Eating jiaozi in the winter of solstice originated from doctor Zhang Zhongjing. When he saw people's ears were frozen in the cold, he used bread to drive away the cold and cooked it into Joule soup to cure people's ears.
Winter solstice is the first of the 24 solar terms, which is called "sub-year". During the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, the day before winter ended the year. In ancient times, the winter solstice was a very important festival. It is said that the winter solstice was as big as a year. The imperial court and the people have always attached great importance to it, and there have been sacrificial activities since the Zhou Dynasty.
On the solstice after winter, the weather is mainly cold, so people often keep warm and nourish yang to resist cold evil. Jiaozi is a delicious food with comprehensive nutrition and easy digestion and absorption. You can stuff mutton, cabbage, green onions, leeks and radishes. These dishes are warm and have a certain warming effect on the human body.
The solstice in winter is a good time for health preservation, mainly because "Qi starts from the solstice in winter". Because from beginning of winter, life activities began to turn from decline to prosperity, from static rotation. At this time, scientific health preservation helps to ensure vigorous energy and prevent premature aging, thus achieving the purpose of prolonging life. During the winter solstice, the diet should be diversified, grains, fruits, meat and vegetables should be reasonably matched, and foods with high calcium should be selected appropriately.
The ancients celebrated the winter solstice. Although many people don't think it is a festival today, in any case, the winter festival is one of the "eight major festivals of the year", and foodies still won't let go of this festival with various winter solstice specialties, such as jiaozi in the north, Chaoshan glutinous rice balls, Asako in the southeast, Yuan Lei in Taizhou, Hefei pumpkin pie, Ningbo sweet potato soup, Tengzhou mutton soup, Jiangnan rice, Suzhou wine making and so on.