Near the Spring Festival, every household has begun to buy New Year goods, which is the most indispensable top priority in the Chinese, as soon as the New Year goods arrive, this "New Year's taste" comes, to ask what is the most direct embodiment of "New Year's taste", that is of course "food"!
"Food on the tip of the tongue, craftsmanship at your fingertips"
When it comes to Shandong cuisine, people's first impression is always: pancake rolls with scallions and steamed buns. Xiaobian as a Shandong people are also very helpless, but it can be seen that noodles have an unshakable position in the hearts of Shandong people. During the Chinese New Year, the air in Shandong is filled with the aroma of steamed buns! It is almost the New Year, Xiaobian shares a unique noodle dish of Shandong for everyone - flower dumpling steamed buns, taking everyone to taste the romance that belongs to Shandong people.
Steamed buns – that's what we called flower dumplings at the beginning
"Waxing Moon Twenty-Eight, Steamed
On the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, it is one step closer to the year. As the folk saying goes, "On the twenty-eighth day of the waxing moon, put the face on it". There is also a folk song "Wax Moon Twenty-Eight, Cake Steamed Steamed Appliqué Flower". The reason for the steamed bun on the twenty-eighth day of the waxing moon can actually be traced back to ancient times. In ancient times, there was no yeast powder now, ordinary noodles were prepared a few days in advance and easy to break, only the noodles could not be damaged, people were on the twenty-eighth day of the waxing moon, the noodles were good, ready for the first to fifth staple food. According to the old custom, steaming, stir-frying, frying and other cooking things are avoided during the New Year. Steaming and contention, stir-frying and noisy harmonic sounds, fried and fried (four-tone) harmonic sounds, are all unlucky. Therefore, it is necessary to steam enough steamed steamed buns for the Whole Family to eat for the New Year.
Jiaodong flowers are delicious
Jiaodong Hua rao has a history of 300 years and is a representative of Shandong's provincial intangible cultural heritage. As a kind of traditional folk face sculpture art, it is closely related to people's daily life and has an important position in folk activities such as weddings, birthdays, festivals, and New Year.'
"What others steam is steaming is food, what we steam is art."
As the New Year approaches, Shandong's qiao women use their hands to knead and pinch the dough, symbolizing the next year's wealthy "more than one year" steamed buns, the tiger's head and tiger brain's little tiger zodiac flowers, full of auspicious meanings of the word Fu zi rao, and other works of art.
When simple plain flour is colored with paint into dragon phoenix, flowers, and colorful butterflies, jiaodong flowers full of auspicious meanings, steamed buns become an art.
Flower cake
In Shandong, where the land is rich, in addition to the flowers in the Jiaodong area, in the Luxi area, people will steam a different kind of steamed bun during the New Year, that is, flower cake. In the Rusi area, local residents have the custom of steaming flower cakes and making flower buns, which means that life is getting better and better every year. The more common one is "jujube cake". It is called "jujube cake" because it is shaped like a flower, and it is also made of large, meaty dates in my hometown, so it is called "jujube cake".
The meaning of flower cake (high) is very profound, which means that step by step, life is getting better and better. It is a very heavy etiquette to give people flower cakes as gifts in the New Year, generally the elders give them to the juniors, and pray that the lives of the juniors will be more prosperous. Jujube cake has a variety of shapes, with noodles as a round bottom plate, the edge of the roll as the pattern, laying a layer of red dates, plus a layer of lace noodles slightly smaller than the first layer, which can be used as a variety of mascot ornaments with different meanings, to find their own good wishes and spiritual sustenance in life.
It can be seen that noodles account for half of the sky in the hearts of Shandong people, and in the new year's reunion of the whole family, making dumplings and steamed The New Year is coming, Xiaobian and you in the sound of firecrackers, welcome this unique Shandong people's romance. (Source: People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Net, Sohu Net, The Paper)
(Dazhong Daily client reporter Cai Jichao, Liu Fei, intern Wu Hao, finishing report)