Do you have these New Year food customs at home?

New Year's Day by Wang Anshi (Song Dynasty)

The year ends with the sound of firecrackers, and the spring breeze brings warmth to the wine.

On New Year's Day, every household replaces the old charms with new ones.

The moment of welcoming the New Year always brings joy to people. When it comes to describing the scenes of folk New Year celebrations, we have to mention the poem "New Year's Day" by Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty. The poem describes the happy and joyful New Year's Day with all things renewed. Every household sets off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits, and drinks Tusu wine in the warm spring breeze.

In the land of Jingchu, many festivals and food customs have been closely related to plants since ancient times. It is recorded in the "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji": "On the New Year's Day, the elders and the younger ones all dress properly, greet each other in order, offer pepper and cypress wine, and drink peach soup. They also offer Tusu wine, Jiaoya Tang (xing), and a plate of five pungent vegetables. They also offer Fuyu powder and Jiaoquegui pills. Each person offers a chicken. A peach board is made and hung on the door, which is called the fairy tree. They must drink wine in order, starting from the youngest."

Come and see if your family has any of these plant-related New Year food customs.

Ming Dynasty, Li Shida painted "New Year's Day Village Celebration Picture" scroll painting depicts a water village in the mountains, pine houses and willow streams, village people, elders visiting friends and feasting, children setting off firecrackers, beating gongs and drums, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, celebrating the festival, Image source: Palace Museum

01

Good pepper, rich in fruits

Sichuan peppercorn

In ancient times, there was a custom of drinking pepper and cypress wine during the Little New Year. In the Han Dynasty, drinking pepper and cypress wine on the first day of the first lunar month became more popular.

According to the Eastern Han Dynasty's "Monthly Orders for the Four People", on the first day of the La Festival, the younger generation would congratulate their elders and parents in order of age and drink pepper and cypress wine. The Chinese character "椒" originally refers to Zanthoxylum bungeanum, a member of the genus Zanthoxylum of the Rutaceae family, which is the earliest spicy spice plant in China.

Sichuan pepper, image source: cnseed.org & MDPI

The earliest written record of Sichuan pepper is in the Book of Songs, where it is described as "There is pepper with its fragrance, and it is soothing to the thirst." In the Jin Dynasty, Cheng Gongsui's "Pepper Flower Inscription" says: "It begins at the beginning of the year, on the first day of the first month. Its taste is precious, and it can cure all diseases."

The ancients believed that the aroma of Sichuan peppercorns could calm people’s minds, so they picked them and soaked them in wine and offered them to the elders. Sichuan peppercorns bear a lot of fruit, and the Book of Songs also has a line that says “the fruit of Sichuan peppercorns multiplies and rises”, implying a prosperous future and many children and grandchildren.

In the painting “New Year’s Day” by Yuan Shangtong in the Ming Dynasty, there is a scene of three elders drinking pepper and cypress wine at the same table and watching children playing. Image source: The Palace Museum

02

The pine wind in the forest, the cypress fragrance by the stove

Platycladus orientalis

Another flavor in pepper and cypress wine is the branches and leaves of Platycladus orientalis, a genus of the Cupressaceae family.

Details of the branches (top), twigs with scale leaves (middle) and seeds (bottom) of Platycladus orientalis, Image source: i-flora.com

The aroma of Platycladus orientalis mainly comes from volatile oils such as thujene, thujone, fenchone, α-pinene and caryophyllene in its leaves and seeds. Although the cypress incense made from Platycladus orientalis seeds is not a precious incense, it is one of the most popular incense products from ancient times to the present. In ancient times, scholars and scholars liked to burn cypress incense. Su Shi once wrote "burning cypress seeds in a copper furnace and boiling yam in a stone tripod" when he was ill.

According to the Donghu County Annals of Yichang during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, on New Year's Eve, "sticking pine and cypress branches on the door lintel" was called "Nian Bao". Now "Nian Bao" is rarely seen. As a unique auspicious item of the Spring Festival in Yichang, "Nian Bao" is usually wrapped with red paper and hung in the middle of the main hall to express the good luck of the new year and all things going well. The Anlu County Annals during the Daoguang period recorded that "a bundle of cypress branches was hung on the eaves of the door, which was also a relic of the reed ropes hung on the door".

The custom of decorating doors with pine and cypress is rarely seen in big cities in my country. In Shandong, Luoyang and Anyang in Henan, and rural areas in southern Shanxi, it is still common to hang cypress branches in front of doors every New Year. Villagers still go up the mountain to cut cypress branches, then organize them, tie them into two neat small bunches and insert or hang them on both sides of the door. This custom has also spread to Japan and is still a major landscape for embellishing the New Year.

03

The year ends with the sound of firecrackers, and the spring breeze brings warmth to Tusu

Tusu wine

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, people began to drink Tu Su wine, an upgraded version of Jiao Bai wine, on the first day of the first lunar month, so Tu Su wine is also known as Sui wine.

Tusu is a kind of house in ancient times. Because the wine is brewed in this kind of house, it is called Tusu wine. It is said that Hua Tuo, a famous doctor in the late Han Dynasty, soaked rhubarb, white atractylodes, cinnamon twig, saposhnikovia, prickly ash, aconite, aconite and other Chinese medicines in wine, and then it was praised by Sun Simiao, Zhang Zhongjing, Li Shizhen and others.

In ancient times, every New Year's Day, people would drink a bowl of Tusu wine together, which was full of people's expectations for good health in the new year. Although this custom is no longer popular on a large scale today, drinking Tusu wine on New Year's Day is still a folk custom in some areas.

Tusu wine, image source: Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine

04

Every family is filled with the sound of pepper wine, every household is filled with peach charms

Peach Soup

Records of peach soup can be found as early as the Han Dynasty. Peach soup is slightly bitter and is made from branches of the peach (Prunus persica) tree of the Rosaceae family. Ancient people believed that peach was the essence of the five elements and could repel evil spirits, so there was a tradition of drinking peach soup on New Year's Day to drive away evil spirits.

In traditional Chinese folk customs, peach blossoms are regarded as a symbol of good fortune and luck. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and the Zhujiang Delta, it is said that "a peach tree fills the courtyard with spring". Forced peach blossoms are an important commodity flower in the flower market before the Spring Festival, with 700,000 to 800,000 cut flowers on the market every year. In recent years, the consumption of forced peach blossoms during the Spring Festival has begun to develop from Guangdong and Guangxi to other economically developed regions. Peach blossoms can also be seen in botanical gardens in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan during the New Year.

Wuhan Botanical Garden's New Year's Eve peach blossoms, photo source: Yuelang

05

After the New Year, we serve blue wine, and first we serve glutinous rice cakes in the Spring Festival

malt

Jiaoyatang (xíng), also known as Yuanbaotang or Duopintang, is a candy made from malt. It is made from malt and barley sprouts. It is soft, sticky, glutinous and sweet. Eating Jiaoyatang is a good wish for longevity. When a person has strong teeth and can eat and drink, his body will naturally be healthy.

Nowadays, every family in old Mianyang (now Xiantao City, Hubei Province) makes maltose - hemp leaves during the New Year. When the twelfth lunar month comes, each household begins the preliminary preparations for making hemp leaves. On the one hand, they wash, keep warm, and germinate the barley at home. On the other hand, they steam the glutinous rice until it becomes hard grains and then fry it into fried rice. Then they put the ground rice paste (rice and malt) into a pot and boil it. The main ingredients are selected glutinous rice, sesame seeds, and maltose, and mixed with osmanthus, tangerine cakes and other ingredients.

Wheat ears and wheat, copyrighted images from the gallery, unauthorized reproduction

06

Several houses are brightly lit, and people are still competing to cook the five-spice dishes

Spicy dishes

Since the Han Dynasty, people have had the tradition of eating five pungent dishes during the New Year. And because "xin" (xin) is homophonic with the word "xin" (new), it is also a symbol of New Year's blessings and is very popular among the people.

The Records of Sui Shi in Jingchu states: "On the first day of the first lunar month, a dish of five pungent vegetables is served." Zhou Chu's Records of Customs and Local Customs states: "On the first day of the first lunar month, a dish of five pungent vegetables is prepared, and on the first day of the first lunar month, five kinds of pungent vegetables are used to refine the body." The reason why the five pungent vegetables can stimulate the qi of the five internal organs is that the five pungent vegetables, leek, shallot, onion, rapeseed and coriander, can be used to refine the body.

The Five Spicy Vegetable Plate is also known as the Spring Plate. "Compendium of Materia Medica" says: "The Five Spicy Vegetables are eaten on New Year's Day and the Beginning of Spring with a mixture of tender and spicy vegetables such as onion, garlic, leek, artemisia, and mustard to welcome the new year." This custom has been passed down to this day and has evolved in many ways.

Leek (Allium tuberosum), scallion (Allium chinense), onion (Allium fistulosum) or garlic (Allium sativum), Brassica campestris var. campestris and coriander (Coriandrum sativum) make up the five spicy dishes. Image source: China National Geographic

These Chu Spring Festival customs may gradually disappear in the passing of time, but the fragrance of plants gives the Spring Festival a different flavor and is deeply rooted in the memory of generations. Perhaps these plants themselves may not be delicacies, but the scene of eating a dish of five pungent vegetables and drinking Tusu with relatives is the most beautiful and most worth cherishing. This is the significance of the continuation and inheritance of these traditions.

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Author: Yuelang, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Producer: Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences