Today is the arrival of winter, dongzhi, (冬至) according to the Chinese calender. It is a festival that some of the Chinese regard as a more important than the Chinese New Year.
There is a type of food that must be taken on this day so that one will grow. If not taken, one will never age. The children will willingly swallow but maybe the ladies will be hesitant to consume.
This is the type of food that we call tangyuan (汤圆). They are glutinous rice balls cooked in syrup. Some tanyuan have filling of ground peanuts, black sesame or red bean paste. As for my family, we always have the plain tangyuan. When I was still a kid, my grandpa used to tell me that I should take the same number of glutinous rice balls as my age, with an extra one to symbolise the additional one year of age. However, I didn't see him taking 60+ tangyuan then.
There is a type of food that must be taken on this day so that one will grow. If not taken, one will never age. The children will willingly swallow but maybe the ladies will be hesitant to consume.
This is the type of food that we call tangyuan (汤圆). They are glutinous rice balls cooked in syrup. Some tanyuan have filling of ground peanuts, black sesame or red bean paste. As for my family, we always have the plain tangyuan. When I was still a kid, my grandpa used to tell me that I should take the same number of glutinous rice balls as my age, with an extra one to symbolise the additional one year of age. However, I didn't see him taking 60+ tangyuan then.
This is the second bowl of 'tangyuan' I had today.
My family likes to cook 'tangyuan' in two colours, white and peach-red.
When I grow older, I like 'tangyuan' more.
These home-cooked 'tangyuan' were very chewy.
There are more white ones than the peach-red ones usually, but when I was a kid, I used to get all the peach-red ones.
No matter whether it is white or peach-red, they are still 'tangyuan'.
3 comments:
today's dong?? poor us, we ended up at a ramen rest. your tangyuan look so yummy, i wish i could have some!
Those were made and cooked by my mum and aunt. :)
Dang! I missed that this year! Oh Man. Must pay a visit to my grandma's house.
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