It is another year of resignation and new year, the Chinese New Year's Eve is approaching, the family is reunited with the lights of the family, and the family sits around the dinner table and eats Chinese New Year's Eve meal with joy.
The cycle of years, China's most ritualistic Chinese New Year's Eve meal has lasted for more than a thousand years. the reunion at the Chinese New Year's EveChinese New Year's Eve dinner table is the expectation that Chinese engraved in the bones. The ingredients are layered on top of each other, and the aroma of various foods is slowly emitted during steaming and frying. The wanderer pushed open the door where the word Fu had been pasted, and inside the door was home. At this time, the whole house was filled with the aroma of vegetables, and the year also came with the fragrance.
It originated from the year-end sacrifice before the Han Dynasty
The last day of the lunar month and the Chinese New Year's Eve of "the day when the moon is exhausted" are the top priority of the Chinese New Year's Festival, and there are also the names of "removing the night", "removing the day" and "removing the year", and now popularly known as "Chinese New Year's Eve". Not only is the culture carried Chinese New Year's Eve different from ancient to modern times, but also when to eat Chinese New Year's Eve meal and hold year-end festivals has also undergone an evolution from "wax" to "year".
The most important year-end sacrifice before the Han Dynasty was the Wax Festival, which was divided into two forms: wax sacrifice and wax (zhà) sacrifice. The former takes the five ancestors as the object of sacrifice, as mentioned in the "Customs and Customs": "Wax people, hunting also, Yantian hunting beasts to sacrifice their ancestors also"; the latter mainly sacrifices gods related to agricultural affairs, as recorded in the "Li ji suburban special animals": "The son of heaven is the great wax eight... In December, all things are gathered and so forth. "Wax Eight" refers to the eight gods who need to be sacrificed, "December of the Year" refers to the end of the year, and "Gathering All Things together and asking for food" refers to the sacrifice activities of people who collect food to worship the gods and pray for blessings.
Regarding the difference between wax sacrifice and wax sacrifice, Du Taiqing of the Sui Dynasty explained it more clearly in the Jade Candle Treasure Book: "Wax people worship ancestors, wax people repay hundred gods, and the same day and different sacrifices are also made." "In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the two kinds of sacrifices were merged into one, collectively known as the "Wax Festival", and with the change of dynasties and calendars, the name and time of the Wax Festival were also ordered one by one. The "year-end" month of the summer calendar is in December, the Yin calendar is in November, and the weekly calendar ends in October. Regardless of the month, the wax festival is the end of the annual festival, and it is also the time when people sit down to eat a full meal after the ancestor gods have been enshrined. In the words of Confucius, "a hundred days of wax, a day of zeal", people in the farming society toiled all year round, it is time to give themselves some celebration with the help of sacrifice ceremonies.
In the early Han Dynasty, the Qin calendar was based on the beginning of October, and in the first year of the first year of the Taichu Dynasty, Emperor Wu of han ordered a change in the calendar, changing the beginning of the year to the first month of Meng Chun, that is, the twelfth month of the lunar calendar as the end of the year. The "Taichu Calendar" was formulated by the astronomer Luo Hong and others at that time, and later generations gradually improved on this basis, so that there was a lunar calendar (that is, the lunar calendar) that is still used today.
Because the "Taichu Calendar" set the day of the wax festival on the third day after the winter solstice every year, the wax festival lost its intention to end the year, and the day of resignation and new year was taken over by the last day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, "Chinese New Year's Eve". Chinese New Year's Eve is a concept related to the calendar "year", although it is closer to the folk customs than the religious sacrifice of the wax festival, but it still undertakes the festival rituals of the hundred gods, ancestor sacrifices, and celebration of the fengfeng year, as well as the festival customs such as decorating peach people, hanging peach symbols, and setting off firecrackers (the Eastern Han Dynasty", "Customs and Customs", volume VIII, also contains: "County officials often use wax Chinese New Year's Eve, decorate peach people, weeping reeds, and painting tigers at the door"), the most important of which is naturally the way of eating and drinking that people and gods share, and the essence of Chinese New Year's Eve rice is carried forward year after year.
The original record comes from the Western Jin Dynasty's "Chronicle of Customs"
"Chinese New Year's Eve night, each phase and gift is called 'giving the year'; the invitation of wine and food is called 'other years'; the elders and young people gather to drink, and the blessing is complete, called 'the year of division'; everyone sleeps all night, waiting for the dawn, called 'keeping the age'." —— The "Chronicle of Customs" written by the famous Western Jin Dynasty general Zhou Chu is the earliest work on the mainland to introduce local seasons and customs, and the examination of festival customs such as the Dragon Boat Festival, Tanabata, and Chongyang must be traced back to here, and the earliest records of Chinese New Year's Eve meals also come from it. In general Zhou's pen, the scenes of family members sitting around a table in the Western Jin Dynasty, sharing Chinese New Year's Eve feasts, raising a glass of blessings, Chinese New Year's Eve vigil, etc. are displayed one by one in front of the eyes of this person, and the strong taste of the New Year is also coming.
Later, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Liang Zongjian compiled the "Records of the Jingchu Years", which recorded the twenty-four festivals and customs of ancient Chudi (centered on Jianghan, mainly in Hubei, Hunan) from New Year's Day (ancient New Year's Day refers to the first day of the New Year) to Chinese New Year's Eve, of which the Chinese New Year's Eve night is: "The twilight of the year, the furniture of the family, the position of the old age, to welcome the New Year." Get together for a drink. Stay overnight for the New Year's meal, until the twelfth day of the new year, then abandon the street Qu, thinking that it is to go to the old city to accept the new also. "Good wine and good dishes Chinese New Year's Eve rice, and if they can't finish eating, they should choose a day to discard it, so as to spit out the old and new is the local festival food custom at that time."
From the Tang poems and Song ci, we can see what the ancients ate Chinese New Year's Eve rice
Ancient feast paintings
We know that during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was a custom of Chinese New Year's Eve rice, but we are not sure what the ancients ate and drank Chinese New Year's Eve rice at that time, fortunately, the food customs of the Chinese New Year's Eve rao aged appeared frequently in the later Tang poems and Song poems, allowing today's people to travel through time and space and glimpse the more concentrated and unique flavors of Chinese New Year's Eve rice at that time.
"In the winter of the season, the night is followed by the New Year, and the emperor and the king and the sun hold the royal feast." "Take the wine shrimp and toad under the tomb, and the family keeps the old age." -- Burning candles to keep the age, feasting and entertainment, and staying up all night are the Chinese New Year's Eve scenes of the Tang Dynasty from the court to the ordinary people's homes. In addition to the usual big fish and meat, drinking pepper wine, cypress wine, eating five spice plates, gum tooth dumplings, and then entering peach soup and blue tail, it was the eating customs of Chinese New Year's EveChinese New Year's Eve dinner table in the Tang and Song dynasties.
In the hearts of the ancients, "pepper" has the advantages of temperature, multi-son, aromatic, pepper wine is pepper soaked in wine, hot and spicy taste is suitable for warming up. Du Fu's poem "Du Wei Zhai Shou Nian": "Guarding the age of Ah Rong's family, the pepper plate has been praised for flowers." And Dai Shulun's poem "Erling Temple Shou Nian": "No one offers pepper flowers more, and there are guests who participate in Baizi Zen." "It is all about the Tang Dynasty people Chinese New Year's Eve the custom of drinking pepper wine in the old age.
As an evergreen tree, "cypress" also has a symbol of longevity, and cypress wine soaked with cypress leaves was also popular at Chinese New Year's Eve meals in the Tang and Song dynasties. The monarch feasted and drank bai wine - Du Fu's grandfather Du Zhenyan had a chant in the "Shou Nian Waiter Banquet Should Be Made": "Playing the strings and playing the festival plum wind into the game, exploring the hook bai wine on the game"; Meng Haoran Chinese New Year's Eve night meeting friends also drank bo wine - there is a poem written by him "The old song plum blossom sings, and the new Zhengbai wine is transmitted." ”
"In addition to the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tu Su." "Firecrackers shock this night, Tu Su recommended the dynasty." "Know the children's garden and drink all over Tu Su Yi Nai Ong." "Blazing charcoal stove in a hundred medicinal incense, Tu Su decoction instead of pepper." Tu Sujiu is another big star in the poems of the Tang and Song dynasty literati Chinese New Year's Eve, and the legend comes from a folk medicine master who makes medicine bags and soaked wine before every Chinese New Year's Eve night to eliminate diseases and disasters for everyone. The name of the medicine man has been lost, but the name of the grass temple where he lived was Tu Su Cao An, and Tu Su Jiu also got its name. The "Four Hours of Compilation" records the prescription of Tu Su wine: "Rhubarb, Shu pepper, orange stem, Guixin, windproof two halves each, Bai Shu and knotweed one or two each, aconitum half a point." Right eight flavors, 剉, stored in a sac. "The effects of the listed eight herbs are mainly heat removal, wind dissipation, spleen strengthening, and dehumidification. People during the Tang and Song dynasties believed that drinking Tusu wine during the extremely cold and yin period could play a role in eliminating diseases and prolonging life.
Whether it is pepper wine, Baijiu or Tusu wine, people at that time loved to call the wine Chinese New Year's Eve drink "old wine" or "shoujiu" to express the physical and mental renewal of the body when the old and new were replaced, and the internal motivation of endless life, so the annual food such as gum tooth dumplings and five spice plates was also a healthy food that was beneficial to the body and mind. The Song Dynasty Chinese New Year's Eve poem "Ciyun Li Shi Juzhang Chinese New Year's Eve" has it: "Bo wine floats three drinks, and vegetable plates recommend five spices." "Wuxin" is also known as "Xin Pan" and "Spring Plate", that is, the plate is filled with five kinds of vegetables with spicy flavors: garlic, small garlic, leeks, gimbal, and coriander. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" "Five Spices" article says: "The years of food, help to develop the five visceral qi.". Eating five spices can drive away the cold and eliminate the epidemic, and it also has the meaning of "trying the new" and "welcoming the new". Gum gum is maltose, which is a dessert on Chinese New Year's Eve rice. It is recorded in the Tokyo Dream Chronicle: "(Kaifeng, Kyoto) Recent festival ... Sell dried eggplant horsetooth vegetables, gum tooth dumplings and the like for night use. "Chinese New Year's Eve eat sticky gum dumplings at night, which means that the teeth are stronger and will not fall off due to old age, that is, "three cups of gluttony and one cup of gluttony, from now on the body to strengthen the teeth and teeth".
In addition to the above "health" foods, Chinese New Year's Eve rice has a rich variety of snacks. The Sixth Volume of the Book of Dreams reads: "(Chinese New Year's Eve) The Inner Division (Ministry of Internal Affairs) Means Bureau (Palace Institution) enters a delicate night-consuming fruit box, and the boxes are clustered with all kinds of fine fruits, shi fruits, honey frying, and sugar frying..." "Houyuan Xiu Neisi entered and consumed night fruits, and ordered more than a hundred kinds of them in large clusters, such as honey fried precious fruits, down to flower dumplings, beans, and even jade cup treasures." The delicious cuisine full of exquisite meaning and auspicious meaning added a sense of celebration and prosperity to the Chinese New Year's Eve of the Tang and Song dynasties, and also pinned on the beautiful hopes for the new year.
The term "Chinese New Year's Eve rice" first appeared in the Light Years of Qingjiaqing Province
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the reunion theme of Chinese New Year's Eve meal "everyone dies in age, a meal for a while" became more and more important.
The term "Chinese New Year's Eve rice" really appeared in the Qing Dynasty's Jiaqing and Daoguang years, Gu Lu (zi Tieqing) wrote in the "Qing Jia Lu": "Chinese New Year's Eve night, the family holds a banquet, the elder and the young are salty, and there are many auspicious words, known as 'Chinese New Year's Eve rice', commonly known as 'family fun'." ”
The Qing Jia Lu mainly records the customs of the Jiangnan region, and the "Kyoto Customs" published during the Qing Guangxu period records the lively festivals of the people of Beijing Chinese New Year's Eve: "Chinese New Year's Eve, everyone, rich or poor, has a lot of food in the city." At night, the lights are lit and candled, rotten as a star cloth, tourists follow, and the cheers are full of joy. People serve new rice in pots and pans to store it, which is called New Year rice. It is decorated with cypress branches, persimmon cakes, longan, lychees, and jujube chestnuts, which are called New Year rice fruits, and are decorated with gold leaf and yuanbao. The family holds a feast, the young and the long are happy, and the children play all night. Women eat and drink, and the sound of their knife anvils is heard near and far. There is a similar record in the "Records of the Yanjing Years" published during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty: "The family group sits to live the years." The syrup is listed, the lights are brilliant, and women and children are all rolling dice leaves for fun. ”
Until the three dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the first day of the first lunar month was still called Yuan Day or New Year's Day and New Year, and the 30th day of the Waxing Moon was still Chinese New Year's Eve. On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as the provisional president in Nanjing, and the government of the Republic of China introduced the Western calendar with the Gregorian calendar as the standard year, as the time standard for public administration and international exchanges, commonly known as the "solar calendar". Since then, the official festival has been separated from the folk traditional festival, and "New Year's Day" has changed from the first day of the first lunar month of the lunar (lunar calendar) to the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar. Considering the deep roots of the traditional Chinese lunar Chinese New Year's Eve and spring festival, in January 1914, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of China government proposed in its submission that "it is proposed to designate the lunar new year's day as the Spring Festival" and was approved. As a result, the traditional Lunar New Year was officially renamed "Spring Festival" in the official sense, and the Chinese New Year's Eve continued to be "Chinese New Year's Eve Night", and the "Chinese New Year's Eve Meal" was still retained on this day.
Reunion in the Chinese Year, a thousand years of humor. At a time when urbanization, industrial civilization, and the Internet era have become the mainstream, the festival customs that once Chinese New Year's Eve ancestors and gods have been dusted in history, and the Chinese New Year's Eve rice with the reincarnation of years and the reunion of home and country as the background has become stronger. Cold chain logistics and consumption improvement make the Chinese New Year's Eve meals of each family have local characteristics, and the ingredients and cooking can break through the seasonal limits. The new eating methods of "live Chinese New Year's Eve rice" and "online Chinese New Year's Eve rice" show the broader living space, cultural posture and regional character of the Chinese nation. "This year is over tonight, next year and tomorrow." The emotional culture of Chinese New Year's Eve meals about the change of years, family reunion, and the warm taste of the prosperity of the home and country are deeply preserved in the taste memory with the years.
Folklore
Victory over the "Beast of the Year"
Of course, Chinese New Year's Eve rice cannot avoid the word "year". Interestingly, in the ancient legend, the "Nian" is not eagerly awaited and welcomed by people, but rather avoided, and even the "Nian Beast" that must gather people's hearts and gather courage to defeat.
The legend of the Nian Beast is widely spread in the Chinese-speaking world: a fierce beast "Nian" that resembles a lion, sleeps in the mountains on weekdays, and appears every Chinese New Year's Eve night to wreak havoc in the world, making the people suffer from the "New Year's Pass". Fortunately, some people have found the weakness of "Nian", afraid of light, afraid of noise, especially afraid of red, so people paste red paper, light lamps, and light firecrackers to drive away the "Year", and after defeating the "Year", they will inevitably eat together to celebrate - this is likely to be the prototype of Chinese New Year's Eve rice in the legend.
Folklore usually has the symbolic intention of the times, and the people of the once agricultural society cringed at the "nian beast", and at a deep level, it was more like the fear of severe cold and famine. The cold and frozen winter, the withering of grass and trees is the most deadly, staying up until the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, Li Chun is in sight, representing the hope of life beckoning again, of course, there must be a celebration: worship the ancestors of the gods, express gratitude and pray for the wind and rain in the coming year, and eat the New Year's meal after the sacrifice, as recorded in the "Book of Rites and Moon Orders": "The month of winter ... To the Emperor of heaven and god. ”
Tongue in cheek
Chinese New Year's Eve the lipstick on your meal
Chinese New Year's Eve meal is unlike any dinner. After a year of hard work, delicious food is often placed on emotion, and there are some allegorical rice in Chinese New Year's Eve meals across the country, asking for a festive and auspicious mouth, representing auspicious expectations.
In the past, the Chinese New Year's Eve rice of the old Beijingers paid attention to "four and four bottoms", that is, the banquet consisted of four cold dishes, four hot stir-fry, four meat dishes, four soup dishes, etc., which means "four flat and eight stable".
"Circle" is a perfect circle, but also a variety of meat balls, fish balls, glutinous rice balls on the Chinese New Year's Eve rice... Carefully kneading a year's toil and harvest into a round, there is no dish that symbolizes consummation and reunion more than they do.
"The cold goes with the night, and the spring comes more than five." To welcome the reunion dinner of the New Year, there must always be a hint of spring. "Spring" is the spring of the new spring, and it is also the spring color represented by the "spring rolls" and the vegetables on the Chinese New Year's Eve table, that is, the so-called "biting spring".
In some areas, "yuanbao" refers to tea eggs, and more often refers to the regular customer of Chinese New Year's Eve rice - egg dumplings.
Fu is the blessing of blessing, but also the "family portrait" of the family, a serious Chinese New Year's Eve meal must be used to extend the dinner time with some slow-cooked dishes, add a sense of ceremony, and call it "family portrait".
In addition, there are also well-known in the Chinese-speaking world, such as "Nian Nian You Yu (Fish)", "Daji (Chicken) Dali", "Lu Lu Tong (Lotus)", "Long and Long (Leek)", "Bamboo (Bamboo Sun) Rewards Peace", "Diligence (Celery) Labor dedication", "Eight Treasures (Eight Treasures Rice) Convergence" and so on.
North-South Food Customs
Northern dumplings and southern tangyuan
The Chinese diet has both strong cohesion and broad inclusiveness: dumplings are eaten in the north during the New Year, and rice cakes and tangyuan in the south are typical examples. Whether it is dumplings, rice cakes or tangyuan, as a staple food that must be eaten in the New Year, they all represent the beautiful meaning of the festival and have a long history.
There is a saying that dumplings originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty and have a history of more than 1800 years, and the legend is that the medical saint Zhang Zhongjing invented it in order to treat frostbite for patients. The more reliable origin of dumplings is speculation from "wonton stew". Eat "wonton stew" in the New Year, taking the meaning of "chaos first opening". The Tang Dynasty appeared "Yanyue-shaped wontons", the shape is very similar to modern dumplings, the Song Dynasty people called "dumplings" as "horns", to the Ming Dynasty was also called "flat food", the Spring Festival to eat dumplings at the latest also rose from this time. Because the wrapped dumplings are shaped like yuanbao, dumplings are given the meaning of "recruiting wealth and entering treasures" and have become an essential food for the New Year in many regions. According to traditional customs, when making dumplings, poisoned coins, candies, etc. are also wrapped in dumpling filling, symbolizing that those who eat will have good luck in the coming year.
The custom of eating rice cakes during the Spring Festival arose in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty, because it means "every year is high", so it is necessary to eat rice cakes in the New Year.
The origin of tangyuan is usually believed to come from the Northern Song Dynasty on the Yuan Festival (Lantern Festival) to eat the "floating yuanzi", the Ming Dynasty Lantern production is "with glutinous rice thin noodles, with walnuts, sugar, roses as filling, sprinkled water, such as walnuts large", and today's Lantern practice has been basically no different. In the south, it is more popular to make tangyuan, and tangyuan is also given the meaning of "reunion round" because of its shape.
No matter how the annual diet evolves, no matter what the differences in the diet between the north and the south, what remains unchanged is the annual festival passed down from generation to generation by the sons and daughters of China. Chinese New Year's Eve meal is the reincarnation of family affection in Chinese life, and it is also the common emotional sustenance of the nation.
Source: Beijing Daily
Author : Zhang Hui
Reviewer: Pan Qiwen
Editor: Min Sun