When Zhang Zhongjing, a medical saint, saw that people's ears were damaged by freezing in the cold, he cooked the bread with cold-expelling herbs to make "Jiao Er Tang" to cure people's ears. The winter solstice ranks first among the 24 solar terms, and it is called "sub-year". In the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, the day before the winter solstice was the end of the year.
In ancient times, the winter solstice was a very important festival, and it was said that the winter solstice was as big as a year. The court and the people always attached great importance to it, and there were sacrificial activities since the Zhou Dynasty.
After the winter solstice, the weather is mainly cold, so people tend to be warm and nourish yang to resist cold evil. Jiaozi is a kind of delicious food with comprehensive nutrition and easy digestion and absorption. It can be stuffed with mutton, Chinese cabbage, green onions, leeks and radishes. These dishes are warm and have a certain warming effect on human body.
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. After the winter solstice, the direct point of the sun gradually moved northward, and the daytime in the northern hemisphere began to lengthen gradually, and the height of the sun gradually increased at noon.
Therefore, there is a saying, "Eating noodles on the winter solstice makes a day grow longer." After the winter solstice, although the solar altitude angle gradually increased, it was a slow recovery process, and the heat lost every day was still greater than the heat received, showing a situation of "making ends meet".