Ming Dynasty, it was extended to ten days from the eighth day to the eighteenth.
In the Qing Dynasty, when Manchu entered the Central Plains, the court no longer held lantern festivals, but the Han folk lantern festivals were still spectacular. The date was shortened to five days and continues to this day.
During the Tang and Song Dynasties, various acrobatic skills began to appear in the lantern market. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, besides riddles and hundreds of operas, there were also opera performances.
In addition to visiting the lantern market, people in the past dynasties also had customs such as welcoming Zigu to worship Ce Shen and crossing the bridge to touch nails and walk away from all diseases, and played games such as beating Taiping drum, yangko, stilts, dragon dance and lion dance. At the same time, we should also eat some festive foods: in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, we ate bean porridge or rice porridge cooked with meat and animal oil during the Lantern Festival; in the Tang Dynasty, we ate a kind of pasta called "Mian Cocoon" and baked cakes; in the Song Dynasty, there was a spoon made of salted black bean soup and mung bean powder, and "Yuanzi" appeared. Since then, we have been eating Yuanxiao in the North and South of the Lantern Festival.
During the Lantern Festival, it is the time for young men and women to meet their lovers, so the Lantern Festival has become the "Valentine's Day" in China.
The Lantern Festival in traditional society is an important folk festival of Han nationality in urban and rural areas, especially in the city, which embodies the unique carnival spirit of China people. The function of festival custom carried by traditional Lantern Festival has been dispelled by daily life, and people have gradually lost their spiritual interest. The complex festival custom has been simplified to the food custom of "eating Lantern Festival".