Why is it called wonton?

Wonton has many names.

Northerners are naturally called Wonton, Guangzhou Wonton, Sichuan Wonton, Bao Mian, Hubei, Xinjiang Ququ, Jiangxi Clear Soup, and Southern Anhui Treasures. There are so many names!

There are so many additives in the same food that it is widely distributed. Secondly, it shows that people like to eat it.

There are three appellations in our daily contact, namely "wonton", "wonton" and "wonton"

Let's talk about the origin of these three names respectively:

One: wonton:

The first is "wonton", which is its most commonly used and should be its oldest name.

The name wonton was first written in Korean dialect: "The cake is called wonton." According to Gao Cheng's Textual Research of Ming Dynasty, the cake began in the Seven Kingdoms period, and wonton is a kind of cake. Early cakes were filled with soup, so they were also called "boiled cakes" and "soup cakes". Later, wonton restaurant regarded wonton as a kind of cake and became a kind of food.

The ancients had the custom of "eating wonton from winter to sun". On the day of winter solstice, a grand ceremony was held in all the streets of the capital. At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the Taoist took a kiss and went to the table to celebrate the Buddha's birthday. According to Taoism, the Buddha in the early Yuan Dynasty symbolizes the first century when chaos and Taoism were not divided. Therefore, there is a folk custom of eating wonton, which means "creating the world". In the Qing Dynasty, Fu Cha Dunchong's "Yanjing Years" said: "The shape of husband's wonton is like a chicken egg, which is quite like the chaos of heaven and earth, so it is eaten in winter to the sun."

In other words, "wonton" is a homonym of "chaos", and the people once extended the daily trivial matter of eating wonton to the great significance of breaking the chaos and creating the world. Later generations no longer explain its original meaning, but spread the proverb "winter solstice wonton, summer solstice noodles", simply regard it as a seasonal diet.

Two: wonton:

"Wonton" is the common name of Guangdong Wonton. It is said that this kind of food was introduced to Guangdong in the Tang and Song Dynasties. According to the book "Living Together in Shuyi" in Gaozhou in Song Dynasty, "Lingnan floor heating ... it is often a bit noisy to eat wonton in winter, so you need to use a fan."

As for when to use the word "wonton" instead of the name of wonton, some people say that it began during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. A Hunan native opened a "three-kitchen noodle restaurant" in Guangzhou, specializing in pasta. Because the word wonton has too many strokes, it was rewritten as "wonton".

Some people trace their origins from their pronunciation. The Cantonese pronunciation of "faint" and "cloud" is exactly the same, so naturally "faint" is written as "cloud". In the same way, the word "Tun" is also abbreviated as "Tun", with similar pronunciation, and "Wonton" was born. Is it true?/You don't say. Of course, Cantonese people have the most say. If we have a rich imagination, we can also infer from the meaning that you northerners imagine this kind of food as "chaos" between heaven and earth, so why can't I imagine it as a white "cloud" between heaven and earth? Wonton, of course, means to swallow this "cloud" in your mouth

Three: copy the hand:

Perhaps the strangest thing is the name "Chaoshou" in Sichuan.

When many northerners first heard this name from southerners, it was hard to imagine that it was the name of food, and they might think it was the "operator"-trader in stock funds.

So what is the origin of this "copying hand"? There are two kinds of statements:

First, because its skin is thin and easy to cook, it was cooked before serving. There is a story that someone strolled to a snack bar on the street of Chengdu and asked the boss why "wonton" became "wonton" here. The boss didn't speak, just threw the wonton in his hand into the soup pot, then copied it with his hands on his chest, leaned against the door frame and stared at the contents of the soup with intense eyes. A minute later, the food was ready, put in a bowl and served to the diners, shouting "copy your hand."

Another way of saying it is that it looks like a person grasping two hands: the last process of making wonton is to grasp the two ends of the dough and stick them in the middle, which is quite similar to the image of people grasping their hands in their arms to avoid the cold, so it is called "grasping hands".

Tracing back to the origin of various names of wonton, we can get a lot of enlightenment from folklore, culturology and phonology, which is of great benefit, hehe.

There are many ways to copy hands in Sichuan, such as ordinary copy hands, red oil copy hands, old hemp copy hands and so on.