Chinese New Year is a long-lasting and grand ritual for Chinese for thousands of years. Year after year, every year at the end of the year, families begin to be busy to welcome the new year, and the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner is the climax of the New Year, with high expectations and long preparation time, which not only contains the harvest and hope of family members after a year of hard work, but also infiltrates the connotation and watchfulness of family reunion and happiness.
From ancient times to the present, the passage of time will not change, and the feelings of reunion will not change, but the annual Chinese New Year's Eve dinner has quietly changed.
丨"Pre-made dishes" are the "main dishes" on the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner table
With the Spring Festival approaching, restaurants are selling Chinese New Year's Eve dinner reservations, and some consumers have begun to buy ingredients to prepare a hearty Chinese New Year's Eve meal at home. Unlike previous years, whether in restaurants or at home, pre-made dishes are "grabbing" the table for Chinese New Year's Eve dinners.
This year, major e-commerce platforms and supermarkets have launched a variety of pre-made food products. According to data provided by JD.com, since the beginning of the New Year's Festival, sales of "seafood dishes" represented by Buddha jumping over the wall around the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner scene, as well as "meat and poultry dishes" and "pre-made dish gift boxes**" have shown rapid growth.
Visitors wait to taste the pre-made dish "Buddha Jumping Over the Wall" at the 47th China Beijing International Gifts, Premium & Housewares Exhibition in Beijing on March 24, 2023. (from China News Service).
The analysis believes that consumers' demand for Chinese New Year's Eve meals has changed, and convenience and deliverability have become the main needs of consumers for Chinese New Year's Eve meals this year. And with the rise of the beauty economy and the popularity of short ** social, now the pre-made Chinese New Year's Eve meal focuses on both delicious and good-looking. Some Chinese New Year's Eve meals not only refine the reheating order, but also prepare "plating instructions" for consumers, restoring the taste of the dish while also restoring its "appearance", and the New Year is good for filming.
However, some consumers said that it is okay to eat some pre-made dishes at ordinary times, and it is unacceptable to eat pre-made dishes for Chinese New Year's Eve, feeling less "New Year's Taste", and "cooking together as a family is also part of the New Year." ”
Compared with the three meals a day on weekdays, the Chinese New Year's Eve meal carries deep family emotions and cultural significance. At this time, whether to eat pre-made dishes or not is not only a matter of personal consumption choice, but also reflects the collision of traditional customs and modern lifestyles.
Many people believe that preparing the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner by hand is an expression of family love, and each dish contains a desire for reunion and a blessing for a better life. Industrial pre-made dishes lack the taste and warmth of home, especially the elders, who are more willing to start preparing for the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner from visiting the big market and buying ingredients, and enjoy the fun of cooking and family interaction.
So when did the "sense of ceremony" of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner begin?
丨Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, family carnival, since ancient times, the New Year will have a dinner.
Looking through historical documents, you can find many records related to "Chinese New Year's Eve Dinner".
The famous general Zhou of the Western Jin Dynasty recorded in the "Chronicles of the Customs": "On the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, each phase and gift is called 'giving the year';."Wine and food are invited, called 'farewell year';The young and old gather to drink, and the blessings are complete, which is called 'dividing the year';Everyone stays awake all night long, waiting for the dawn, and is called 'keeping the New Year'". It can be inferred from this that "Farewell Year" is the prototype of today's Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. Family members gather at a table, share Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, toast blessings, vigil and other New Year scenes are presented one by one, no different from today. It can be seen that during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, China has formed customs such as New Year reunions, eating Chinese New Year's Eve dinners, drinking alcohol, and keeping the New Year.
On February 1, in Fuzhou, Fujian, citizens bought Spring Festival jewelry in shops. As the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon approaches, citizens have begun to buy Spring Festival ornaments and buy all kinds of New Year's goods, which is filled with a festive atmosphere. (from China News Service).
During the Tang and Song dynasties, food had a deep connection with the Chinese New Year, and fully interpreted the Chinese value of "food for the people". It is recorded in the "Chronicles of the Middle", "The first and fifth days of the first month ...... watchDrink cypress pepper wine and eat water snacks. Or secretly package one or two silver coins inside, and those who get it are auspicious to be one year old, and they also wish each other on the same day, and the name is called to celebrate the New Year. ”
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the reunion meaning of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner became more prominent, and the overall pattern became more and more similar to what we call the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner today. The term "Chinese New Year's Eve Dinner" first appeared in Gu Lu's "Qing Jialu" during the Jiaqing and Daoguang periods of the Qing Dynasty: "On Chinese New Year's Eve, the family holds a banquet, the elder and the young are gathered, and many auspicious words are used, and the name is 'Chinese New Year's Eve Dinner', commonly known as 'Family Carnival'." ”
丨From Tusu wine to Manchu and Han full banquets, the ancients also ate a big meal on Chinese New Year's Eve.
Since ancient times, the tradition of family banquets has made eating Chinese New Year's Eve dinner at home still the first choice for most families. Every Chinese New Year, "buy horses in the east market, and saddle sheath in the west market" has also become the norm. So what dishes were on the table of the ancients on Chinese New Year's Eve?
Go back 2,000 years, when the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner of the Jin Dynasty was much more humble than we imagined. In their Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, a special wine is indispensable - Tusu wine. Among them, "Tu" refers to cutting, while "Su" refers to rotting grass. They use the cut rotten herbs as medicinal herbs to make sake and share it with their families during the Chinese New Year to prevent getting sick during the cold season. In ancient times, people were still struggling with the food and clothing line, and the Chinese New Year's Eve meal at that time was just a glass of wine with clear soup and grains, but it was difficult to hide the warmth.
In the Tang and Song dynasties, drinking, eating Wuxin plate, glue tooth dumplings, and then eating peach soup and blue tail became a custom on the Chinese New Year's EveChinese New Year's Eve dinner table. Drinking wine is the first "process" in the Chinese New Year's Eve meal, and the types of wine include pepper wine and cypress wine in addition to Tusu wine.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, according to the records of the Qing Palace Dietary Archives, on the Chinese New Year's Eve of the 49th year of Qianlong, a total of 63 cold and hot dishes, 12 kinds of dim sum buns, and a variety of north and south side dishes were prepared in the palace. The dishes of the feast are divided into eight roads from the outside to the inside, as well as two pairs of carved lacquer fruit boxes, four Su cakes, abalone snails and other fruits and noodles. In addition to the main dishes, there are also eight fruit dishes, as well as snacks such as milk, small snacks, stove food, Aoerbuha, duck stuffed buns, rice noodles and snacks, as well as four small dishes from the north and south. This typical Manchu and Han banquet shifted the focus of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner from "rice" to "dishes", and also laid a rich and gorgeous background for the later Chinese folk Chinese New Year's Eve dinner.
On February 3, the owner of the sauce shop put the sauce duck on the shelves and prepared it for sale. The Spring Festival is approaching, and the Dama Lane in the Southern Song Dynasty Imperial City area of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province has a strong New Year's flavor, and many citizens come to buy New Year's goods. (from China News Service).
Later, the cultural atmosphere of the court feast was gradually introduced to the homes of ordinary people. The people in "Wuyi Lane" also began to follow the example of the aristocracy, hoping to enjoy some delicious food during the Chinese New Year. In ancient times without refrigeration and freezing technology, in order to prevent the deterioration of hoarded food, sausages, bacon, duck sauce, pickled chicken, and even pickles and pickles developed rapidly at this stage and became an important tradition and background color of Chinese New Year's Eve rice.
From everyone sitting and drinking to becoming an annual feast, the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner has experienced year after year, generation after generation, and witnessed the changes in northern and southern diets, economic and social changes, and multi-ethnic integration. The Chinese New Year's Eve meal has been changing, and behind the change is the evolution and replacement of New Year's food, the development of science and technology, and the leap of thought, but what remains unchanged is the reincarnation of family affection engraved in the life of Chinese and the cultural memory across ethnic regions.
Therefore, if you have money or not, go home for the New Year! As long as the family gathers at the table and talks about the coming year, then what to eat for Chinese New Year's Eve is very delicious!
Comprehensive *** workers**, economy**, Beijing News, etc.
Editor: Zhou Jialei.