Similarities and Differences between Northern and Southern Reunion Dinners

 

Similarities and Differences between Northern and Southern Reunion Dinners

 

The customs of the Spring Festival are actually a kind of folk culture that cannot be erased. It means the warmth of family reunion, the relaxation and expectation of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new. When people think of ways to celebrate the Spring Festival, people usually think of customs such as eating dumplings for the New Year's Eve dinner, posting Spring Festival couplets, hanging New Year pictures, setting off firecrackers, and giving New Year greetings. But as the saying goes: "There are different styles in a hundred miles, and different customs in a thousand miles." The same Spring Festival is celebrated in different ways in the north and south of the Yangtze River. Many places have their own unique Spring Festival customs, many of which continue to this day. The food customs of the north and the south are different.

Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the food customs on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have been significantly different between the south and the north.

In the north, dumplings are often made and eaten on New Year's Eve. Dumplings are a folk food with a long history and are very popular among the people. There is a folk saying that "dumplings are not as delicious as dumplings". The custom of eating dumplings during the Spring Festival was quite popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Dumplings are usually made before 12 o'clock in the evening on New Year's Eve and eaten at midnight. This is the beginning of the first day of the first lunar month. Eating dumplings means "Gengsui Jiaozi", and "子" means "子". "Shi" is homophonic with "dumpling", which means "happy reunion" and "good luck". Dumplings have become an indispensable program food during the Spring Festival for the following reasons: First, dumplings are shaped like ingots. People eat dumplings during the Spring Festival to "bring in wealth". Secondly, the dumplings are stuffed, which makes it easy for people to wrap various auspicious things in the stuffing to express people's wishes for the new year.

On New Year's Eve in old Beijing, the dumplings with vegetarian fillings were used to worship the gods, while everyone ate the dumplings stuffed with meat. People who were not well-off would use a mixture of meat and vegetables as fillings. Even the poorest families have a lot of routines for eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year. In addition to well-known delicacies such as dumplings and rice cakes, old Beijingers also like "douerjiang" - a cold dish made of pork skin, dried tofu, soybeans, green beans, water mustard, etc., with a color like amber and similar to In "Aspic Jelly". There is also "mustard dumpling", which is a cold dish used to accompany wine and appetizers. People eat a lot of greasy food during festivals, which tends to cause fire and phlegm. These cold dishes can make up for this shortcoming.

Old Beijingers are particularly particular about "Celebrating the New Year", so they have this saying: "Honey, don't be greedy, it's the New Year after Laba Festival. Drink Laba porridge for a few days. It's twenty-three, twenty-three, Tanggua Guan. Twenty-four, clean the house, twenty-five, fried tofu, twenty-six, stew mutton, twenty-seven, kill the rooster, twenty-eight, make the dough, twenty-nine, steam the buns, and stay up all night on the thirtieth night. The ballad of "Twist, twist..." on New Year's Day. Laba porridge, fried tofu, stewed mutton, etc. listed in the folk song are all delicacies of old Beijing during the Spring Festival.

A Beijing folk song goes like this during the reunion dinner, "Tanggua is used to sacrifice the stove, and the New Year is here." The first food to enter the festival is snacks such as sugar melon and Guandong sugar, which are used to "sacrifice the stove". They are made of colloidal maltose and are sweet and slightly sour. In less affluent times, this was excellent food. Moreover, the presence of Tanggua and Guandong sugar at home indicates that the Spring Festival is not far away. Of course, the "Kitchen Lord" does not eat the fireworks of the world. This kind of "bribery" in the hope that the "Kitchen Lord" will "say good things to God and ensure peace in the lower world" has naturally become a favorite among children.

Due to the cold weather in the Northeast, some fruits have a different flavor after being frozen. The most common ones are ice pears and frozen persimmons. It is understood that the purest one is frozen autumn pear. There is a kind of pear called Qiu pear in Jilin. This kind of pear is sour and astringent when it is just picked. So people pick this kind of pear and put it directly under the tree and cover it. A layer of leaves, the frozen autumn pear is sweet and sour, with plenty of juice. Frozen pears should be thawed in water before eating. Eating these pears after the New Year's Eve dinner can relieve hangover and greasiness.

In rural areas of Liaoning Province, as soon as the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month arrives, every household begins to prepare for the New Year, making rice cakes and steaming sticky bean buns. Many families also kill pigs to treat guests, and invite neighbors and relatives and friends to have a feast. After it's delicious, the enthusiastic host will distribute the stuffed blood sausage to the guests to take home.

Eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year is a custom for northerners. On the eve of the New Year's Eve, dumplings must be eaten to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. However, Heilongjiang people also wrap a few coins with coins in the dumplings (nowadays, peanuts or other nuts are often used instead). Whoever eats such dumplings will have bad luck. It means good luck in the new year and has auspicious meaning. In addition, people in Heilongjiang must eat dumplings on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, also known as "Po Wu", which means biting the dumplings, which means destroying all unlucky things and driving away disasters and avoiding evil.

The rules of worshiping heaven and ancestors are now rare in Shanxi, but the rule of not talking at the New Year's Eve dinner has been retained. The first meal of the Spring Festival is dumplings. When cooking dumplings, firecrackers should be set off. In order to drive away evil and seek good luck, sesame straw is used to cook dumplings in some areas, which means that the new year is like sesame seeds blooming steadily, and the days are getting better and better. The dumplings need to be cooked a lot and must have more than enough, meaning there will be more than enough head. When dining, in addition to one bowl per person, one or two more bowls are also served in order to hope that the population will flourish.

In the South, Yuanxiao and rice cakes are usually eaten on New Year's Eve.

Yuanxiao is also called "tangyuan", "dumpling" and "yuanzi". The middle is filled with sugar, which means a happy and sweet family reunion. Nian Gao is made of glutinous rice, which means "higher every year" in homophone. To this day, the custom of making dumplings during the Chinese New Year in the north and glutinous rice balls during the Chinese New Year in the south is still very common. According to the custom in the south of the Yangtze River, people start busy purchasing new year's goods about ten days before the festival. They must buy enough chicken, duck, fish, tea, wine, sauce, north and south roasted seeds and nuts, candy, bait and fruits. Before the New Year, New Year's rice should be prepared in advance and placed in a bamboo basket, with red orange, black water chestnut, water chestnut and other fruits and ingot cakes on top, and pine and cypress branches inserted, which is called "New Year's rice".

Eating "rice cake" to get better and better: Nian cake is also called "nian rice cake", which is homophonic with "every year high", which means that people's work and life are improving year by year. It is said that at first, rice cakes were used to worship gods at midnight and for ancestors during the New Year, and later became a Spring Festival food. Rice cakes are mostly made from glutinous rice flour, which is a specialty of the south of the Yangtze River. In the north, there are sticky grains like glutinous rice. The first one is glutinous millet, commonly known as small yellow rice. This kind of millet is shelled and ground into powder. After being steamed with water, it becomes yellow, sticky and very sweet. The production method is to sift the glutinous rice flour with silk silk, add water and honey to make a harder dough, stick dates and chestnuts on the dough, wrap it with silkworm leaves and steam it. This kind of glutinous rice pastry is quite characteristic of the Central Plains. There are many types of rice cakes, the representative ones include white cakes from the north, yellow rice cakes from farmers in Saibei, water-milled rice cakes from Jiangnan water towns, and red turtle cakes from Taiwan. There are two types of northern rice cakes: steamed and fried, both of which are sweet. In addition to steamed and fried, southern rice cakes can also be fried in slices and boiled in soup, with both sweet and salty flavors.

In Jiangsu, people in Suzhou put cooked water chestnuts in their New Year's Eve meals and dig them out when eating, which is called "digging for ingots." When visiting relatives and friends, two green olives should be placed when making tea, which is called "Yuanbao Tea", which means "congratulations and prosperity".

Shandong people pay attention to eating wontons on the first day of the Lunar New Year, which is called "filling the warehouse". In some rural areas, sesame straw is used to make a fire when cooking dumplings, which means that the new year is like sesame blossoms, rising steadily. Steamed buns are placed in the pot after the meal, which means there is "surplus".

Bean porridge is eaten on the first day of the new year in Ningbo, Zhejiang. During the New Year in Shaoxing, guests are served "chawan tea" with olives and kumquats, and tea eggs are also served, which is called "holding ingots".

People in the Chaoshan area of Guangdong will bring a large bag of oranges before going out to pay their respects. Every time they visit a relative, they must give large oranges. No matter how many they are, they must be plural, and then say some blessing words. After sitting down, relatives will treat you with Chaoshan Kung Fu tea, and before leaving, they will send big oranges back. "So, at the end of the day, you will find that you still have a few Teochew oranges when you go out in the morning." Because giving big oranges is "good luck" in Cantonese, it is polite to give back.

In many places in rural Hubei, people eat New Year's dinner at different times depending on their surnames. This custom may not have occurred to you. Those surnamed Wang start family reunions at around five o'clock in the morning; those surnamed Gao usually have their banquets around 12 noon; what about those surnamed Yu? The New Year's dinner time is set at six o'clock when it is almost dark; for those named Yang, it can only be held after twelve o'clock in the evening...

Because legend has it that after Qin Shihuang unified China, the original Chu State reached the point where "all traces of people were wiped out", and the Chu people were hunted down and turned into mourners. Seeing the sharp decline in the population of Chu, Qin Shihuang ordered immigrants from the Jiujiang area (now Jiangxi) to live in Chu. Some people arrived in the morning, some arrived at noon, and some arrived in the afternoon... People In order to commemorate his arrival in Chudi, the time for having New Year's dinner will be based on the time when he arrives at his new residence.