In march and April, when the spring is bright and peachy and willowy, in addition to walking green and offering sweeps, the ancient people also had the custom of eating cold food. This has to mention a festival that has lasted for more than two thousand years - the Cold Food Festival.
In ancient times, 105 days after the winter solstice, that is, one or two days before the Qingming Festival, every household burned a winter hearth, and after the spring, it was necessary to extinguish the fire and clean up, so the family ceased fire for one or two days, people could only eat cold food, this day is called "Cold Food Festival", also known as "One Hundred and Five Festivals" and "No Smoking Festival".
It is generally said that the Cold Food Festival originated from the folklore of the Spring and Autumn Period "Meson Push mian mountain burning", in order to commemorate the day of the death of the meson, people on this day forbid the fire, eat cold rice, in order to show the meaning of remembrance, so that this festival has the cultural meaning of remembering loyal people.
The picture shows the honey twist flower. Courtesy of respondents
Time flies, and today, the Cold Food Festival has gradually integrated into the Qingming Festival, and people will no longer eat only cold food on the day of the Cold Food Festival. However, there is no difference between the remembrance of ancestors a thousand years ago and the nostalgia of today's deceased relatives and friends. Through the taste of traditional cold food snacks, people remember the ancestors and inherit the culture.
Nowadays, the "Thirteen Best Cold Foods" with a Beijing flavor have become a popular seasonal food for citizens around the Qingming Festival. "Thirteen" means "perfect and perfect" plus "fu, lu, shou" three stars, is a rich connotation of the auspicious number. There are also many seemingly simple cold foods, suitable for cold meals, easy to carry and no condiments, condensing the skills of snack making masters.
The production technology of the "time-honored" HuguoSi snack is a representative project of Beijing Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage. Wang Yanbin, a pastry chef at the Huguosi Snack Bar for more than 20 years, said: "Taking the sesame roast cake in the thirteen best as an example, there are strict requirements from the beginning of the noodles, and each step will affect the appearance and taste of the final finished product. The relevant production techniques need to be continuously understood in practice in order to grasp the essence of production. ”
The picture shows sesame roast cake. Courtesy of respondents
Wang Xinmei, manager of the Snack Origin Shop of Huguo Temple, introduced that honey twist flowers, commonly known as "sugar ears" in old Beijing, are named because of their shape-like ears. There is a custom of flying kites before and after the Cold Food Festival, and bamboo flutes must be inserted on the kites, just like the "kite" sound, and eating sugar ears is still for a good mouth color of "ear and eye". Ginger shredded fork contains the truth of health: spring is warm and cold, and it is cold food, eat ginger first, take its effect of dispelling wind and cold, warming the stomach and helping the yang.
In recent years, the "Cold Food Thirteen Best" snacks have kept pace with the times, becoming more and more small and delicate in terms of "size" and healthier in ingredients. Affected by the epidemic, some cold food snacks are also independently packaged and sold online, which is welcomed by young people.
Reporter: Luo Xin