night of the 15th of the first lunar month；Lantern Festival；yuanxiao

On the Lantern Festival, people in the south eat glutinous rice balls, which are called Yuanxiao in the north, mainly praying for the whole family to be round and round. The glutinous rice used for making glutinous rice balls is flat in nature and sweet in taste, and has the functions of tonifying deficiency, regulating blood, invigorating spleen and appetizing, benefiting qi and stopping diarrhea, and has the functions of warming the middle warmer, promoting fluid production and moistening dryness. At the beginning of the Song, Yuan and Yuan Dynasties, glutinous rice balls had become the festival food of the Lantern Festival, so people also called them "Yuanxiao".

According to the theory of stuffing, Yuanxiao can be divided into two kinds: stuffing and non-stuffing, with stuffing and salty, sweet, meat and vegetarian. According to the production methods, there are various kinds, such as hand rubbing, Yuanxiao mechanism and bamboo plaque rolling. According to the difference of milling, there are glutinous rice noodles and sorghum rice noodles.

Yuanxiaocha

In Shaanxi and other places, there is a custom of eating Yuanxiao tea, that is, putting all kinds of vegetables and fruits in hot soup noodles, much like the ancient "Yuanxiao porridge". This tea increases the intake of cellulose, minerals and vitamins, and is not as greasy as ordinary Yuanxiao. It has a neutralizing effect on the acidic constitution caused by eating more animal food in festivals, and also makes Yuanxiao more comprehensive in nutrition.

Camellia oleifera

Eating on the night of the Lantern Festival, the ground says "fifteen flat, sixteen yuan", one day to eat jiaozi, one day to eat Yuanxiao; In the mountainous area, it is "fifteen dozen camellia oleifera, sixteen pinch flat food". It is the so-called "ten miles of different customs." Making tea is to stir the tea noodles with chopsticks to make camellia oleifera, also known as noodle tea.

Youcha noodles

Camellia oleifera noodles, also known as fried noodles, are a very distinctive snack in Shaanxi and one of the traditional foods necessary for the Lantern Festival. Stir-fry raw flour, add butter, and then add other ingredients to make paste for eating.

lettuce

Guangdong people like to "steal" lettuce and cook it with cakes during the Lantern Festival. It is said that this kind of food represents auspiciousness. Cantonese people are calm and down-to-earth, and they have the best intentions for festivals. Lettuce, which is most commonly used in festive occasions such as the opening of new stores, is also an essential holiday item for the Lantern Festival. Lettuce, which often becomes a common vegetable in the southern dining table, is homophonic with "making money", so it is also regarded as a festive thing symbolizing wealth and good fortune.

Oil hammer

In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, rice porridge or bean porridge with gravy was used as the festive food for the Lantern Festival. However, this food is mainly used for sacrifices, and it is not a holiday food. It was not until the Tang Dynasty that Zheng Wangzhi's "The Record of the Chef" recorded: "Dieting in the middle of the year, going to the oil hammer." The method of making an oil hammer is similar to the fried Yuanxiao of future generations, according to a record in Shangshi Order quoted from Taiping Guangji and Lushi Miscellanies. Some people call it "the pearl of oil painting".

Jujube cake

People in western Henan like to eat jujube cakes during the Lantern Festival, which means good luck. Jujube cake was originally an imperial cake in the Qing Dynasty. It is fragrant and sweet, and contains nutrients such as vitamin C, protein, calcium, iron and vitamins, which can not only tonify the spleen and stomach, but also benefit qi and promote fluid production. It also has the effects of protecting the liver, increasing muscle strength, caring skin and preventing aging.

noodles

There is a folk proverb in Jiangbei area, which says, "Go to Lantern Festival, leave noodles behind, and look forward to next year after eating them." Local people want to eat noodles on the fifteenth night of the first month, which sounds irrelevant to Lantern Festival, but it also means praying for good luck. "Records of the Year of the Emblem" contains: "On the 18th day of the first month, the lights went down, and people spat on their faces. As the saying goes,' When the lights went up, the lights went down', and each family celebrated for itself." Eating noodles when the lights are off symbolizes the meaning of continuous celebration.

Bad soup

Taizhou area eats bad soup after seeing lanterns on the fourteenth day of the first month every year. Stir-fry the bad soup with shredded pork, shredded winter bamboo shoots, mushrooms, fungus, fresh ducklings, dried beans, oil bubbles, Sichuan bean boards, spinach, etc., and then add a little rice flour to cook it into a salty paste food. The bad soup drunk on the fifteenth day of the first month is sweet, made of sweet potato powder or lotus root starch with lotus seeds, sweet dates, longan and so on.

Chinese dumpling

On the fifteenth day of the first month, people in the north have the habit of eating jiaozi, while people in Henan have the custom and tradition of "fifteen flat and sixteen round" for the Lantern Festival, so they should eat jiaozi on the fifteenth day of the first month. Jiaozi is a kind of folk food with a long history, which is very popular among the people. There is a saying among the people that "it's delicious but not as good as jiaozi".