Lixia is the seventh of the twenty-four solar terms and the first of summer.
Summer heralds the change of seasons and the official beginning of the midsummer season.
The "summer" of Lixia means "big", which means that the plants sown in the spring have grown upright. The temperature has risen significantly, the heat is approaching, thunderstorms are increasing, and crops are entering an important season for peak season growth.
Lixia has three waits, one waits for the grasshopper to sing, the second waits for the earthworm to come out, and the third waits for the king to be born.
The main customs are the summer ceremony, the tasting of new activities, the game of fighting eggs, and the "scale people" of Lixia.
There are various customs in Lixia all over the country, especially the difference between the north and the south is even greater, today I will talk to you about the traditional food eaten by the north and south Lixia, and what do you eat in Lixia!
Wheat is mostly grown in the north of China, and lixia is the season when wheat is played, so most parts of the northern region have the custom of making and eating pasta in summer, which is intended to celebrate the wheat harvest.
Northern Lixia eats four kinds of pasta
1. Noodles
In the summer season, it is the season when wheat appears, and old Beijing pays attention to eating noodles, which is intended to celebrate the wheat harvest. It is said that the custom of eating noodles in Lixia originated in the Jin Dynasty. At that time, eating noodles was to commemorate the festive taste after the wheat harvest in the north, and it also meant that the wind and rain in the coming year were smooth and the grain was abundant. There is a saying that goes: in the summer noodles new to heaven. Its meaning is that Eating noodles in Lixia can strengthen the body and bring good luck to people.
2. Summer cakes
There are three main types of noodles in Lixia: summer cake, pasta cake and spring roll. Summer cake, also known as hemp cake, has different shapes, including horseback riding, Guanyin sending children, monkey holding peaches, etc., and modern times are mostly replaced by oyster cakes. Summer cakes are often used by mothers to give to married daughters. Eating summer cakes in Lixia, there is no sick summer, not thin summer.
3. Spring rolls
Spring rolls are divided into two parts, and the roll cake must be freshly made hot noodle pancakes, paying attention to round, thin and smooth. The rolled cake must be gently coated with a layer of oil on it, in order not to let the cake and the cake stick, and at the same time, the taste is relatively smooth, with vegetables rolled in and creaking, one soft and one hard, the taste is first-class.
Spring rolls evolved from the ancient custom of eating spring plates on the day of spring. Spring plate began in the Jin Dynasty, the original name of wuxin pan. It is said that there was a scholar in Fuzhou during the Song Dynasty, who immersed himself in reading all day in order to take the exam for wenshu, and often forgot to eat and sleep. His wife repeatedly advised him to no avail; I came up with a way: grinding rice into pancakes, filling it with Rai meat, and wrapping it into a roll shape, both as rice and as Lai. This snack was later named Spring Roll and gradually became popular throughout the city and countryside.
4. Grilled cake
In addition, old Beijingers also eat grilled cakes when they are in summer. Grilled cakes are very simple to make, in fact, they are made with soba noodles. It is eaten cold in summer, and can be fried in oil in winter, and the condiments are accompanied by pickled carrot shreds, garlic paste, chili oil, and a mixture of sesame sauce, mustard sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, etc., which is very delicious.
After the summer, Jiangnan officially entered the rainy season, the amount of rain and rainy days have increased significantly, "more summer seedlings, millet full of warehouses", before and after the summer is the fiery red season of early rice planting in the north and south of the great river. At this time, the spring shoots of tea trees develop the fastest, just as the so-called "valley rain is rarely picked, and the summer is not dropped", it is necessary to concentrate all efforts and harvest in batches.
1. Summer rice
On the day before the establishment of summer, the children ask the neighbor for a bowl of rice, called "Tuxia Xiami". Dig up some bamboo shoots, "steal" some broad beans, and use some garlic seedlings. On the summer day, rice and ingredients are cooked in the open air, and green plums, cherries, etc. are placed on the rice, and the rice is distributed to the family of the rice a few days ago, and the first small bowl is provided. Folk believe that children can prevent heat stroke after eating.
Lixia rice is added with thunder shoots, peas, broad beans, amaranth and other condiments, containing the meaning of "five grains and abundance", Lixia eats five-color rice, and there is a meaning of good health all year round.
2. Lixia egg
Han customs south of the Yangtze River. Every time Lixia, people eat boiled eggs or salted duck eggs, believing that Eating eggs in Lixia can strengthen the body. Lixia eggs are the most classic food on the day of Lixia. The day before the summer, the family began to boil the summer eggs, generally with tea leaves or walnut shells, watching the eggshell slowly turn red, full of incense. Tea eggs should be eaten while hot, poured with good sake when eating, sprinkled with some fine salt, wine aromatic tea aroma, fragrant and flavorful.
3. Lixia porridge
Lixia porridge is a traditional snack in Leiyang, Hunan, which belongs to the Lixia Festival food. This snack is a must for the Yang diet. The people of Leiyang have always attached great importance to nongsang activities and are particularly sensitive to the twenty-four solar terms. For example, lixia, it is the season of planting seedlings, farmers do hard work, and each family boils lixia porridge to express good wishes for a good harvest. Lixia porridge is made of rice as the main ingredient, accompanied by refined meat, glutinous rice balls, vermicelli, dried bamboo shoots, toon, pork offal, red dates, peas, bean sprouts, eggs and other more than a dozen condiments.
4. Black rice
Wu rice was originally a Chinese folk festival food, which was found in the Tang Dynasty. In Jiangsu and Anhui, on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, many people cook black rice with black rice leaves, which has become a custom.
The eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar is the traditional Chinese Wu rice festival. Folklore has it that in order to eat the rice, The disciple of Shakyamuni, Mu Lian, tried to dye the rice with the juice of the southern candle leaf and cook it into black rice, and the hungry ghosts did not dare to eat the rice. The mother finally satisfies her stomach, and the people eat black rice every year to commemorate this filial piety. The "New Edition of Materia Medica" records that the leaves of the southern candle are the leaves of the azalea family of plants, the black rice tree.
5. Wheat silkworm
Qingmai Tuan,or Green Wheat Silkworm, known as Cold Barnyard in Tongdong dialect, belongs to the traditional snacks of the Shadi people in present-day Haimen City and Qidong City, Jiangsu Province. Nowadays, this kind of snack is rare, and fewer and fewer people are making it. Old. Farmers generally live in hardship, and every Time the "gods are sad" in February and March. The family had almost eaten all the grain, so he cut the ears of green wheat in the field and went home, rubbed the green wheat seeds with his hands, blew off the wheat husks, and then fried them in the pot. Clean the wheat husk again because the husk is not clean at one time. After frying, grind the wheat grains into fine wheat strips with stone grinding while hot. Because of its resemblance to a young silkworm, the sandy people call it a wheat silkworm.
6. Foot bone shoots
In summer, Ningbo people like to eat foot bone shoots, this slender wild bamboo shoot is a symbol of hope and health. Ningbo people call it "foot bone shoot", Fenghua people call it mother shoot, is a wild mountain shoot, the taste is particularly good.
Legend has it that when you eat in summer, you can grow like bamboo shoots every day, and there is an old saying in Ningbo, "Lixia eats foot bone shoots, and the foot bones are healthy for a year."
7. Seven porridges
Zhejiang region Lixia will eat "seven family porridge". Seven porridges are a collection of rice from neighbors and neighbors, plus various beans and brown sugar, to cook into a large pot of porridge, which is shared by everyone.
8. Seven teas
Hangzhou old custom, set up summer cooking new tea to give to relatives and neighbors, called seven teas. Mingtian Rucheng 'West Lake Tour Zhiyu Xi Dynasty Fun Event'" "On the day of the establishment of summer, people each cook new tea, with various colors of fine fruits, and feed relatives to neighbors, called seven teas." Rich rooms compete for luxury, the fruits are carved, decorated with gold leaf, and the fragrant soup is bright, such as jasmine, forest birds, roses, guirui, Ding Tan, Su Xing, and the goru porcelain urn, only for one sip. ”
9. Light cake
In Gwangju, Henan, there is also a kind of charcoal grilled "fire steamed bun" and "steamed bun". It is to combine the dough, cut into pieces, knead into round flattening, and then brush water and paste it on the charcoal stove for grilling. There are sweet, salty, not sweet and not salty, the appearance, color, and size are exactly the same as the Fuzhou light cake, but the hole in the center of the cake is missing for threading.
In Gwangju in the Tang Dynasty, the genealogy of the Fuzhou people who migrated south in the Central Plains records that their ancestors came from Gwangju. It can be inferred that since the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Fuzhou has had "fire steamed buns" and "steamed buns", which are called "light cakes" because they come from Gwangju.
"Light cake" is the traditional famous spot in Fuzhou, in ancient times, Fuzhou scholars Jinjing rushed to take the exam, but also often carried "light cake" as a journey to fill the hunger, because it is easy to carry, easy to eat, easy to preserve, so it has become a good and inexpensive "three dry food".
In addition, when Fuzhou people visit tombs on ancestor sacrifice days and the Annual Qingming Festival, they are indispensable to "light cakes" among many offerings, which has become a distinct regional folk culture for people to remember their ancestors.
10. Spread the rice
In the summer, the powder made of broccoli or jujube lard and rice is called "spreading rice", and the summer food is used to prevent diseases and disasters.
In the "Song of the Hucheng Dynasty", which records the customs of Shanghai in the Qing Dynasty, it is said: "When the summer day is established, wild vegetables are cut, there are so-called 'grass character heads'. Grind rice to make rice, fry it in grass, the taste is very crisp and fragrant, the name is 'stall rice'. Now Shanghainese mix flour or rice noodles into a sticky shape and then put them in a pan to fry or bake into cakes, saying that they are "pancakes", while in the old Shanghainese, they talk about "stall cakes"; Ming Liu Ruoyu's "Drinking Zhongzhi And Eating Well Shang Jiluo" said: "Each family uses a jujube cake with a noodle and fry it in oil; Or with noodles and thin, spread as pancakes, known as 'lavender'. This "spread" means to evenly distribute it into thin slices. Grass head is still a favorite vegetable for Shanghainese today, but most of them are stir-fried as "wine and vanilla heads", or used to make a mat for meat dishes, such as "grass head circles".
11. Shrimp noodles
Summer is usually in the early April of the lunar calendar and the middle of May in the Gregorian calendar. On this day, in the past, every household in southern Fujian often mixed red rotten into noodles and cooked for the whole family to eat, because the red is red, for the auspicious color, and there is fermentation as a purpose, in order to mean the meaning of developing and getting rich, and red rotten also helps digestion and is beneficial to health. This custom evolved to the later, and the red raspberry was replaced by sea shrimp, which is called "eating shrimp summer and shrimp Hokkien homophone noodles". When cooked, the shrimp turns red, the same color as the red bad, as a blessing for summer.
12. Tender fava beans
In Lixia Shaoxing, people have customs such as eating beans, eating eggs, weighing and so on, which contain the beautiful expectations of the ancients to pray for a safe summer.
After the summer is the season when green broad beans are on the market, many people in Jiangsu will cook broad beans and rice in one pot, called "broad bean rice". Broad beans in Wang Zhen's "Book of Agriculture" have the saying that "the most advanced thing among the hundred grains can be eaten by steaming, and the food is used to fill the hunger". In northern Jiangsu, the fields are mostly salty soils containing salinity, which are evolved from the yellow beach, and the fields are planted with either broad beans or cotton. During the ripening season of broad beans in May every year, many people use broad beans as vegetables and rice. Northern Jiangsu people are even more fond of broad beans, and in the fresh fava bean market season, they often use it to stir-fry pickles and roast bamboo shoot soup to eat.
13. Pea cake
The "Chronicle of Jinling", which records Nanjing folklore, says that on a summer day, Nanjing people "make children ride on the threshold and eat pea cakes", and the old Nanjing people believe that letting children ride on the big threshold and eat a bowl of pea cakes can avoid the trouble of "summer fever".
14. Three fresh
Lixia taste three fresh is also known as "Lixia eat three fresh" or "Lixia to see three new". Three fresh is generally divided into "three fresh ground", "three fresh trees" and "three fresh water". The three fresh ground are broad beans, amaranth, cucumber (one says amaranth, broad beans, garlic seedlings). The three trees rarely have cherries, loquats, and apricots (one says green plums, apricots, and cherries). The three fresh waters are conch, puffer fish, and anchovies (one says anchovies, pomfrets, and yellow croakers).
In addition, Lixia also has the custom of "Lixia tasting". People taste seasonal foods for health and good fortune. Such as eating cherries, shoots, green broad beans, garlic seedlings, amaranth, green plums and other newly marketed fruits and vegetables. While eating the above delicacies, you may wish to eat more seasonal foods.
Source: Food is natural