It is almost the New Year, the Spring Festival is our most important festival, and there are different customs all over the country. However, whether it is the south or the north to eat dumplings at night Chinese New Year's Eve is the consensus, and it can be said that dumplings have become synonymous with Chinese cuisine today.
So do you know when dumplings appear?
The original name of dumplings was "Jiao'er", which was invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Zhang Zhongjing's medical skills are superb, and he has the heart of hanging pots to save the world, when he was an official in Changsha, he could also put down his body to see the people and treat the people without discrimination, and once there was an outbreak of plague, he even boiled medicine in the pot at the door of the gate to treat the people for free. Therefore, it is deeply loved by the people.
Later, he returned to his hometown and saw that many people in his hometown had frostbite on their ears. I couldn't help but feel pity, so I followed the example of what I did in Changsha. Set up a medical shed in the open space of Nanyang Dongguan, set up a cauldron, open on the day of the winter solstice, and administer medicine for free to save people.
In order to cure these people who had frostbitten ears, Zhang Zhongjing invented a medicine called "Cold Ear Soup".
The specific method is: lamb, chili peppers and cold medicines are boiled in a large pot. It is then fished out and chopped and wrapped in dough, wrapped into the shape of the ear, cooked and sent to the people.
Zhang Zhongjing applied the medicine from the beginning of the winter solstice to the day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, and on the first day of the first month, the people celebrated the healing of the ears. So we now have the habit of eating dumplings on the winter solstice and the first day of the first year. This is to commemorate Zhang Zhongjing.
So how did dumplings develop into what they are today?
The history of "dumplings" has been more than 1,800 years from the age of Zhang Zhongjing. Dumplings have also evolved from a medicine for treating the ears to a popular delicacy, during which time it has also undergone a long evolution.
According to the "Guangya" written by Zhang Kai of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, at that time, there was already a food that was as strong as a crescent called "chaos". By the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, "chaos" had begun to spread widely, and the world was all-consuming.
But at that time, dumplings should not be the way to eat today, but add soup to the bowl, and eat dumplings in the soup.
Around the time of the Tang Dynasty, dumplings were the same as they are now, and they began to be fished out and eaten separately.
In the Song Dynasty, dumplings were called "horns", and in the Yuan Dynasty, they were called "flat food".
So where did our custom of eating dumplings Chinese New Year's Eve come about?
Chinese New Year's Eve eating dumplings originated in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there are many legends about eating dumplings in the New Year, one is to commemorate the Pangu clan's pioneering and ending the mixed state, and the other is to take its harmonic sound with "hun hoarding", which means "grain hoarding".
Therefore, today dumplings have become an indispensable food for the Spring Festival.
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