Dumplings are eaten every year on New Year's Eve, the fifth day of the first lunar month, the beginning of autumn, the beginning of winter, and the winter solstice. The reasons for eating dumplings during each festival are as follows:

1: Eating dumplings on New Year’s Eve: The folk custom of eating dumplings during the Spring Festival was quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Two: Eating dumplings on the fifth day of the first lunar month:

In addition to eating dumplings for the New Year's Eve dinner, dumplings are also eaten on the fifth day of the first lunar month called "Powu".

Three: Eating dumplings at the beginning of autumn: The beginning of autumn is known as "sticking to autumn fat" among the people. "Food is the first thing for people". The beginning of autumn is a very important solar term, and of course people can't forget to eat it.

Four: Eating Dumplings at the Beginning of Winter: The Beginning of Winter solar term has the meaning of harvesting in autumn and storing in winter. Our country used to be a farming society. People who worked for a year used the day of Beginning of Winter to take a rest and reward the whole family for the year. of hard work.

Five: Eating dumplings on the Winter Solstice: In northern my country, the habit of eating dumplings on the Winter Solstice has been spread since ancient times, as well as the legend that "eating dumplings on the Winter Solstice cures frozen ears."

Extended information

Zhang Zhongjing invented "dumplings" to treat people

Zhang Zhongjing was from Nanyang and lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. His "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" collected medical advice Its great success has been regarded as a classic by doctors of all ages. Zhang Zhongjing has a famous saying: "If you advance, you will save the world, if you retreat, you will save the people; if you cannot be a good prime minister, you should also be a good doctor." During the Jian'an period, Zhang Zhongjing was sent by the imperial court to be the prefect of Changsha, but he still used his medical skills to relieve the suffering of the people. In the feudal era, officials could not enter private houses at will, so Zhang Zhongjing thought of a way to set the first and fifteenth day of every month to open the yamen and sit in the lobby to treat people's diseases without asking about political affairs. Zhang Zhongjing's move caused a sensation in the local area. Later, people called the doctor who sat in the medicine shop to treat patients "Mr. Sitting in the Hall" to commemorate this great medical scientist.

Zhang Zhongjing later resigned and returned to his hometown, dissatisfied with the darkness in the officialdom. When he returned home, it was the middle of winter. He saw many homeless people with yellow faces and skinny skin and no clothes to cover their bodies. Many of them even had their ears frozen. It was rotten and I felt very uncomfortable. He asked his disciples to set up a medical shed and a large pot in Dongguan, Nanyang, and use "Quhan Jiaoer Decoction" to treat chilblains from the winter solstice to New Year's Eve.

He put mutton, chili peppers and some anti-cold medicinal materials in a pot and boiled them. Then he took them out and chopped them into pieces. He used bread to make "Jiao Er" like ears, cooked them and distributed them to the people. People ate "Jiao Er" and drank "Qu Han Tang", their whole bodies became warm and their ears felt hot, and their frostbitten ears were cured. Later generations imitated Zhang Zhongjing's "sweet-eared" look and made food for consumption during the Chinese New Year, calling it "dumplings." To this day, there is still a folk song in Nanyang that "if you don't serve dumpling bowls during the New Year, your ears will freeze off and no one will care."