Today is the twenty-third day of the lunar month, and the north ushered in a "small year"; Tomorrow on the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, the people of the south will also usher in their "little year". Although the time difference is one day, for many Chinese, the small year festival stove is a necessary ritual before the Spring Festival.
Sacrificial stove", also called "sending stove", we have to send the god in charge of human food - the king of the stove to report to heaven. Therefore, whether it is in the north or in the south, every household will prepare a lot of delicious food for the Lord of the Stove.
So, what kind of food might the stove princes in different places eat?
The twenty-third day of the lunar month. Signed 98 years of Yuanfeng Blue, ** Picture Worm Creative Stove Jun Function.
The official title of "Stove Wangye" has Stove Jun, East Kitchen Si Ming, Si Ming Bodhisattva and so on. The appearance of the stove king is related to the worship of fire by the ancients. "Huainanzi Pan Commentary" said: "Emperor Yan made fire, and died as a stove." Kong Yingda's annotation "Rites and Rituals" said: "The Zhuan clan has a son called Li, who is Zhu Rong and worships him as the god of the stove. "Zaojun is responsible for supervising the good and evil deeds of each family this year. Zao Jun has two subordinates around him, one of them holds a "good jar" and the other holds an "evil jar", respectively recording the good and bad things done by the people's family. At the end of the year, the stove will summarize and report these good and bad things, and God will give blessings to those who do good deeds and punish those who do bad things.
Zao Jun is not only a supervisor, but also a family protector, and the door god, the well god, the toilet god, and the middle god (room **) are collectively known as the "five rituals", together responsible for protecting the safety of the family and preventing idle gods and wild ghosts from harassing them. Because the stove king is closely connected with people's blessings and misfortunes, so since ancient times, the common people began to worship the stove king. The origin of the sacrificial stove.
The earliest written records of sacrificial stoves can be found in the Analects and the Book of Rites. In "The Analects of the Eight Hundreds", there are five grandsons Jia who ask "the matter of the charming stove". "The Book of Rites: The Order of the Month" contains: "The month of Mengxia ......Its sacrificial foci, sacrificial lungs. From this, it can be seen that the earliest sacrificial stove was in early summer. In this regard, the Han Dynasty scholar Zheng Xuan's explanation is: "Xia Yang Qi is hot outside, worshiped in the stove, and from the heat." This is also in line with the fact that early people associated the stove with fire.
In the Han Dynasty, the sacrificial stove was changed to be carried out in the month of Layue, and it has continued to this day. The reasons for the changes are recorded in detail in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty: The Biography of Yin Knowledge. It is said in the book that when Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, Yin Zi Fang La was cooking in the morning, and when he saw the appearance of the god of the stove, he killed the only yellow dog in the family and sacrificed to the god of the stove; Since then, the Yin family has gradually developed, with more than 700 hectares of land and a prosperous family. People who are infected by this are worshipping the god of the stove with yellow dogs on the day of La, that is, on the third day after the winter solstice. In the Song Dynasty, the sacrificial stove was more solemn. The poet Fan Chengda specially wrote a poem "Sacrificial Stove Words":
According to ancient legends, on the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, the stove king wants to say something.
The cloud car wind horse is small and stays, and the family has a cup and plate ceremony.
The pig's head is rotten and hot double fish fresh, and the bean paste is sweet pine powder bait.
The man sacrificed his daughter to avoid, and drank and burned the money stove Junxi.
The servant fights against the king, and the cat and dog touch the filthy king.
Send the king drunk and full to the gate of heaven, the long ladle and the short ladle do not return to the clouds, and beg for the return of the city.
Illustration of the 23rd year of the month of the Stove God. Signed by Pick Up Two Li,** Picture Worm Creative.
In addition to "men do not worship the sun, women do not send stoves", there are many taboos for sacrificial stoves. For example, "The Complete Book of Respecting the Stove and Avoiding Taboos on the Stove" stipulates-
Do not burn incense with a stove fire; Do not hit the stove; Do not put knives or axes on the stove; Do not talk strange things, complain, cry, call, sing, ...... in front of the stoveDo not send dirt into the stove for burning", etc.
You can still recite some prayers when sacrificing to the stove, such as - this year it is the twenty-third, and the stove is sent to the sky. There are strong horses, there is forage, and the road is safe and windy. The sugar melon offered is sweet and sweet, please say good words to the Jade Emperor. These conventions and customs, commonly known as the customs, also reflect the status of the folk custom of sacrificing stoves in people's minds. It is generally believed that Stove-kun will return on Chinese New Year's Eve. Therefore, on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, every household should light incense candles, place offerings, and paste the statue of Vesta in the Vesta shrine, with couplets on both sides. Some write - God says good things, and return to the palace to be auspicious. Some write - oil and salt are as deep as the sea, and the area of rice is like a mountain. In some places, people will say when they have lunch and dumplings on Chinese New Year's Eve - you eat first when you have a meal, and you have a prophet about something. When pasting couplets, I also pay attention to it, and I want to be crooked, what I say is that the stove master pours it in, and I can't eat a year's steamed buns.
"What can you eat?"
Since it is with the word "sacrifice", all kinds of delicacies are naturally indispensable. Generally speaking, the ancient times are more solemn than the contemporary, and the south is richer than the north. 
Shanxi Jinnan flower bun production. Signed by Lu Xing,** Picture insect creative "Stove King" no matter where he goes, what he eats is nothing more than wine and sweets. The "stove kings" in different places have different mouths. If you want the "Lord of the Stove" to say something good, good wine is indispensable. This idea was had in the Song Dynasty. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the people not only put fish and meat on the "stove king", but also fine wine. It was recorded in the Northern Song Dynasty's "Tokyo Menghualu" that in Bianjing, people would smear the stove door with sake lees, and this ritual was called "drunken Si Ming", and the intention was very obvious. In the Ming Dynasty, Gu Qiyuan also said in "Guest Words": "Staying in the capital, the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month is also worshiped by the society, fruit wine, from the doctor to the family." "Next up is the main event – food. If the "Lord of the Stove" walks from north to south, it is almost inseparable from the word "sugar". There are two ways for the people to give the "Stove King" candy to eat: one is that the Stove King eats sweet sugar, and his speech is naturally sweet, "God says good things"; The second is to eat sticky stove candy, which can stick to the stove Jun's mouth and make him speechless - he can't say anything, so naturally he can't say bad things. The "sugar" in the north includes sugar melon, Kanto sugar, halva, etc. The sugar melon is a round milky white sugar ball, divided into two kinds of sesame seeds and no sesame seeds, the center is empty, and there are stripes on the shell, which are composed of milky white, red and green alternately, like a small pumpkin that is not ripe, and it tastes sour and sweet. 
Maltose melon. Signature User 5d5937b2,** Picture Worm Creative Ming Dynasty Liu Tong said in "Dijing Jingwulu" Volume 2 "Spring Field":
December) on the twenty-fourth day with sugar cakes, millet cakes, jujube chestnuts, walnuts, fried beans, worship the stove king. During the Qing Dynasty, the way of sacrificing stoves in the north was roughly the same as that of the Ming Dynasty. The people of the time recorded: (December) 23 day sacrificial soap (stove), the ancient use of yellow sheep, recently heard that the inner court is still used, the folk do not see the use also. Folk sacrificial soap (stove), only with southern sugar, Kanto sugar, sugar cakes, water, grass beans. (Clear water and grass beans for the horse of the stove lord to eat) Kanto sugar is made of malt and millet, long stick-shaped, hard, can only be split with a knife when eating, the incision is as delicate and dense as marble, the entrance is sweet and sour, and the taste is similar to sugar melon. 
Kanto stove sugar. ** Screenshot of the documentary "A Bite of the Northeast" goes south to Jiangdong, and the desserts eaten by "Lord Stove" will be richer. In Suzhou, he would see a lot of dumplings, rice cakes, glutinous rice balls, caramel ingots and the like. In the Qing Dynasty, the "Zhenzhou Bamboo Branch Quotation" recorded the situation of the Jiangsu people's sacrifice stove - the stove was cooked glutinous rice on the day of the stove, which was called "stove rice", and the sugar was nine layers such as a tower, which was called "stove sugar"; The cake is the same, called "stove cake"; There are also stove steamed buns, stove fruits, set up stoves, and the master leads his children to worship ......Shanghai uses "ingots sugar", which is similar in shape to zongzi, also called "zongzi sugar", in addition to mushrooms, persimmons, red beans and glutinous rice, green vegetables, glutinous rice balls, clear tea, etc. 
Rice cake strips. Signed by Liu Li,** The picture worm creative continued to go south, and the people of Hangzhou prepared "jelly bean porridge", which tasted sweet and delicious, and was easier to eat than Kanto sugar. Further south, the sweets prepared by the people of Lingnan and the southeast coast are different. In modern times, Zhang Lizhong said in "The Essence of Fuzhou Customs": Fuzhou prepares meat dishes on the twenty-third day, and prepares sugar cakes and vegetarian fruit ...... on the twenty-fourth dayTwenty-three days called "sacrificial meat stove", twenty-four days called "sacrificial vegetable stove", sacrificial vegetable stove candy variety, fresh fruit has blessing orange, sugarcane, water chestnut, dried fruit has melon seeds, peanuts, longan, walnut, black dates, red dates, chestnuts, persimmon pills, sugar lotus seeds, dried sweet potatoes and sugar, cakes and so on more than ten kinds. Guangdong Haifeng sacrificial stove uses a kind of food called "vegetable cake", the specific method is to use japonica rice flour to make the skin, with diced meat, dried shrimp, celery to make the filling, wrapped about an inch and a half long, shaped like a half moon. In the Chaoshan area, the "stove king" prepares southern sugar, which is made of caramel or granulated sugar mixed with peanuts and sesame seeds. 
Stove sugar. Signed by Chen Fengchen,** After such a trip, we will find that the sugar in the north is simply "sugar", while the sugar in the south will gradually add other ingredients, eat and eat, and feel that we have eaten a dish unconsciously. The food and drinks are ready, and it's time for the main food. Different from the glutinous rice and rice noodle styles in the south, the staple food in the north is more gluten-oriented. Therefore, if the "Stove Prince" in the north goes from east to west, the staple food he eats will change again. In the northwest region of Shandong and Shandong, people will prepare "Zaoshan buns" for Zaojun to eat. The Zaoshan Bun is a huge cone-shaped pastry, consisting of many moire-patterned steamed buns rolled with red dates, and a large pomegranate on top. 
Jujube mountain buns. Signature Signed contributor,** Picture Worm Creative went west to Shaanxi, and the staple food that "Stove Wangye" may eat is rice crackers. Writer Chen Zhongzhong recalled: "Every family bakes a kind of five-spiced small round cake and brings it to the god of the stove to use as dry food on the long road to heaven. "Speaking so lively, does the "Lord of the Stove" really say bad things and good things because he is not happy to eat? In fact, as a god, the "Lord of the Stove" can't eat so many things, and second, he doesn't care about what people offer. There was an inspirational story of Lu Mengzheng, the prime minister of the Song Dynasty. Lu Mengzheng's family was poor when he was young, and on the twenty-third day of the lunar month, he had no money to buy sacrifices, so he could only use the firewood used to cook meat as incense, and prayed in front of the god of the stove - a stick of fragrance and a wisp of smoke, and the emperor of the stove went to the sky. If the Jade Emperor asks about human affairs, it is worthless for Taoist articles. "Lord Stove" was moved by his piety and reported the situation of this family to heaven, and in the end, Lü Mengzheng became the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty. 
Nowadays, people's sense of awe and dependence on the god of the stove may be weakening, but the custom of "sacrificing the stove" in the new year increases the sense of ritual for the New Year, and entrusts the wish of "saying good deeds and keeping peace". This long and coherent folk custom has been passed down to this day, as if it has formed people's muscle memory: after sending the stove god, it means that the family is about to reunite and the Spring Festival is coming.