Lantern Festival special food
1 yuanxiao
Yuanxiao, also known as Tangyuan, Shuotuan and Zi Yuan, has a long history in China. Yuanxiao, or "Tangyuan", is made of white sugar, rose, sesame, red bean paste, yellow cinnamon, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste and so on. And wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a circle, which can be vegetarian and have different flavors. You must eat Yuanxiao on the Lantern Festival to get the auspicious meaning of "reunion is like the moon".
2. jiaozi
Jiaozi is a folk food with a long history and is deeply loved by people. There is a saying among the people that "it's delicious but not as good as jiaozi". During the Spring Festival, jiaozi has become an indispensable delicacy. Jiaozi is shaped like an ingot. During the Spring Festival, people eat jiaozi, which sounds like "making money into treasure". Secondly, jiaozi has stuffing, which is convenient for people to put all kinds of auspicious things into stuffing to pin people's hopes for the new year.
The origin of Lantern Festival
Yuanxiao originally meant "the night of Shangyuan Festival", because the main activity of Shangyuan Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month was to watch the lights and enjoy the moon at night, and later the name of this festival evolved into "Lantern Festival". The Lantern Festival will be held on the fifteenth day of the first month, which will push the celebration on New Year's Eve to another climax. On the night of Lantern Festival, the streets are decorated with lanterns and people appreciate them. Solve riddles on the lanterns and eating Yuanxiao have become the customs of several generations.
Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in China, which began in the Qin Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Oriental Lantern Festival viewing began in the period of Emperor Han Ming. Ming Di advocates Buddhism. He heard that Buddhism has the custom of Buddhist monks watching the relics light up to worship Buddha on the fifteenth day of the first month, so he ordered that lights be lit up in palaces and temples to worship Buddha on this night, so that all cremators and ordinary people could hang up lights. Later, this Buddhist ceremonial festival gradually formed a grand folk festival. This festival has experienced the development process from the court to the people and from the Central Plains to the whole country.
The formation of Lantern Festival custom has a long process. According to general data and folklore, the fifteenth day of the first month was paid attention to in the Western Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's activity of offering sacrifices to "Taiyi" in Ganquan Palace on the moonlit night (Taiyi: the God who rules all things in the universe) was regarded by later generations as the first sound of offering sacrifices to gods on the fifteenth day of the first month. However, the fifteenth day of the first month is indeed a folk festival after the Han and Wei Dynasties. The introduction of Buddhist culture in the Eastern Han Dynasty is of great significance to the formation of Lantern Festival customs.
The implication of eating glutinous rice balls in Lantern Festival
The implication of eating glutinous rice balls in Lantern Festival is good luck and family reunion, as well as good wishes for future life and yearning for hometown.
1, experts say that Yuanxiao was often called "tangyuan" at first, because it floats on the water after boiling, which is beautiful and reminds people of the bright moon hanging on the clouds. There is a bright moon in the sky and jiaozi in the bowl. Every family is round and round, symbolizing reunion and good luck. Therefore, eating Yuanxiao expresses people's love for family reunion.
2. The name of Tangyuan is similar to the pronunciation of "reunion", which means reunion, symbolizing the reunion, harmony and happiness of the whole family, and also pinning people's thoughts on parting relatives and good wishes for future life.
Eating glutinous rice balls in Lantern Festival not only means celebrating family reunion, but also has the health care functions of keeping out the cold, nourishing the spleen and stomach and benefiting the lungs. The material of Yuanxiao dumplings is mainly glutinous rice. "Compendium of Materia Medica" points out that glutinous rice is a valley for invigorating spleen and stomach, lung and qi. Glutinous rice is sweet and warm, which can nourish human blood and spleen and stomach after eating. The coldest winter is March 9, although it has passed now, the weather is warm and cold, and stomach gas is most likely to be lost in cold days. The ancients packed glutinous rice dumplings on the fifteenth day of the first month, except that glutinous rice was sticky and the dumplings were easy to cook and would not come apart, and because glutinous rice had the characteristics of keeping out the cold.
4. Eating glutinous rice balls on the Lantern Festival will warm the spleen and stomach, and people's breath will become quite smooth, so that the whole body will be hot and play a role in keeping out the cold, especially suitable for those with spleen and stomach deficiency. In addition, glutinous rice also contains protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, nicotinic acid and other rich nutrients, so it can be said that glutinous rice dumplings are warm and strong food.