The summer solstice is one of the first of the twenty-four solar terms to be identified. On June 21 or 22 of the annual solar calendar, when the sun reaches 90° ecliptic longitude, it is the day of the summer solstice. According to the Manuscript of The Observance of the Constitution: "The sun is north to the north, the day is long to the solstice, and the shadow of the sun is short, so it is called the summer solstice." To the extreme, also. "On the day of the summer solstice, the position of the sun hitting the ground directly reaches the northernmost point of the year, almost directly hitting the Tropic of Cancer, the daylight time in the northern hemisphere reaches its limit, and most of the time from sunrise to sunset in the south of our country is about 14 hours, and the farther north it is, the longer it is. For example, the day length of Haikou City in Hainan is about 13 hours, Hangzhou City is about 14 hours, Beijing is about 15 hours, and Mohe River in Heilongjiang can reach more than 17 hours.
Summer Solstice Noodles - The sky is getting shorter and the three volts are coming
Since ancient times, china's folk have been saying "winter solstice dumplings summer solstice noodles", and eating noodles on the summer solstice is an important custom in many regions. And why eat noodles today? There are many reasons and statements.
Reasons and sayings for eating noodles on the summer solstice
(1) It symbolizes the longest day time on the day of the summer solstice
Compare the length of the noodles to the long days of the summer solstice, just as we eat noodles on our birthdays in order to get a good color. After the summer solstice, the noonday sun direct point gradually moves south, and the length of the day in the northern hemisphere is gradually shortening, so china has a saying that "after eating summer solstice noodles, a day is short".
(2) It indicates that the three-volt day is coming
Climatically, temperatures continue to rise after the summer solstice, and in about twenty or thirty days the hottest time of the year will be ushered in. The ancients used various ways to cool off the summer, one of the most important ways is to enrich the festival diet, such as summer solstice noodles. As early as the Wei and Jin dynasties, the ancients had the custom of eating "soup cakes" on the day of the sun, and the soup cakes were the prototypes of noodles and noodle soups in later generations. After the summer solstice, it is a three-volt day, so the summer solstice noodles are also called "into the volt noodles".
(3) The new wheat appears on the summer solstice to taste the new
Eating noodles on the summer solstice, some people believe that at the time of the summer solstice, the summer harvest in the Yellow River Basin has just completed, and new wheat is on the market, so the ancients ate noodles on the summer solstice to taste new and celebrate the harvest. From the perspective of climate and nutrition, around the summer solstice, the climate is hot, the tide is stuffy and rainy, people often lose appetite, emaciated and haggard, known as "bitter summer" disturbance. In terms of diet, it is advisable to eat more multigrains that help digestion in summer, especially light. In this regard, noodles are the best seasonal food, hot noodles can sweat and dehumidify, cold noodles have the effect of cooling down and dispelling fire; and noodles are simple and easy to make, easy to eat, and the nutrients such as various vegetables can be well absorbed by the human body.
Pin Lotus Food - Seasonal food for the summer solstice
The ancients also had the custom of tasting lotus dishes on the day of the summer solstice. Food means delicacy, and lotus food is food made from various parts of the lotus flower. The flowers, leaves, lotus roots, and seeds of the lotus are all top products for making delicious dishes. As early as the Tang Dynasty, people had the custom of eating green lotus rice on the Lotus Festival. Liu Zongyuan's poem "Liuzhou Gongmin" (柳州峒民) reads: "The county town goes south to connect with Tongjin, and the different costumes are not close." The green basket is wrapped in salt and returned to the guests, and the green lotus rice is taken advantage of by the people. The green poached rice mentioned in the poem is the famous food "poached rice" in Guangzhou and Fuzhou today.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Qu Dajun recorded the production method of poached rice in the "Guangdong New Language": "Dongguan is steamed with fragrant japonica mixed fish and meat, steamed with lotus leaves, and fragrant in the table, and the name is poached rice." "Lotus leaves have a special fragrance, so they are widely used in making food, and lotus flowers and lotus seeds have been raw materials for making food since ancient times. The Song Dynasty people liked to mash the lotus petals and mix them with rice flour and sugar to steam them into lotus cakes; in the Ming and Qing dynasties, they used to make lotus petals into lotus wine. Empress Dowager Cixi also gave a wine made of white lotus flowers to her trusted ministers, called jade liquor qiong pulp. Yujing rice in the Song Dynasty and lotus porridge in the Yuan Dynasty are classical cuisines made with lotus seeds as the main ingredient. To this day, people love to eat delicious tonics made from lotus seeds. Lotus root is a food that people often eat, and now there are many colorful dishes made from lotus root.
During the summer solstice, eat eggs and cure bitter summer
The third day after the summer solstice is the first meditation, the fourth day is the middle volt, and the first day after the autumn is the last volt, which is collectively called the volt day. People have a lack of appetite and are often thinner than usual, commonly known as "bitter summer". In some places in Shandong, eat raw cucumbers and boiled eggs on the summer solstice to cure the "bitter summer", and only eat eggs in the morning of the ambush and do not eat other foods.
The Voorgie cattle drink wheat kernel soup and are strong and strong
On the day of the summer solstice, the Linyi region of Shandong Province has the custom of improving the diet of cattle.
Furi cooked wheat kernel soup for the cattle to drink, and it is said that the cattle drank strong, able to work, and did not sweat. The folk song says: "Spring bull whip, licking cow man (bull), wheat kernel soup, licking beef rice, licking cow drink without sweating, stay up until June and repeat." ”
Eat dog meat on the summer solstice – to ward off evil spirits
During the summer solstice, there is a custom of eating dog meat in the Lingnan region, as the saying goes: "Summer solstice dogs, no dinium to go (nowhere to hide)." "The summer solstice kills the dog to make up for it, so that the dog of the day has nowhere to hide, but it cannot be slaughtered at home, it must be in the wild."
Folk about the custom of eating dog meat, there is a saying, eating dog meat on the day of the summer solstice can dispel evil spirits and replenish the body, resist the plague and so on. "Eat the summer solstice dog, the west wind detours", to the effect that as long as a person eats dog meat on the day of the summer solstice, his body can resist the invasion of the west wind and rain, less cold, and good health. It is based on this good intention that the unique folk food culture of "summer solstice dog meat" has been achieved. Of course, eating dog meat on the summer solstice should also be appropriate, do not eat too much, so as not to cause gastrointestinal diseases such as indigestion.
According to relevant records, the summer solstice killing dogs to supplement the body is said to originate from the Warring States period in the second year of qin degong's reign, and the heat in June was extremely hot and the epidemic was epidemic. Qin Degong then ordered his subjects to kill dogs to avoid evil spirits according to the saying that "dogs are yang animals and can ward off ominousness", and later formed the custom of killing dogs on the summer solstice.
Pray for rain – pray for the wind and rain to be smooth
Just when the south is worried about too much rain on the summer solstice, the dry north has the custom of asking for rain, mainly the beijing teacher asks for rain, the dragon lamp asks for rain, etc. In ancient times, people prayed for the wind and rain through these rituals.
However, after too much rain, in order to come to the sun, people also performed magic to stop the rain, such as the sweeping of the sky in the folk paper-cutting is the witchcraft of stopping the rain. In some places, the sorcerer's lady who was originally a substitute for witchcraft was also worshipped as the god of rain and sunshine. In the past, on the 24th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, the god Erlang (erlang god is the second son of Li Bing, and the folk worship him as the water god) to pray for the wind and rain to be smooth. When the sky is dry, please ask the Erlang God to rain; when the rain is too much, he will ask the Erlang God to let the sun shine.
Summer Solstice Festival - The festival established by the pre-Qin Dynasty
The summer solstice festival is one of the four major solar terms (spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox, and winter solstice) established by the ancients of the pre-Qin Dynasty, and later gradually became an important folk festival - "Summer Solstice Festival". Since the summer solstice is the fastest growing season for crops, and it is also the most frequent period of pests and diseases, floods and droughts, this is extremely unfavorable for crops. The extent to which crops are damaged will directly determine the abundance of food. In ancient times, due to the lack of developed science and technology, people often held sacrifice ceremonies during the summer solstice festival to pray for disasters and evil spirits, in order to seek abundant grain. The objects of sacrifice, rituals, and offerings also vary depending on the region and ethnicity. The general objects of worship are mostly ancestors, land gods (or mother earth), water gods and so on. Because the ancestors blessed their descendants, the land god dominated the harvest of crops, and the water god was in charge of rainfall. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, the sacrifice of heaven and earth was only the privilege of the emperor, and the common people had no right to sacrifice. The ceremony of the land sacrifice is very solemn, usually presided over by the emperor himself, and all the princes and ministers and clergy who participate in the land sacrifice must fast first. The Temple of Earth, now located outside the Anding Gate in Beijing, is where the Ming and Qing emperors worshiped the gods of the land on their summer solstice. With the continuous development of the times, land sacrifice has also become an important activity of the people. Han folk land sacrifices are mostly carried out in land temples, fields and other places. The offerings are mainly pasta, because the summer solstice is the season of wheat harvest, and the new wheat is made into noodles for offering, and there is also the intention of letting the land god taste new, first, to express gratitude for this year's harvest, and second, to pray for the next year's disaster relief and harvest. Because of the heat of summer, cold noodles (that is, fishing noodles over the water) are most suitable for consumption at this time, so people often worship the land gods with cold noodles during the summer solstice festival. Later, some regions also used wontons, cold powder, cold skin, lychee or dog meat as offerings. Now the custom of summer solstice festival sacrifice has basically disappeared, but the food custom of eating noodles has been passed down to this day.
"Yellow on both sides" - summer solstice festival food
A customary food eaten during the summer solstice, "yellow on both sides", has many kinds of methods and tastes.
The general method is: first cook the noodles, fish out and rinse with cold water, add a little salt and sesame oil and mix well; then put the frying pan on the fire, put the oil in the pan and spread the oil evenly, spread the cooked noodles flat in the pot, fry the noodles on high heat until they are golden brown, fry the noodles on both sides and put them on the plate. Then make a soup according to your taste preferences. For example, use the remaining oil in the pot to fry shrimp, shredded meat, leeks, shiitake mushrooms, etc., and add the appropriate amount of seasoning, stir-fry well, and then pour it on the fried dough cake.
Wearing jujube flowers on the summer solstice - to ward off evil spirits
During the summer solstice, there is also the custom of women wearing jujube flowers on their heads in some places. It is said that on this day, women wear jujube flowers on their heads to avoid evil.
Every summer solstice, the treetops begin to chirp, the country jujube blossoms bloom, and the beige jujube flowers like small stars are faintly fragrant. The women went together to collect jujube flowers and put them on each other's heads. When the older women wear the jujube flower, they still have the words in their mouths: "The feet are numb, and the head is wearing a jujube flower."
"Stop the wheat beetle" – pray that the food will not be infested with insects
People often say that "stop wheat beetles" is a kind of agricultural custom in ancient times. This custom is due to the fact that in ancient times, when technology was not developed, people came up with a way to pray that food would not be infested by insects. Similar to a form of witchcraft. On the day of the summer solstice, wild chrysanthemums are collected and burned to ashes, and chrysanthemum ashes are sprinkled in wheat hoards. It is said that this can stop pests such as wheat moths and wheat aphids. This custom originated very early, according to the "Jingchu Chronicle": "It is the day (summer solstice) to take the chrysanthemum to ash. To stop wheat beetles. ”