Chinese specialty food. Also known as dumplings. It is a staple food and local snack, and is also a food for New Year's festivals. There is a folk song called "Big cold, small cold, eat dumplings for the New Year." Dumpling is made of dough wrapped in water and boiled. Dumplings originated in the North and South Dynasties. Dumplings are made with cold water and flour, rolled into a round skin that is slightly thicker in the center and thinner around the perimeter, wrapped with a filling, pinched into a crescent shape or an angle shape, and cooked in boiling water. Dumpling skins can also be made of hot noodles, crispy noodles, or rice flour; fillings can be meat or vegetarian, sweet or salty; maturing methods can also be used for steaming, branding, pan-frying, deep-frying, etc. Meat fillings include sanshen, shrimp, crab roe, sea cucumber, fish, chicken, pork, beef, mutton, etc., and the vegetarian fillings are divided into assorted vegetarian fillings, ordinary vegetarian fillings, and so on.

Origin

Dumplings originated in ancient times. As early as in the Three Kingdoms period, the book "Guangya" written by Zhang Yi of Wei, mentioned this food. According to the evidence: it is from the period of the North and South Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, "the laying down of the moon shaped wontons". And the Southern Song Dynasty "dry meat double under the corner of the" development, has a history of 1,400 years ago. The Qing Dynasty historical records say; 'New Year's Day at the time of the child, the food with away, such as eating flatbread, the name of the corner of the child, to take the meaning of its more years of the child." Also said: "the first day of every year, rich or poor, no matter how rich or poor, all do dumplings with white flour to eat, known as boiled biscuits and cakes, the whole country is the same, no different also. Wealthy families, secretly to the gold and silver ingot hidden in the meat and potatoes, in order to divine the smooth, family members eaters, the end of the year is very lucky." This means that people eat dumplings on New Year's Day, symbolizing good luck, to show the old and welcome the new. Recent Xu Ke compiled 〈〈Qing稗类钞〉〉 said: "There are fillings, or called the powder angle - and steamed food fried food can be cooked in water and soup is called dumplings." For thousands of years, dumplings as a New Year's Eve food, loved by people, and has become a habit, passed down to the present day.

Dumplings in different places

Dumplings have been known by many names during their long development, and in ancient times they were called "jail balls," "flatbread," "dumpling bait," "powdered horn," and so on. Tang Dynasty called dumplings "soup in the prison pill"; Yuan Dynasty called "time Luojiao Er"; the end of the Ming Dynasty called "powder angle"; the Qing Dynasty called "flat food" -- Now, the north and south of the dumplings are not the same name. Nowadays, the north and the south have different names for dumplings. Many areas in the south are called "wonton". Dumplings because of its different fillings, the name is also a variety of names, there are pork dumplings, mutton dumplings, beef dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings and so on.

The Legend of Dumplings

Dumplings were originally called "Jiao Er" and were first invented by Zhang Zhongjing, the sage of Chinese medicine. The story of how he made the soup to dispel the cold has been passed down in folklore to this day.

Legend has it that at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing was the governor of Changsha, and then he resigned from his post and returned to his hometown. Just in time for the winter solstice, he saw the people of Nanyang starving and freezing, with both ears frostbitten, at a time when typhoid fever was prevalent and a lot of people were dying of the disease. Summarizing the clinical practice of more than 300 years in the Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing built a medical hut in the area, set up a cauldron, fried mutton, chili peppers and herbs to dispel cold and raise the heat, wrapped in dough in the shape of an ear, and gave it to the poor people with soup and food after cooking. The people ate the soup from the winter solstice to New Year's Eve, warding off the cold and curing the frozen ears. From then on, people in the countryside and descendants imitated the production and called it "Dumpling Ear" or "Dumpling", and there are some places that call it "Flat Food" or "Hot Noodle Dumpling". "

Countrywide, there are a lot of people who are interested in the food.

There is a custom in the north of China to make dumplings for the New Year's festivals and to welcome friends and relatives. Especially on the first day of the New Year, the whole family to pay tribute to the New Year, will be sitting around together, while wrapping dumplings and chatting, the mountain south and north, nothing to talk about, from time to time to attract laughter, a great deal of its joy." Dumplings are everyone's favorite food, and the New Year's meal is especially fragrant". When people eat this smooth and delicious water cakes, if you know some of its origins, who can not marvel at the ancient civilization of our long history of pasta wonderland it!

There are many famous dumplings all over China, such as the shrimp dumplings made of clarified flour in Guangdong, the pot-sticker dumplings in Shanghai, the steamed dumplings with crab roe in Yangzhou, the small dumplings in soup in Shandong, the dumplings in the old side of the Northeast, and the Zhongshui dumplings in Sichuan, all of which are popular varieties. Xi'an has also created a dumpling feast, where dozens of dumplings of different shapes and fillings are used to entertain guests. There are many historical records and folklore about the origin of dumplings.

Dumplings

Dumplings are made on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year. Is one of the most important elements of the New Year's folk in the vast areas of northern China. Dumplings on the New Year's Eve, because it is an important part of the festival, so there are also many rules and conventions stipulated in the content of the custom. All of these customs are needed to match the atmosphere of the New Year.

The Dumpling Filling

The first step in making dumplings is to mix the dumpling filling. There are both meat and vegetarian dumpling fillings, and in some places there is a strict distinction between them, but more often than not they are a combination of meat and vegetables. The dumplings made on New Year's Eve should be enough for the whole family to eat on the night of the 30th and on the morning of the first day of the year. New Year's Eve dumpling filling is usually a combination of meat and vegetarian ingredients, with pork or mutton, cut into small diced meat, add seasoning marinade, and then the cabbage leaves with a knife into a coarse grain, squeezed out part of the water, add people meat and seasoning mix and become. In the process of making the filling, the most important thing is to chop the filling, that is, the process of chopping the cabbage with a knife. Chopping vegetables, knife and board impact, issued a file powerful "bang bang" sound, due to the size of the force in constant change, the sound will be issued a rhythmic sense of rhythmic changes in strength and weakness, like a particularly beautiful music, spread to the four neighbors and eight homes. People want their own family chopping sound is the village's loudest, but also the longest. Meat and vegetables stuffing, harmonic "wealth", chopping the sound of the loudest and longest time, the beauty of it is said to be "a long time to have a surplus of wealth". The longer the chopping time, the more dumplings are wrapped, symbolizing the richness of the day.

The shape of the dumplings

The shape of the dumplings on New Year's Eve is also very delicate, and most regions are accustomed to keeping the traditional curved moon shape. This shape is made by folding the dough in half and then pinching it with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand along the edge of the semicircle, pinching it carefully and evenly, which is called "pinching the blessing". Some farmers pinch the two corners of the dumplings into a curved moon shape and pinch them together in the shape of a "Yuanbao", which is placed on the cover curtain, symbolizing wealth all over the place and a house full of gold and silver. Some farmers, the dumplings will be pinched on the wheat pattern, like a full grain, large wheat, symbolizing the new year will be a bumper crop. But more often, the dumplings are wrapped into several shapes to symbolize that the coming year will be full of wealth, grain, and prosperity.

Dumpling arrangement

New Year's Eve package of dumplings, not only in the shape of the instructions, even the arrangement of the rules. First of all, they can't be placed in a messy way. As the old saying goes, "A thousand busy, not let the dumplings chaotic line." Everyday dumplings, horizontal rows of vertical arrangement, are arbitrary, the New Year's Eve package of dumplings is not. Shandong and other places to cover the curtain to be round, first placed in the center of a few dumplings in the shape of a Yuanbao, and then around the Yuanbao circle by circle to the outside layer by layer placed neatly, folk commonly known as the "circle of blessings". Some people even stipulate that, regardless of the size of the cover curtain, only 99 dumplings can be placed on each cover curtain, and the cover curtain must be full. Therefore, it can only be realized by adjusting the spacing between the dumplings and the rows, which is called "Jiu Jiu Fu". There is also an interesting story in folklore about this custom: a long time ago, in a poor mountain village, there was a family that was so poor that they often ate the first meal but not the next. On the 30th day of the New Year, the family had no white flour and no vegetables, and they were anxious to hear the sound of chopping vegetables from their neighbors. Have no choice but to borrow rice and noodles from friends and relatives. And after a good noodle, and then get a little bit of mixed vegetables and put together into the filling, and wrapped up the dumplings. Because the noodles are borrowed, so the dumplings are extraordinarily valuable, when placed, a circle by a circle from the inside to the outside, very neat, but also very beautiful. The king of Zao, who had just returned from heaven, was very happy to see them. There is a rich man in the same village, the family has a ten thousand dollar family fortune, weekdays are used to eat the sea food, do not put the dumplings in the eyes. On the 30th day of the New Year, he made dumplings with meat, eggs and other ingredients, and put them on the cover curtain. When the dumplings were cooked in the pot, the flavor changed. The pork filling became turnip greens. The poor man's dumplings were filled with meat and eggs. It turned out that the king of the stove was very dissatisfied with the rich family's attitude towards the dumplings, and in order to punish him, he secretly switched the dumplings of the two families. The next day, the story spread in the village. From then on, even if people are busy, the dumplings on New Year's Eve must be neatly arranged to make a "circle of good fortune". However, in some parts of Heilongjiang, dumplings cannot be arranged in a circle. It is said that placing the dumplings in a circle will make the days go by more and more dead. Instead, they must be arranged horizontally in rows, so that wealth can come in all directions.

Dumplings Cooked and Eaten

Not only do you need to make dumplings on New Year's Eve, but you also need to eat them. As the saying goes, "Eat dumplings on New Year's Eve - there are no outsiders." It indicates that the dumplings for the New Year's Eve dinner are a symbol of the reunion of loved ones. The dumplings on this day, to be eaten on New Year's Eve, not only have the meaning of family reunion, but also take the meaning of renewing the cross. The custom of eating dumplings on New Year's Eve has a long history, at least in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. The Ming Palace History records the custom of eating dumplings on New Year's Eve. "Five nights up ...... to eat water snacks, that is, flat food also." Later, after the inheritance of perfection, it formed the custom of eating dumplings on New Year's Eve in later generations of folk, thought the meaning of resignation and renewal. Dumplings on New Year's Eve, accompanied by the sound of firecrackers, will be the dumplings into the boiling pot, boiled and fished out of the first for the gods and goddesses, and then accompanied by other food to eat dumplings.

Cooking dumplings on New Year's Eve is also very delicate. The firewood used for the fire should be made of bean curd or sesame curd, which means that the fire will burn more and more vigorously, and the coming year will be like the blossoming of sesame seeds. To cook dumplings in a pot, you can't stir them with a shovel, but rather shovel them in one direction, against the edge of the pot, forming a circle, the same as the meaning of placing the dumplings. In the eastern part of Shandong Province, the dumplings are usually cooked in such a way as to intentionally break a few of the dumplings, but they are not to be said to be broken, crumbled, rotten, etc., and are to be said to have "earned" or "risen". Because of the dumplings within the dish, the dish resonates with "wealth", so the dumplings "earned", is "earned wealth", Figure a lucky, for a mouthful, to increase the joy of New Year's Eve atmosphere. In some places in central Gansu, New Year's Eve when cooking dumplings, but also add a little noodle **** cooking, with food, beautifully called "silver wrapped around the treasure". Noodles to be fine, dumplings to be wrapped into the shape of a treasure, a metaphor for longevity and wealth, but also to figure a good luck, send people's best hopes.

When eating dumplings, there are common rules. The first bowl should be offered to the ancestors and the gods. This offerings of dumplings also have to pay attention to, Hebei folk "God three ghost four" said. That is, to the gods on the offerings of three bowls, each bowl of three; to the ancestors on the offerings of four bowls, each bowl containing four dumplings; only the Zaowang master is the least respected, on the offerings of only 1 bowl of dumplings, the bowl only 1, but some people are not happy about it, just a few. In some places, after the dumplings are brought to the offering table, the elderly members of the family have to recite a prayerful jingle, such as:

One flat food with two pointed ends,

They are put into the pot to become ten thousand.

Golden spoon, silver bowl,

To the table to honor the old sky.

The gods love it,

and it keeps them safe all year round.

The second bowl of dumplings is served to the livestock to show love and care for them. In the old days, large animals such as cows and horses were the main tools of labor for farming families, and people hoped that they would usher in a safe and successful year just like people. The third bowl is only begun to be eaten by the family. New Year's Eve New Year's Eve dinner, there were many kinds, but other can not eat, only dumplings must be eaten. Eat also remember to eat even better, can not eat singular. Some old people in the family say under their breath as they eat, "more vegetables (wealth), more vegetables," and other old sayings. After the meal, the plate and bowl in which the dumplings are served, the pot in which the dumplings are cooked, and the cover curtain in which the raw dumplings are placed must all be intentionally left with a few (even) numbers, which is called "Yearly surplus". Even the filling and dough used to make the dumplings had to be "left over".