Da Feng Ge's Food Color China
All these years of running for life, from south to north, I have been to many places. Everywhere you go, you can't help but try the local food! But I have never eaten a dumpling with meat stuffed in it.
According to legend, Tangyuan originated in the Song Dynasty. At that time, Mingzhou (now Ningbo, Zhejiang Province) rose up to eat a novel food, that is, using black sesame seeds and lard as filling, adding a little white sugar, and rubbing glutinous rice flour into a circle on the outside, after cooking, it tasted sweet and delicious, and it was funny. Because this glutinous rice dumpling is floating and sinking in the pot, it was first called "floating yuanzi", and later some areas renamed "floating yuanzi" to soup dumplings. However, the soup dumplings symbolize a better family reunion, and eating tangyuan means the happiness and reunion of the family in the new year, so it is an essential food for the 15th Lantern Festival of the first month. In some areas of the south, people are also accustomed to eating tangyuan instead of dumplings during the Spring Festival.
In the following years, after years of precipitation, tangyuan slowly became popular and became more suitable for the tastes of the locals.
In a place called Linshui in Sichuan, the local people love to eat meat dumplings! Of course, there are also sweet fillings, such as peanuts, sesame seeds, and even rose bean paste filling. But people's favorite is still the bowl of broth dumplings!
Meat stuffed with clear soup dumplings
In the 1980s and 1990s, due to the material difficulties at that time. In the countryside, this is even more true. When I was young, it was rare to eat meat twice a month, not to mention eating meat dumplings! I remember that at that time, I told my mother that I wanted to eat broth balls, and my mother did not speak, but just looked at me helplessly. I only had to swallow back the saliva that was about to flow!
Yes, at that time, even the rice was very nervous, half of the bowl of rice was pumpkins, sweet potatoes or something, according to the seasons! So much so that until now I have no love for these things.
Only in the days of the New Year, meat can be made vigorously! The money that my parents usually thrifted down turned into our New Year's carnival!
From the beginning of the waxing moon, the parents at home will prepare the tangyuan materials for the New Year. In the summer, the white corn prepared long ago is washed, ground into petals, and the glutinous rice is washed and poured with water into the large tile jar for about a week, and the water needs to be replaced regularly every day, which is extremely cumbersome. The family is slightly richer in 30% of corn, 70% glutinous rice, generally 5 to 5. Then you can crush it into powder with your fingers, and you can start the cylinder and grind it!
Ancient stone mills
After grinding into a pulp, it is hung with gauze on the beam to drain the water and put it into a ceramic cylinder, and it is inverted into the cylinder lid filled with water to isolate the air, which can be stored for a long time without damage.
Finished tangyuan powder
We will eat meat dumplings on the morning of the first day of the first lunar month, symbolizing the peace and security of the family and the reunion of the year! This is true for both rich and poor.
As the saying goes, 'Half a child, eat poor old man'! That's how I made it then. You can eat two or three bowls in a meal, and you have to have at least twenty to be full!
There are also tangyuan with a spicy flavor of red oil. The smooth and soft tangyuan skin is dipped in chili peppercorns, and there are also fried peanut crumbles that are not afraid of trouble. That bite down, there is a kind of life is like this, the husband and wife want to sigh!
But I still love the bowl of clear soup dumplings, which is decorated with a few green onions. It looks light, but who knows the warm taste inside!