Why do we make dumplings on New Year's Eve? <Forwarded>

In the North, people do not eat dumplings on New Year's Eve, as they feel it lacks the festive atmosphere. Just like modern Chinese people, most of them insist on watching the Spring Festival Gala. There is a saying: 'Eating dumplings on New Year's Eve—no outsiders.' It signifies intimacy and closeness. It is evident that dumplings used to be an essential item for every household to celebrate reunion on New Year's Eve.\Why do people make dumplings on New Year's Eve? Northerners like to eat boiled dumplings prepared by hand. In ancient times, making dumplings during holidays was a joyous activity for ordinary families. This shows the skillfulness of Northerners when it comes to making dough-based foods. Practice makes perfect; this is because Northerners love eating and frequently make dough foods (especially dumplings).\Regarding dumplings, there is a famous saying among Northerners: 'Nothing tastes better than dumplings.' It somewhat implies that they are considered the best in the world. At least in the North, no one disagrees with this statement; it is almost acknowledged as a universal truth. In fact, people in the South also love dumplings, but they are not very skilled at making them. Even if they make them, their technique is clumsy and the shapes crude. In comparison, Northerners can be considered sculptors. Therefore, Southerners often have to go to restaurants to find good dumplings. Restaurants selling boiled dumplings even advertise 'Northern Dumplings' to signify authenticity. Dumplings are becoming almost a Northern specialty.\Even a girl from Suzhou, who can embroider intricate flowers and birds on silk, may not necessarily make good dumplings. However, Northerners can pinch dumplings together perfectly, shaped elegantly, and firm, as if ironed. An important aspect is their shape, which resembles the ancient 'hard currency' ingots; eating dumplings is almost ritualistic, symbolically 'bringing in wealth and treasures.' Additionally, through the pun of the word 'dumpling,' it symbolizes the transition from the old year to the new, marking the change of time.\Chinese people believe dumplings can bring wealth and good luck. If this is considered superstition, it is a beautiful and positive one. Life has its sweet and bitter moments; one should have some spiritual comfort, and if it also brings culinary enjoyment, it is not necessarily a bad thing. People even introduce the practice of drawing lots into food. When making dumplings, small lucky charms like coins, silver, gemstones, or pearls are hidden in the filling to predict one's fortune. Eating dumplings is as thrilling as playing a lottery. Who will get the big prize? This adds a touch of romantic expectation to ordinary food, which is the best condiment.\During the Qing Dynasty and even in the Republic era, boiled dumplings were also called 'boiled buns.' 'As summer leaves and autumn passes, during the New Year festival, one must offer to the mother-in-law, quickly making boiled buns.'Thin wrappers, lots of filling—mothers-in-law eat with a smile, daughters-in-law spend the money on the fodder." This is a folk song included in Li Guangting's Qing dynasty book "Xiangyan Jieyi." It seems making dumplings helps harmonize mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships. A smile! \There's also a northern proverb: "Eat dumplings on New Year's Eve, no outsiders around." This shows intimacy and closeness. This shows that dumplings are an essential item for every household to celebrate reunion on New Year's Eve. My friend Yisha wrote a "cool review" about the CCTV Spring Festival Gala: "How to Cook This Pot of Dumplings." He likened the old Spring Festival Gala to a pot of "cultural dumplings"; whether something is innovative depends on the filling used.
On New Year's Eve, northerners don't eat dumplings, feeling the festive atmosphere is lacking. Just like Chinese people today—if you don't watch the Spring Festival Gala, you must feel empty.
In this slower-paced era, the whole family gathered around the table making dumplings, chatting about this and that—a very interesting collective activity. Making dumplings seems even more satisfying than eating. Especially during the Spring Festival, when all family members are present, the atmosphere is harmonious and joyful; If anyone is absent, it makes everyone feel the sadness and longing of 'one less person stuck in cornelian cherry.' Brothers and sisters, before the New Year's bell rings, you must rush home to eat a bowl of dumplings. This custom is very warm-hearted. If you can follow it, you must do it. Not only commoners, but even Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty regarded making dumplings on New Year's Eve as an indispensable ritual. Ye Heyan Li · Yimin once wrote 'Celebrating New Year's in the Late Qing Palace,' recalling the past dynasty. "On New Year's Eve, as the hour of midnight was about to pass, the Empress Dowager ordered everyone to gather in the hall. After arranging long tables, the imperial kitchen would bring all the prepared vegetarian dishes to the table. Everyone would work together to make the filling, making it a bun. Some were chopped, some chopped, and the hall erupted in a chaotic clatter. After chopping, everything was handed over to the Empress Dowager, who mixed the fillings with the Empress, consorts, and the Grand Princess. The seasoning was decided by the Empress Dowager. By dawn, the dumplings were all wrapped. The Empress Dowager ordered everyone to return to changing clothes and rearrange their hair. Before long, everyone returned to the hall. The Empress Dowager sat at the table, while the Empress and others stood beside it. The Empress Dowager ordered palace maids to bring out the cooked buns. She said: This is the beginning of the New Year, the new moon, the new day, and the beginning of the new season. We must not forget this day last year. Today, we can eat a bowl of peaceful rice, which is the blessing of the gods and Buddhas, the protection of our ancestors. After speaking, she ordered everyone to eat. Everyone kowtowed to the Empress Dowager in gratitude.After finishing the steamed bun, the day finally brightened.”\When Empress Dowager Cixi ate dumplings, she was indeed quite devout: thanking heaven, thanking the earth, thanking the ancestors. She probably could not have imagined that the Qing Empire, this ‘dumpling' that had been wrapped for over two hundred years, was strapped for resources and would soon ‘leak its filling.' Once the ‘filling leaks,' it could no longer be remedied. The kitchen in the Qing Palace was called the Imperial Kitchen. The empress dowagers, empresses, and imperial concubines each had their own small kitchens, also known as private kitchens. For example, Cixi's private kitchen was called the Western Kitchen.\“Many highly skilled cooks were selected for service, with regulations even stricter than those of the Imperial Kitchen. When Cixi dined, there were hundreds of young eunuchs just holding the food boxes, which gives a sense of the extravagance of the time. To cater to Cixi's tastes, the cooks of the Western Kitchen would spare no effort in making a variety of exquisite dishes. According to records, they could produce over four hundred types of dim sum and more than four thousand dishes, truly numerous and comprehensive. When Cixi was pleased with a dish, she would often give it a name.” (Quoted from Lü Yingfan, *Notes on Anecdotes of Qing Dynasty Food and Drink*) A single meal of Cixi's was ceremonial, like a military review, enough for the eunuchs (the honor guard?) to practice for a while.\Empress Dowager Cixi, who spent money like water, pushed the Qing Palace's ‘food culture' to the extreme. She liked to watch performances while eating. In places like Changchun Palace, Ningshou Palace, and the Summer Palace, stages were set up specifically for her, totaling seven or eight. Besides the Western Kitchen, the palace had troupes performing exclusively for the old empress dowager—a full-service arrangement.\In the tenth year of Emperor Guangxu's reign (1884), Cixi's fiftieth birthday was celebrated with meals at Tihe Hall, where daily dishes exceeded a hundred types. “Staple foods numbered fifty to sixty, teas and snacks twenty to thirty, and more than 120 dishes in total. Daily consumption included five hundred jin of pork and mutton and over a hundred chickens and ducks. One day's food cost sixty taels of silver. The kitchen alone used four hundred and fifty people for cooking, making tea, and delivering meals, and 180 eunuchs and palace maids served her every day.” (Zhang Yanan) Truly, she was treated like an ancestor.\In modern society, food culture has become much richer. Even northerners no longer eat dumplings frequently, and even if they do, they are not necessarily handmade. Supermarkets sell bagged frozen dumplings, which can be stored in the refrigerator and eaten whenever desired. Most frozen dumplings are machine-made. Dumplings made by machines? Ancient people could never have imagined that. They could not imagine that making dumplings could become industrialized.\In the north, it has been a long time since I've eaten handmade dumplings.To be honest, I have a slight aversion to frozen dumplings. Regardless of whether refrigeration diminishes the dumplings' original freshness and flavor, just imagining those dumplings sealed in a plastic bag, surprisingly produced on a factory assembly line as mass-produced machine products, makes them seem to lack a bit of human touch. Perhaps I am not the only one with this prejudice. In the North, some dumpling restaurants even make a point of noting that they serve 'handmade dumplings' to attract customers. It seems that handmade dumplings are indeed more appealing than 'machine-made dumplings' (a colloquial term). The subtle difference between the two, even if not in taste, exists in the psychological perception. Because, subconsciously, diners still believe dumplings should be handmade. Handmade dumplings are the most classic. Machine-made dumplings, however, are somewhat modern. \ Making dumplings requires not only time but also the right mood. Rolling the dough, preparing the filling, and finally wrapping them before boiling—that's a sequence of steps that is not overly complicated, yet not simple either. In the past, the whole family would gather, joyfully making dumplings together, like a collective task, or rather, like a ritual. The pleasure of eating dumplings is partially anticipated during the process of making them. Perhaps it inherently includes this portion. \ Dumplings made by hand, whether by oneself or by family, taste uniquely wonderful; this experience is rich with meaning. Nowadays, we can eat machine-made dumplings anytime. They not only reduce our labor but also lessen many interactions between people and the enjoyment that comes from them. The status of dumplings has been lowered: reduced to merely a food to fill one's stomach. This is my prejudice: machine-made dumplings are very pale. Pale dumplings. Pale life.