Why did Xiao Nian eat kitchen candy? The origin and legend of Xiao Nian eating kitchen candy
4hw.com.cn: most of China's traditional festivals are inseparable from food, such as eating dumplings during the winter solstice and Spring Festival, eating Yuanxiao during the Lantern Festival, eating zongzi during the Dragon Boat Festival, coming in 2019, and eating cooking sugar in the lunar new year. Do you know why? What is the origin of eating kitchen candy? Let's have a look.
Why did Xiaonian eat candy
In the lunar new year, according to tradition, cooking candy is eaten in the new year. Kitchen sugar is a kind of maltose with sticky mouth and teeth. The sugar stick drawn into a long strip is called 'Kanto sugar', and the flat round shape is called 'sugar melon'.
Put it outside in winter. Because of the cold weather, the sugar melon solidifies solid, and there are some tiny bubbles inside. It tastes crisp, sweet and delicious. Real Guandong sugar is extremely hard and can't be broken. It must be split with a kitchen knife when eating. The material is very heavy and fine. The taste is slightly sour. There is no honeycomb in the middle. Each piece weighs one or two, two or four Liang, and the price is more expensive.
Why did Xiaonian eat kitchen candy? The reason for offering kitchen sugar to the kitchen stove is to stick to the kitchen god's mouth. That's what the Beijing folk song '23, tanggua sticky' means. Cooking sugar is also different everywhere. There are white cooking sugar made of malt, soybean flour sugar, sesame sugar and so on.
The origin of eating kitchen candy in Xiaonian (Legend 1)
It is said that Zaoye is the God sent by the Jade Emperor to supervise good and evil on earth. It has the responsibility of communicating from the top to the bottom, contacting the feelings between heaven and earth, and transmitting the information between fairyland and the world. When it went to heaven, people offered it cooking sugar, hoping that it would eat sweets and make more good words in front of the Jade Emperor. Some people also say that the kitchen sugar used in sacrificial cooking is not the mouth of the kitchen god, but the mouth of grandma Zaojun, who is greedy for good things and gossip.
Because the Chinese basically eat rice, cooked food is generally difficult to preserve and must be cooked at any time. Unlike western bread, many can be baked at one time and preserved for consumption. Therefore, for the Chinese people, 'firewood' (fuel) is the first important thing in the 'seven things' (firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, tea) in life. Without fuel, even if there is basic food, there is no way to eat. In the west, only one bread stove in a village is enough. In China, every family must have a stove.
Since each family has a stove, it is said that the Jade Emperor sent a supervisor, the kitchen god (the kitchen king, the kitchen king, the kitchen Lord and the kitchen king), to supervise and inspect the family's behavior in a year. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the kitchen god will report to the Jade Emperor, According to the report, the Jade Emperor decided whether to reward or punish the family next year, and the kitchen god came back the next year to continue to supervise the family's actions. This day is actually a festival for all families to send off the kitchen god to heaven.
Specific operation method: generally, each family pastes a portrait of the kitchen god near the stove, and sometimes accompanied by a portrait of grandma kitchen king. After a year of smoke and fire, the portrait is old and dark. Take off the old statue and tie a straw horse for the kitchen god. In order to make him 'say good things from heaven, return to the palace and bring good luck', bribe him, stick a sticky sugar melon or cake on his mouth, so that his' sweet mouth 'can only say good things, and then burn it with the straw horse.
This process is called CI Zao. Buy a new portrait after the new year and post the kitchen god back. In the past few days, without the supervision of the kitchen god, most people drink and eat too much, gather people to gamble, and indulge themselves to make some small mistakes that they usually think they should not make.
The origin of eating kitchen candy in Xiaonian (Legend 2)
According to another legend, LV MENGZHENG, the Prime Minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, was poor and wandered around since childhood. Later, he and his mother lived in a temple in Yonghe County, northeast of Zhangde Prefecture, which is now Hongyuan temple in caoma village, Anyang County. The elders in the temple are full of knowledge and have the unique skill of making flavor snacks - making sesame sugar.
Although LV MENGZHENG was poor, he was talented, diligent and eager to learn, so he was highly valued by the elders. The elder not only taught him to read and write poems every day, but also often rewarded some sesame candy for his mother and son to taste. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month in 976, people were busy sending the kitchen god to heaven. Seeing that the people offered food to the kitchen god, and that he had nothing to offer to the kitchen god, LV Meng stuck sesame candy in the temple to the kitchen god's painting.
When the kitchen Lord returned to the heavenly palace and the emperor asked, he wanted to say, but Zhang didn't open his mouth, but just nodded. The Jade Emperor thought that the 'God of kitchen fire' repeatedly praised LV MENGZHENG's character, so he issued a decree to bless LV MENGZHENG. The next year, LV MENGZHENG was indeed the top of hundreds of children in the world and won the first prize in the exam.
In order to repay the elders for their education and assistance, he expanded the temple, allocated 500 loads of yellow rice, wheat and 100 loads of sesame seeds, and asked the elders to widely teach sesame sugar making skills as the basis for the local people to make a living. Since then, on the day of offering sacrifices to the stove on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month every year, people have followed LV Meng's example. They are using sesame sugar to worship the 'God of stove fire' and pray for the blessing of the Jade Emperor. In this way, it has been handed down from generation to generation.
Experts remind that adults have little impact on cooking sugar, but they should buy packaged cooking sugar to avoid bacterial dust entering the intestine and stimulating gastrointestinal mucosa. However, children should be extra careful when eating kitchen candy, because kitchen candy is made of maltose. Excessive consumption will damage children's teeth. If children catch a cold or have tracheitis, they should eat a small amount.