What to eat on winter solstice
Dongzhi, or winter solstice, is an important festival in Chinese culture. It marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Even though it is not set as a public holiday here, everyone tries to get together with their families to eat Tangyuan or other traditional food.
Written by Chen Xiaochun
Dongzhi, or winter solstice, is an important festival in Chinese culture. It marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Even though it is not set as a public holiday here, everyone tries to get together with their families to eat Tangyuan or other traditional food.
The word is made up of two characters, 冬 (dōng) "winter" and 至 (zhì), being one of the 24 solar terms that divide the year into 24 equal periods. There is also 夏至 (xìazhì), for the summer solstice.
Traditional food for Dongzhi Festival
Tangyuan
Normally, in South China, we eat Tangyuan, small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame seeds, bean paste, jujube paste, walnuts, dried fruit, sugar or edible oil as fillings.
Jiaozi
While in North China, people typically eat Jiaozi, Chinese dumplings consisting of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough.
Babao porridge
Other traditional foods for this festival include Babao porridge (eight-treasure porridge) which contains glutinous rice, red beans, millet, Chinese sorghum, peas, dried lotus seeds, red beans and some other ingredients.
Wontons
Mutton
Other common Dongzhi delectables include Chinese radishes, Wontons (a type of dumpling) and mutton.
(Edited by Stephanie Yang)
