Why do you want to have a reunion dinner on New Year's Eve?

Because this is the last meal of the year, people living in farming times attach great importance to this meal. First, the whole family must get together for dinner. Even if someone in the family is stranded outside and can't get back in time, they should leave their place and chopsticks on the dining table to symbolize family reunion. It has abundant resources to reward the whole family for a year's hard work and dedication. It can be called a big meal for the youngest.

"Chronicle of Jingchu's Age" records that on New Year's Eve, it is necessary to cook several more meals, enough to eat for many days. Jiajing's "Guizhou Tongzhi" records that "leaving the old: furniture at the end of the year is allowed to be a store for leaving the old and welcoming the new. I also stayed for dinner, thinking that after five or seven days, I will be very happy if I have food, and there is hope for next year. This is called next year's meal. " These customs reflect people's expectation for the agricultural society for more than a year, and are good wishes for a bumper harvest and adequate food and clothing in the new year.

The court of the Qing Dynasty also held a New Year's Eve banquet every year. Besides the emperor and queen, there are some princes and ministers. New Year's Eve parties are usually held in Gan Qing Palace. Although the scale of this banquet is not large, it is very particular. This can be seen from the materials used for a table of New Year's Eve dinner in the forty-ninth year of Qianlong (1784).

According to the records, this banquet was served with 65 kg of pork, 3 fat ducks, 3 vegetable ducks, 3 fat chickens, 7 vegetable chickens, 3 pork elbows, 2 sausages, 8 small bellies, 25 kg of wild boar, 5 Kanto geese, 20 kg of mutton, 5 kg of venison 1 5 kg of wild boar. Judging from the food listed above, most of them are produced in the northeast.

This shows that the Qing Palace's New Year's Eve dinner has maintained the Manchu's dietary customs, and reflected the preference and unique psychology of the emperor and the court in the holiday diet.

In addition, among Manchus in Northeast China. There is a popular proverb called "thirty without eating", which means there is more than one fish every year. Therefore, no matter how poor and carefree people are, they should also get some fish and add it to the New Year's Eve dinner to avoid being laughed at by others.

The custom of New Year's Eve: