Eat Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. "Yuanxiao" has been a food in China for a long time. In the Song Dynasty, a novel food eaten during the Lantern Festival was popular among the people. Representative food of the Lantern Festival

This kind of food was first called "Fu Yuanzi" and later "Yuanxiao". Businessmen also euphemistically called it "Yuanbao". Yuanxiao, or "tangyuan", is stuffed with sugar, rose, sesame, bean paste, cinnamon, walnut kernels, nuts, jujube paste, etc., and is wrapped into a round shape with glutinous rice flour. It can be meat or vegetarian and has different flavors. It can be cooked in soup, fried or steamed, and has the meaning of happy reunion. Shaanxi glutinous rice balls are not wrapped, but are "rolled" in glutinous rice flour. They are either boiled or deep-fried and heated until they are round and round. At the same time, you should also eat some festival foods, such as rice porridge or bean porridge with meat and poop soup poured on it during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. However, this food is mainly used for sacrifices and cannot be said to be a festival food. It was not until the Tang Dynasty that Zheng Wangzhi's "Shan Fu Lu" recorded: "Bianzhong is on a diet, Shangyuan Youchui". The method of making oil hammer is similar to the fried yuanxiao of later generations. Some people also call it the "Pearl of Oil Painting". Lantern Festival

The Tang Dynasty’s Lantern Festival diet consisted of noodles. Wang Renyu (880-956) recorded in "Kaiyuan Tianbao Legacy": "Every year in the Yuan Dynasty, the custom of making silkworms was still left in the Song Dynasty, but different festival foods were more abundant than in the Tang Dynasty. ". Lu Yuanming's "Miscellaneous Notes of the Year" mentions: "People in Beijing use mung bean flour as a soup, boil glutinous rice into pills, and sugar into glutinous rice balls, which is called Yuanzi Salted Black Soybean Sauce. The mixed meat is cooked into soup, which is called Salted Black Soybean Soup. Another example is that when people make silkworms every day, they are all on a diet during the Yuan Dynasty." By the Southern Song Dynasty, the so-called "lactose dumplings" appeared, which should be the predecessor of glutinous rice balls. At least by the Ming Dynasty, people called this kind of glutinous rice dumplings "Yuanxiao". Liu Ruoyu (born in 1541) recorded the making of Yuanxiao in "Ziuzhongzhi": "The preparation method is to use fine glutinous rice flour, stuffing with walnut kernels, white sugar and roses, sprinkle with water and roll it into a shape as big as a walnut. It is also called glutinous rice balls in the south of the Yangtze River." During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the "Eight Treasures Yuanxiao" specially made in the imperial dining room was a delicacy well-known to both the court and the public. Ma Siyuan was a master of making Lantern Festival in Beijing at that time. The rice dumplings he made are famous far and wide. Fu Zeng (born in 1688) wrote in his "Shangyuan Bamboo Branch Poems": "The sweet-scented osmanthus stuffed with walnuts is stuffed with sweet osmanthus, and the glutinous rice is like pearls from the well water. I heard that Ma's dripping powder is good, and they sell Yuanxiao in the wind." What is chanted in the poem is the famous Ma Family Lantern Festival. In the past thousand years, the production of Lantern Festival has become increasingly sophisticated. As far as noodles are concerned, there are glutinous rice noodles, sticky sorghum noodles, yellow rice noodles and corn noodles. The fillings include sweet, salty, meat and vegetables. Sweet ones include so-called osmanthus white sugar, hawthorn white sugar, assorted sweeteners, bean paste, sesame seeds, peanuts, etc. The salty ones are stuffed with lard and meat, and can be fried into fried rice dumplings. The vegetarian Yuanxiao is composed of mustard, garlic, leek, and ginger, which means hard work, longevity, and progress. The production methods also differ from north to south. The Lantern Festival in the north is usually made by hand-rolling, while the dumplings in the South are made by hand. Yuanxiao can be as big as a walnut or as small as a soybean. It can be cooked in soup, stir-fried, braised in oil, or steamed. It's equally delicious with or without fillings. At present, Yuanxiao has become a snack that is available at all times, and you can have a bowl of it at any time to satisfy your cravings.