What traditional food does the Beginning of Spring eat?

The Beginning of Spring is not only the first solar term in the 24 solar terms of the lunar calendar, but also the Beginning of Spring has his own food, mainly spring cakes, radishes, spring plates, etc., and it is popular to eat spring rolls in the south, and there are many vendors hawking spring rolls in the markets. next, let's take a look at what traditional food the Beginning of Spring eats.

spring roll

In addition to spring cakes, spring rolls are also a kind of festive delicacy that people often eat in spring. Spring rolls evolved from the custom of eating spring plates on the day of the Beginning of Spring in ancient times. In the Song Dynasty, there was a kind of "roll pancake", which was the transitional type between spring cake and spring roll. The complete Collection of essential things at Home in the Yuan Dynasty has been recorded that spring cakes are wrapped in stuffing and fried. By the Qing Dynasty, the name of spring roll had appeared. Spring rolls are made by wrapping the stuffing heart with a thin round crust, growing strips, and then deep-frying until golden brown floats. Stuffing heart can be meat or vegetarian, salty or sweet.

Spring dish

Spring dishes, also known as "five spicy dishes", are made from five kinds of spicy lettuce dishes. "Compendium of Materia Medica" said: "five pungent dishes, New Year's Day, the Beginning of Spring with onions, garlic, leek, polygonum artemisia, mustard Xinnen mixed food, to welcome the new meaning." This custom spread to the Tang, Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties.

For example, Yelu Chucai in the Yuan Dynasty has the poem "the Beginning of Spring Riyi makes poor spring plate", which talks about using lotus root, pea, onion, Artemisia annua, leek and vermicelli as spring plate. Ningjin area with onions, garlic, pepper, ginger, mustard cut and mixed food, known as Wuxin plate, it can not only serve with wine, but also can be given as gifts to each other. There are also gifts for green leeks and oranges.

Spring cake

Tang "04:00 Treasure Mirror" recorded: "the Beginning of Spring, eat lu, spring cake, lettuce, the number 'dish'." It can be seen that the people of the Tang Dynasty have begun to try spring dishes and eat spring cakes. The so-called spring cake, also known as Lotus-Leaf-Like Pancake, is actually a kind of hot noodle pancake-with two small pieces of water, greased in the middle, rolled into pancakes, which can be uncovered into two pieces when cooked. Spring cakes are used to roll vegetables, including cooked vegetables and stir-fried vegetables.

The book Tiaodingji in the Qing Dynasty once recorded the method of making spring cakes: "roll noodles with a package of ham, chicken and other things, or the heart of vegetables during the four seasons, fried for customers." And bacon loin, garlic flower, black jujube, walnut kernel, foreign sugar, white sugar crushed together, roll spring cake cut. " This is the way of eating in the Qing Dynasty. Today's spring cakes are still made in ancient times or steamed, and the size can be determined according to personal preferences. When eating, some people like to put on sweet noodle sauce and curly scallions to eat. In some places, they also pay attention to eating cooked meat such as shredded chicken with sauced belly.

Radish

According to the book "Simin Moon order" written by Cui Xi in the Han Dynasty, there has been a "the Beginning of Spring solar eclipse of lettuce" for a long time in China. After the Ming and Qing dynasties, the so-called "biting spring" mainly refers to eating radish at the beginning of spring. For example, Liu Ruoyu in the Ming Dynasty wrote: "up to the next day when the Beginning of Spring chewed radish, no matter whether he was high or low, it was called" biting spring ". In the Qing Dynasty, Fucha admired the Chronicles of the Age of Yanjing: "Spring is the Beginning of Spring, the daily rich family eats more spring cakes, women and other people buy more radishes and eat them, saying that they can be sleepy in spring."

Why eat radish? A more common saying is that it can solve the difficulties in spring. After the Beginning of Spring, the temperature gradually rose, the human yang rose step by step, and the Chinese, who were particular about eating and tonifying, chose the food with the characteristic of Xin Gan divergence, in order to make the body adapt to the weather. Su Dongpo has a poem saying: "the root of Ludu still contains Xiao dew, the east garden is covered with frost and snow in autumn, and Reed has children and grandchildren." Li Shizhen praised the radish, saying that "both roots and leaves can be raw, ripe, soy sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, wax, rice, and vegetables are the most beneficial." Radish also has expectorant, ventilation, cough and other medicinal value. This may be the original intention of the ancients who advocated eating radish when the Beginning of Spring was born.

Nowadays, the custom of eating spring cakes and spring dishes is very rare, generally eating dumplings and noodles, which is called "welcome spring dumplings with spring noodles". On the beginning of spring, there are still many customs. In northern and western Shandong, on this day, the Beginning of Spring's mother will sew into small toys such as "Spring Rooster" and "Spring Doll" with colored rags and give them to her children as holiday gifts. In Tengzhou, Huimin and other places, for all children who have not been vaccinated, the spring rooster also has a bunch of soybeans in his mouth and a few in his mouth, meaning that the chicken eats beans and can eat diseases such as smallpox and measles.