On the second day of the second lunar month, the dragon looks up. Celebrity Dong Liu's "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" said: "On February 2, the dragon looked up and fried the leftover cakes of the New Year, smoked kang and smoked insects; If you attract a dragon, the bug won't come out. "As the saying goes,' If the dragon doesn't look up, it won't rain'. "The dragon is auspicious and the master of wind and rain." Spring rain is as expensive as oil. "People pray for the dragon to raise its head to make rain and nourish everything. At the same time, February 2 is just before and after the fright, all kinds of insects are ready to move, which is prone to diseases. People pray that the dragon will look up and stop poisonous insects.
"On February 2nd, the dragon looks up" is an old proverb. According to the orbits of the sun, the moon and the five stars, ancient astronomers in China divided the sky into 28 days, that is, the zodiac, to show the movements and positions of the sun, the moon and the five stars. 28 days can be divided into four regions (four elephants or four gods) and the Black Dragon in the East (including the horn, sound, mutual, room, heart, tail and dustpan for seven nights). Western White Tigers (including Wei Xiao, Lou, Wei, Chang, Bi, Gou and Shen); South Suzaku (including well, ghost, willow, star, Zhang, wing and seven nights); North Xuanwu (including seven nights fighting, cows, women, air, danger, houses and walls). Among them,' horn lodge' is the dragon horn. On the second day of February, the dragon horn star rises on the eastern horizon, so it is called the dragon's head. Folklore also says that the Dragon God will wake up from his sleep on this day, so people will burn incense at that time and pray for good weather and good harvests in the coming year. This day is also called.
According to folklore, every second day of the second lunar month is the day when the Dragon King, who is in charge of heavenly sexuality, looks up. After that, the rain will gradually increase. Therefore, this day is called the Spring Festival. There is a saying in northern China: "On February 2, the dragon looked up; Big warehouse is full and small warehouses are flowing. "Folk proverbs.
Whenever the Spring Festival comes, in most parts of northern China, every family carries lanterns to fetch water from wells or rivers in the morning, and when they get home, they light a fire, burn incense and offer offerings. In ancient times, people called this ceremony "attracting dragons". On this day, every household will eat noodles, fried cakes and popcorn, and compare "picking the dragon's head", "eating gentian", "golden beans blossom, the dragon king ascends to heaven, the clouds and rain rise, and the grains are abundant" to show good luck.
The origin of the Spring Festival, there is such a fairy tale among the people in northern China. Wu Zetian became emperor, which annoyed the Jade Emperor and told the Four Seas Dragon King not to rain on earth for three years. Soon, the Dragon King, who was in charge of Tianhe, listened to the cries of the people, watched the people starve to death, and worried that human life would be cut off, so he went against the jade emperor's will and sent rain for the sky.
When the Jade Emperor learned that the Dragon King had been sent down to the mortal world, he was put under a big mountain to suffer, and a monument was erected on the mountain: The Dragon King's rain violated the laws of heaven and should be punished for future generations; If you want to go back to Lingxiao Pavilion, unless the golden beans bloom.
In order to save the Dragon King, people searched everywhere for golden beans in full bloom. On the second day of February of the following year, when people were drying corn seeds, they thought the corn looked like golden beans. It blooms when it's fried. Isn't it golden beans? Every household popped popcorn and put a case in the yard to burn incense for the "golden beans" that have already blossomed.
The Dragon King looked up and knew that people had saved him. He shouted to the jade emperor, "The golden beans are blooming, let me out quickly!" ; As soon as the Jade Emperor saw that the golden beans in the yard of every household in the world were in full bloom, he would send a message to the Dragon King, asking him to return to heaven and continue to give sex to the world.
Since then, people have formed a habit. On the second day of February, people eat popcorn.
In fact, after February of the lunar calendar, the "rain" solar term will come, the phenomenon of little rain in winter will end, and the rainfall will gradually increase, which is originally the characteristic of the monsoon climate in North China.
spring pancake
Spring pancake is a kind of folk food in Beijing, a kind of thin baked flour cake, also called pancake. Every year in beginning of spring, Beijingers eat spring cakes, which is called "biting spring".
The second day of the second lunar month is the day when dragons look up ("On February 2nd, dragons look up"). There is an old saying in China. On this day, Beijingers also want to eat spring cakes, which is called "eating Longlin".
Spring cakes are bigger than roast duck pancakes, and they are tough (Beijingers call them "strong gluten") because they have to roll a lot of dishes before they can be eaten. In the past, when eating spring cakes, we paid attention to going to a box restaurant called "Pan Su" (also called box lunch). Box hotel is a sauce meat shop, and the store sends people to deliver food to your door.
There are smoked pot belly, pine nut pot belly, oven meat (a kind of roast pork), sauce meat, smoked elbow, sauce elbow, sauce mouth strip, smoked chicken, sauce duck and so on in the box. Be put in a picture frame. When eating, you should change the knife and cut it into filaments, such as several home-cooked dishes (generally fried pork with leeks, fried pork with spinach, vinegar with mung bean sprouts, fried noodles with vegetarian ingredients, and spread eggs). ) Here we go. Seasonings include shredded onion and sesame oil yellow sauce (roast duck with sweet noodle sauce).
When eating spring cakes, the family sits around and puts the baked spring cakes in a steamer, taking them with them while eating, in order to have a hot meal. If you eat spring cakes on February 2, Beijingers also pay attention to taking married girls home.
Rolling donkeys, Beijing snacks
A kind of bean flour cake, Beijing Muslim snack. Knead steamed yellow rice (or glutinous rice) into a ball, sprinkle with fried soybeans, add red bean stuffing, roll into strips, sprinkle with sesame seeds, osmanthus fragrans and sugar. Because the food stalls in the Qing Dynasty are now sold here and there, the system is used to spread bean noodles, just like the donkeys in the country rolling on the spot and spreading loess, so it has got the name of humor.
According to the custom of old Beijing, people always like to buy "snowballing usury" to taste in February of the lunar calendar, so there are many vendors and pushers who manage this kind of food, among which the white food stall in Tianqiao market and the "rice cake tiger" (tiger takes the blessing) are the most famous.