At 7:14 yesterday, the beginning of winter solar term ushered in.
The days are gone in a hurry, and they are still in the pleasant climate of autumn, and the beginning of winter has quietly arrived. The ancient book "Collected Explanations of the Seventy-Two Monthly Era" explains: "Stand up is the beginning; winter is the end, and all things are collected." It means that on the day of the beginning of winter, all the crops in autumn are collected and stored in the warehouse, and the animals are also hidden to prepare for hibernation. People who have worked for a year will take a break at this moment and reward the family for the hard work over the past year.
In the north, you need to eat dumplings in the beginning of winter. Although there is no such custom in Jinhua, I like to eat dumplings and prefer salty dumplings.
Most of the dumplings that big guys think are sweet, with delicate and white sugar, mellow black sesame and pork oil as the filling. The soup is made of sweet water melted with brown sugar. It is sweet but easy to get greasy. The salty glutinous rice ball fillings eaten by Jinhua people are not limited to the fixed style. White radish, shrimp, bamboo shoots, celery, pork, etc. are common ingredients. The soup base can be made with carefully prepared broth, or it can be a simple soy sauce and green onion. Different people have different flavors, so they can make salty glutinous rice balls with varying flavors.
Grandma Ye Juxiang's house in Yedian Village, Bailongqiao Town, cooks a bowl of salty glutinous rice balls every beginning of winter. Grandma Ye has made the usual meat glutinous rice balls for decades. Although
is the most ordinary dumpling, Grandma Ye is also particular. She feels that the glutinous rice flour in the supermarket is so soft that it sticks to teeth, so she prepares glutinous rice one month in advance to prepare to grind it herself. The glutinous rice should be soaked for more than a day, rub it repeatedly with clean water several times, and then spread it evenly to dry it. Only after several suns were sunny would Grandma Ye ask someone to use a machine to grind it into rice flour. "The rice noodles made from the rice noodles I grind at home are delicious, chewy, and not sticky to teeth."
water boiled. With the movement of opening the lid, fog rose out. "Full and safe." Grandma Ye's wife murmured while she drank the dumplings. Grandma Ye’s hand was not too fast to cut vegetables, “twist”, as if the postman knocked on the doors of each household, knocking on winter.
The glutinous but non-stick dumplings are eaten with the fresh and fragrant soup, and the stomach is already warm. Eating a bowl of steaming dumplings at the beginning of winter is like walking from season to season with a warm greeting. What you eat is wishes and what you swallow is expectation. Keeping the warmth from the inside out, I start looking forward to the coming of spring.
Integrated Media Reporter: Dai Jiaming
Editor: Xu Ke Reviewer: Wang Sheng Producer: Zhang Ming
