Please talk about the traditional food in China and its implication?

Jiaozi is a traditional folk diet with a long history in China, which is deeply loved by people. There is a saying "delicious but not as good as jiaozi". During the Spring Festival, jiaozi will definitely become an indispensable delicacy at the New Year's Eve dinner.

Jiaozi originated from the ancient "chaos". As early as the Three Kingdoms period, there was a record of "chaos" in Guangya written by wei ren Zhang Yi. At that time, there was a crescent-shaped food called "Wonton", which was basically similar to the shape of jiaozi now. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, wonton was "crescent-shaped and could be eaten all over the world", which shows that wonton was quite popular in jiaozi during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. At that time, when cooking jiaozi, it was not usually eaten alone, but mixed with soup, so people at that time called jiaozi "wonton". This way of eating is still popular in some areas of our country. For example, when people from Henan and Shaanxi eat jiaozi, they should put some small ingredients such as coriander, chopped green onion, shrimp skin and leek in the soup. When jiaozi developed into the Tang Dynasty, its shape and eating habits were exactly the same as those of jiaozi now, that is, it was fished out and eaten alone on a plate. People in the Song Dynasty began to call Jiaozi "Jiao", and the etymology of the word "Jiaozi" probably came from this. This name and writing method can be found in later documents of Yuan, Ming, Qing and Republic of China. In the Yuan Dynasty, people called jiaozi a "flat food", which influenced the Ming Dynasty. "Wan Bu Miscellaneous Notes" written by Shen Bang during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty records: "New Year's Day pays New Year's greetings ... as a patch food." Liu Ruoyu's "Proceedings" records: "Eat fruit snacks on New Year's Day and eat a plaque immediately." The "plaque" of the "plaque food" in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties is now commonly used as "ping". A kind of "flat food" may come from Mongolian. Some new names about jiaozi appeared in Qing Dynasty, such as "jiaozi", "Water Snack" and "Boiled Bean". The increase in the names of jiaozi shows that different regions have different names in the process of its spread, and it also shows that the influence of jiaozi diet in the whole country is expanding.

The folk custom of eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival was quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Generally, jiaozi should be wrapped before New Year's Eve 12. Some should be eaten on New Year's Eve, and some should be eaten at midnight. At this time, it is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Eating jiaozi means "making friends when you are young", "Zi" is homophonic with "jiaozi", and it also means "holiday harmony", "reunion" and "good luck".

Why do you want to eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival? There are many legends about jiaozi among the people. One is to commemorate the creation of Pangu and end the state of "chaos"; The second is to take it as a homonym with "wonton", which means "five grains are abundant". In addition, folk legends also say that eating jiaozi is related to Nu Wa's making people. When Nuwa soil caused people, the ears of loess people were easily frozen off because of the cold weather. In order to prevent the ear from being fixed, Nuwa put a small eye on the ear, tied it with a thin thread, and put the other end of the thread in the mouth of the loess man to bite, so that the ear would be fine. In order to commemorate the achievements of Nu Wa, ordinary people wrapped jiaozi, molded adult ears with flour, wrapped them with stuffing (thread) and ate them with their mouths. Therefore, it should be a legend that the north eats jiaozi on the solstice in winter.

There are two important reasons for eating jiaozi during the Spring Festival: First, 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 and place their hopes for the new year. Until now, when people wrap jiaozi, they often wrap Jin Ruyi, sugar, peanuts, dates and chestnuts into stuffing. Eating the best and sugar means that the next year will be sweeter, those who eat peanuts will live a long and healthy life, and those who eat dates and chestnuts will have a baby early.

In some areas, when people eat jiaozi, they have to match some non-staple food to show their good luck. If you eat tofu, it symbolizes the happiness of the whole family; Eating persimmons symbolizes all the best; Eat three fresh vegetables. It symbolizes that Sanyang opens Thailand. People in Taiwan Province Province eat fish balls, meatballs and seaweed, symbolizing reunion and wealth. Jiaozi has various fillings and making methods. Even the same kind of jiaozi has different ways of eating: Daur people in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang want to cook jiaozi with vermicelli broth. Then even the soup with jiaozi to eat; Northerners eat jiaozi in the Spring Festival. Some people in jiaozi put sugar in their bellies with the intention of eating a sweet New Year. Some people put peanuts (called longevity fruit) in their stomachs with the intention that people can live longer after eating them; There is a kind of jiaozi, which is full of money. The intention is that whoever eats it will "get rich". Jiaozi is shaped like an ingot. During the Chinese New Year, jiaozi is cooked in the inner strip, which is called "Gold thread wears gold ingots".

Jiaozi, a delicious food, not only brings happiness and blessings to people in the New Year, but also becomes an important part of China's food culture and an indispensable food for the Spring Festival. Rice cake; New Year cake; rice cake

As a kind of food, rice cakes have a long history in China. China began to grow rice a long time ago and use it to make food. People in the Han Dynasty called rice cakes, fish bait and glutinous rice, and Yang Xiong's book Dialects of the Han Dynasty already called them cakes. The ancients also had a development process from rice cakes to rice cakes. In the 6th century A.D., the cookbook Historical Records contained the method of making "white cocoon candy", which said: "When the rice is cooked and hotter than that in Chu Jiu, it should be cooked with the rice, so it must be cooked extremely well, without rice grains ..." That is, after the glutinous rice is steamed, it should be cooked with the rice while it is hot, then cut into peach pits and dried. The method of grinding rice into cakes is also very early. The Book of Qi Yaomin written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty can prove this point. The production method is to screen glutinous rice flour with silk, add water and honey to knead it into hard dough, attach dates and chestnuts to the dough, wrap it with bamboo leaves and steam it. This glutinous rice cake has the characteristics of the Central Plains. The article "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of Jingshi" published during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty records that every time Beijingers "spit millet cakes on the first day of the first month, they are called rice cakes", which probably originated from the homophonic sound of "sticky cakes" in the north. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, rice cakes had developed into a snack that was supplied all year round.

Eating rice cakes in the Spring Festival is also different in taste between north and south. There are two kinds of rice cakes in the north: steamed and fried. In addition to steaming and frying, there are other methods in the south, such as frying in slices and cooking in soup. The types of rice cakes are: white rice cakes in the north and yellow rice cakes for farmers in Saibei; There are water mill rice cakes in Jiangnan; There is glutinous rice in the southwest; There are red turtle cakes in Taiwan Province province. Sweet-scented osmanthus sugar rice cakes in Suzhou, red jujube rice cakes in Beijing and 100-fruit rice cakes are all good for Chinese New Year. Rice cakes are mostly made of glutinous rice flour, which is a specialty of Jiangnan. There are sticky grains such as glutinous rice in the north, and sticky millet (commonly known as millet) was first introduced in ancient times. This shelled millet powder is yellow, sticky and sweet after being steamed with water. It is a delicious food for people in the Yellow River valley to celebrate the harvest.

It is said that rice cakes were first used to worship gods and ancestors on New Year's Eve, and later developed into food for the Spring Festival. The rice cake is not only a kind of holiday food, but also brings people new hope with the passing of a year. As a poem in the late Qing Dynasty said, "People's hearts are high, and food is harmonious, so that the year is better than the year to pray for the year." It means that every year goes well. Laba porridge was originally a religious festival food of Buddhism. Dieting and Dieting Custom in the Year of China: Before becoming a Buddha, Sakyamuni traveled all over India to find the true meaning of life. When he arrived in Magadah in northern India, he was tired and hungry and fainted. At this time, a shepherdess saw this scene and quickly took out her lunch and fed it to Sakyamuni bit by bit. Shepherdess's lunch is a mixture of all kinds of food, including all kinds of wild fruits collected. Sakyamuni ate this delicious lunch and recovered. Later, he bathed in the Nellian River, sat under a bodhi tree and meditated. He became a Buddha in early December. Since then, every year on the day of "La Qi", monks in the temple have to take fresh dried fruits and put them in washed utensils and stay up all night until dawn. The cooked porridge will be used to worship Buddha. At that time, the monks in the temple will recite the scriptures and then drink porridge as a souvenir. This is the origin of Laba porridge. Buddhism has spread far-reaching in our country and followed this custom. As for the ingredients of Laba porridge, almonds, peach kernels, preserved fruits, glutinous rice, soybeans and beans were used in the Northern Song Dynasty. Walnuts, pine nuts and persimmon chestnuts were used in the Southern Song Dynasty. Porridge in the Yuan Dynasty is dark red, also known as red porridge and cinnabar porridge. Red raw materials such as red beans, lotus seeds, peanuts and red dates may be used.

In the Song Dynasty, Meng Yuanshen recorded in "Dream of Tokyo": On December 8, "Buddhist baths were held in various temples, and seven treasures and five flavors of porridge were given to his disciples, which was called Laba porridge. Everyone is a Japanese family and eats fruit porridge. "

According to the legend of Anhui people, when Zhu Yuanzhang was a child, he herded cattle for the landlord and was often hungry because he could not cook. One day, he found a hole in a hut. He reached down and touched it, but it was a mouse's "granary"! There are rice, soybeans, red dates, chestnuts and other things in it, so he put these grains together in the pot and cooked a pot of hot porridge, which was delicious. After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he was tired of eating delicacies all day and wanted to change his taste. On the day of Laba, he suddenly remembered cooking porridge from a mouse hole when he was a child, and now he ordered the chef to cook porridge with various cereals. After eating it, I was very happy and named this porridge "Laba porridge".

Since then, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties have followed this dietary custom, which was the most popular in Qing Dynasty. There is a poem that says, "Laba cooks a double bow, and hazelnuts and peach kernels are dyed red. I like to ask my children to look at it. The Buddha's shadow is boundless. "

The famous Lama Temple Laba porridge, in addition to glutinous rice, millet and other grains, also has diced mutton and cream. Porridge noodles are sprinkled with red dates, longan, walnuts, raisins, melon seeds and green shredded pork.

Laba porridge, also known as eight-treasure porridge, is made of eight materials (such as longan, coix seed, cereal, glutinous rice, mung bean, red bean, kidney bean, peanut, etc.). ).