The New Year’s Eve dinner is also called the New Year’s Eve dinner.
New Year’s Eve is extremely important to the Chinese. On this day, people prepare to get rid of the old and welcome the new, and have a reunion dinner. In ancient China, some prison officials even let prisoners go home to reunite with their families for the New Year. This shows how important the "New Year's Eve dinner" was to the ancient Chinese.
Family is the cornerstone of Chinese society. The annual reunion dinner fully demonstrates the mutual respect and love among Chinese family members. This mutual respect and love makes the relationship between the family closer. The reunion of the family often brings spiritual comfort and satisfaction to the head of the family. The old man sees his children and grandchildren in the house, and the whole family talks about their family life. The past care and efforts in raising the children are finally not in vain. What a happiness. The younger generation can also take this opportunity to express their gratitude to their parents for their upbringing.
When the children are playing and setting off firecrackers, it is also the busiest time for the housewives in the kitchen. The New Year’s dishes have been prepared a few days ago, and the New Year’s Eve dinner is always cooked on New Year’s Eve. Make it. In the north, dumplings for the New Year's Day are also made on the 30th night. At this time, every chopping board was busy chopping meat and chopping vegetables. At this time, the sound of chopping boards came from every house, the sound of firecrackers came from the streets and alleys, the "crackling" sound of abacus and the mellow sound of accounting reports came from the small shops, mixed with the chatter and laughter everywhere, one after another. , filled with ears, intertwined into a cheerful New Year's Eve movement.
Speaking of the sound of knives and anvils on New Year's Eve, "Yanjing Local Records" written by Deng Yunxiang records a very desolate story on New Year's Eve: The poor in the old society lived in difficulty, and thirty nights was a barrier. There is a family where the husband has not come back with the money until late in the evening. "The house has already run out of bottles of millet and there is nothing for the New Year. The woman has put the child to sleep at home and is helpless. She hears the sound of chopping boards next door and is in extreme pain. She doesn't know what to do." Can the husband come back with some money or things? He didn’t know how he would spend the new year tomorrow, and he was afraid that there would be no chopping board in his house to make people laugh, so he took a knife and chopped the empty chopping board, and while chopping, tears fell down..., this The story makes people feel sad indeed.
Eating New Year’s Eve dinner is the most lively and joyful time for every family. ***The feeling of fulfillment that comes with having a reunion dinner is indescribable. People not only enjoy the table full of delicacies, but also enjoy the happy atmosphere. There are big dishes, cold dishes, hot stir-fried dishes, and snacks on the table. Generally, two things are indispensable. , one is hot pot. The other is fish. The hot pot is boiling, steaming, warm and sultry, indicating that it is prosperous; "fish" and "yu" are homophonic, which symbolizes "abundance for good luck" and also means "abundance every year". There are also radish, commonly known as cabbage, which is used to wish for good luck; fried foods such as lobster and fried fish are used to wish prosperity for the family, just like "fire cooking oil". Finally, there is a sweet dish, wishing you a sweet and sweet day in the future. , even if you don’t know how to drink, you should drink a little bit. In ancient times, when drinking during the New Year, great attention was paid to the quality of the wine. Some wines are no longer available, leaving only many attractive wine names, such as "wine", "Lanwei wine", "Yichun wine", "plum blossom wine", "peach blossom wine", "Tusu wine", etc.
[Edit this paragraph] Folk custom origin
On New Year's Eve, no matter how far apart it is. No matter how busy we are at work, people always want to go back to their homes and have a reunion New Year's Eve dinner. Sometimes when they really can't go home, their family members always leave a seat and a pair of bowls and chopsticks for them to express their friendship. They reunited. This New Year's Eve dinner is also called a "family feast" and is a family banquet that people attach great importance to. As the saying goes, if you beat one thousand, you will have a meal at thirty. The traditional custom of New Year's Eve dinner is very particular, usually including wontons, dumplings, long noodles, Yuanxiao, etc.
Eating wontons on New Year's Day is based on the legend that Pangu split the sky and split the earth. "The light and clear air floating up is the sky, and the heavy and turbid air condensing down is the earth", ending the state of chaos, and then the four directions of the universe are formed. Furthermore, the homophones of "wonton" and "hundun" are taken, which means food. Full store.
Dumplings are also called flat food or boiled dumplings. In ancient times, there were only wontons but not dumplings. Later, dumplings were made into crescent shapes.
The habit of eating dumplings in the Tang Dynasty has spread to remote areas of our country. On New Year's Eve, as soon as the clock strikes twelve o'clock, people start eating dumplings, so this time is the Zi hour, which means the alternation of the old and the new, and the coming of the Zi hour.
Long noodles, also called longevity noodles, are eaten during the New Year to wish for a hundred years of longevity. All pasta in ancient times was called cakes, so soup noodles were also called soup cakes at first. The first noodles were not rolled or pressed, but the mixed noodles were torn into pieces by hand, which is similar to what is eaten in the north today. "Crow's Head", "Monkey's Ears", etc. are made in the same way. After the Tang Dynasty, chopping boards began to be used to roll noodles, and gradually there were long noodles, short noodles, dry noodles, plain noodles, meat noodles, dried noodles...
Yuanxiao, also known as glutinous rice balls, is more common in the south. It is made by rolling glutinous rice into a round shape (different flavors of fillings can be added into it), and then put into a pot for cooking, which means reunion. Yuanxiao is usually served as breakfast or as a staple food for New Year's dinner. This delicacy is very popular whether in restaurants, hotels or at home.
In many places, some non-staple foods are served with the New Year’s dinner, in order to bring good luck. Eat dates (early spring), eat persimmons (good luck), eat almonds (happiness comes), eat tofu (family portrait), eat three fresh vegetables (Sanyang Kaitai), eat Changsheng fruit (immortality), eat rice cake (rice cake) New Year's Eve rice cakes (rice cakes are getting more expensive every year)... Of course, the variety of New Year's Eve dinners is now even richer. Chicken, duck, fish, delicacies, and about the best dishes that can be seen in a year are all on the table.
[Edit this paragraph] Spread and evolution
According to traditional folk customs, the food customs of New Year’s Eve dinners in different parts of our country are different: northerners eat dumplings, southerners eat rice dumplings and water mills Rice cakes are eaten on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong and other places. They eat Yuanxiao on the first day of the Lunar New Year, either fried or boiled; people in Zhangzhou, Fujian eat raw garlic and preserved eggs in the morning on the first day of the Lunar New Year; people in Chaozhou, Guangdong eat the unique "fuyuan" on the first day of the Lunar New Year; Hui people eat it on the first day of the first lunar month. Noodles and stewed meat, dumplings only in the second grade of junior high school. Wontons are eaten during the New Year, which means the beginning of the year.
It is said that Pangu opened the sky and split the earth, so that "the light and clear air that floats up is the sky, and the heavy and turbid air that condenses down is the earth." This ended the state of chaos and created the four directions of the universe.
Furthermore, the homophonic pronunciation of "wonton" and "hundun" means a full store of food. Dumplings In ancient times, there were only wontons but not dumplings. Later, dumplings were made by making wontons into a crescent shape