Chapter 25 Yuanxiao Whispers

Just after the Lunar New Year, it is the Lantern Festival in the blink of an eye. Eating Lantern Festival during the Lantern Festival was quite popular in the Song Dynasty, but it was not called Yuanxiao at that time but was called "Fuyuanzi", and it was changed to Yuanxiao later.Yuanxiao is eaten in most provinces of China, but the way of naming it is different from each other.It is called Yuanxiao in the north, and it is called Tangyuan in some places in the south, and there are also called Tangtuan and Yuanzi.The names of the north and the south are different, and the methods of doing it are also different.Take Beiping as an example, it is an old rule in Beiping not to eat from time to time, and the Lantern Festival will only be sold on the seventh day of the first lunar month when preparations are made for the Eighth Shun Xing offering.As for the cold winter nights, the wind is biting, and they carry the burden to sell sweet-scented osmanthus and Lantern Festival, although it cannot be said that there are no such people, but most of them are in the Xuannan area, contaminated with southern customs, and it is difficult to hear this kind of market noise on winter nights in the northwest city.

Unlike Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hankou, there are shops specializing in Lantern Festivals in Beiping, which also come with snacks for midnight snacks. The Lantern Festivals in Beiping are all temporary stalls set up in front of the shop and sold on the spot.There are several types of stuffing: hawthorn, jujube paste, bean paste, and black and white sesame. First, make the stuffing and freeze it, cut it into big dice, dip the stuffing into the water with a large strainer, and put it in a container Shake in a large sieve of glutinous rice flour, wait until the stuffing is covered with glutinous rice flour, pour it into a strainer, dip it in water and shake again, back and forth three or two times.Different Lantern Festival fillings can be identified by markings such as red dots, plum blossoms, and just characters, and you're done.The advantage of this kind of Lantern Festival is that it does not crack in the mouth when eaten, but the disadvantage is that the filling is coarse and rough, and because of the dry powder, it is still a bit mushy when cooked.

In the south, the Lantern Festival is rolled out first, then filled with stuffing and then wrapped and rolled into rounds. That’s why it’s called Shaking Yuanxiao in the north and Bao Yuanxiao in the south. Southern Lantern Festival not only has delicate and smooth stuffing, but also smooth and finely ground glutinous rice flour, and the northern Lantern Festival is only sweet, while the southern Lantern Festival is sweet and salty, with a full range of vegetables and meat.During the Anti-Japanese War, everyone who has been to the rear probably ate Lai Tangyuan, which is much better than the hand-cranked Lantern Festival at Lanyingzhai and Minmeizhai in Beiping.

Before Xuantong came out of the palace, every Lantern Festival, a kind of jujube paste cream stuffing made by Yushanfang, topped with jade food, was specially processed naturally, with sweet cheese flavor and milk fragrance.It is said that the butter used to make the stuffing is selected as a tribute by the Living Buddha of Tibet or the Mongolian prince, so it is rich and mellow, and stuffed with golden paste, this Lantern Festival is of course a special product. Shanghai Qiaojiazha’s glutinous rice balls are also well-known far and near. His sweet glutinous rice balls are thin, glutinous and sweet, and everyone is arguing about them. Let’s not talk about them; the best of his family is the salty glutinous rice balls. Appropriate, cut and chopped like rice, never greasy.There is a kind of shepherd's purse stuffing, which is even more jasper-melted pulp, which makes people taste sweet and has a flavor of vegetable roots.In addition, there is a kind of Leisha Yuanzi, which is the only one in this family.Later, he opened a branch on Lafayette Road, a small building with three couplets. Zhou Shoujuan and Zheng Yimei named it "Yuanyang Xiaoge".Recently, there are also this kind of glutinous rice balls coming into the market. Regardless of the taste, the atmosphere that was full of wine and amiable like spring, the past is like smoke, and now it is no longer available.

There was also a joke about eating Yuanxiao during the Hongxian period.Min Erchang, one of Yuan Xiangcheng's counselors, was famous for his love of eating Lantern Festival in the Yuan Mufu.One day, Min was talking to several colleagues about the story of eating Yuanxiao in the previous dynasty, and they were very excited. Unexpectedly, Xiang Cheng stepped into the signing room and heard several consecutive "Yuan Xiao", which offended Emperor Yuan. He was taboo, and it happened that the Japanese found him awkward everywhere, and they were feeling unhappy, and wanted to make fun of Min Erchang and take out his anger on him.Fortunately, Yang Yunshi, the internal historian, saw that something was wrong. He turned around and turned around in his rhetoric, so Yuan issued a warrant to change the name of Yuanxiao to Tangyuan.People in Peiping are used to calling it Yuanxiao, but once they changed the name to Tangyuan, they felt that it was not used to it and it was not easy to pronounce.The young owner of Zhengming Zhai on Qianmen Street was busy with the business at the counter during the Lantern Festival, helping the counter to take care of the business, and said "Yuanxiao" by the way, but it happened that the person who bought the Lantern Festival was Lei Zhenchun, a popular man under Yuan Xiangcheng. Lost two hundred Yuanxiao.When Hong Xian passed away, in the second year of the Lantern Festival, at the entrance of Zhengming Zhai, there was a big red and black sign on one side, which said "Our shop's special assorted Lantern Festival" in eight big characters, and the word "Yuanxiao" was written in a particularly large size. I heard that it is the masterpiece of that Shaodong!

There are two friends who love to play tricks the most, Yin Binkui (stage name Xiao Kuiguan) and Zhu Binxian, both of whom are brothers of the Binqing class run by Yu Zhenting.One day, their brothers and sisters happened to meet Xu Shengkui and Quan Shengfu of Fu Liancheng who were also talking about Lantern Festival at a stall on Qianmen Street.Zhu Binxian knew that Xu Shengkui, who was nicknamed "Big Old Black", could eat a lot and had a temper like a grass chicken king. If he acted badly, he would talk to his senior brother.He said: "People say that we northerners eat a lot, but it's not true. Let's take eating Yuanxiao as an example. Although Wang Huchen is a martial artist, he has thin arms and legs. It's hard to see that he eats a lot. I saw him eat four bowls (four pieces in each bowl) of black sesame yuanxiao in Zheng Fuzhai, and also found two hawthorn fillings. There are eighteen yuanxiao in total. Let us two brothers eat it, and we can’t eat it. Get down!" After speaking, he bared his teeth at "Da Lao Hei".When Mao Shilai was hired to perform in Shanghai, Xu Shengkui worked as a backstage manager for him. Xu Shengkui is no stranger to Xiao Wang Huchen.This competition doesn't matter, one bowl vs. one bowl, and five bowls of Yuanxiao will be eaten in a while, eating two more than Wang Huchen.But as soon as I got home, I ran to the hut once in a while, and I was tossing all night.The next day, Pang Xuan in "Rouge Tiger" in the garden had to ask for leave. Later, Mao Shilai secretly told the reporter Wu Zongyou, and the story was spread.

In the last years of Guangxu, Yang Shixiang, the governor of Zhili and Yuan Xiangcheng's confidant, when he was four or five years old, had a year of Lantern Festival, and the whole family reunited to eat Lantern Festival.The child was gluttonous, stagnant, and turned from a minor illness to a serious illness. Later, the treatment was ineffective, and he was tamed until he was dying, so he had to be carried by the nurse to the outer living room.It just so happened that a coal delivery man passed by the living room at this time, and asked what was going on. He said he could take care of it, and don't be upset if he died, so don't laugh.The nurse knew that the child was hopeless, so she let him have a try as a dead horse as a living horse doctor.Coal Heizi asked for a well-growth briquette stove, and took out a large eight-inch needle from his pocket. There was a red pompom on the nose of the needle, and the red color had almost turned black.He took off two old cotton shoes, the soles of which were heated by the fire, rubbed the needle on the soles twice, and then slapped the young master's chest, telling the nurse to pay attention to him as soon as he saw the pompom quivering.After he finished speaking, he sat down on the threshold and began to smoke cigarettes.About a bag of cigarettes later, the pompom suddenly moved, and after a few minutes the pompon kept trembling.He reckoned it was time, so he helped the child half up, slapped the back of the head, and then rubbed it on the chest. The child cried out a mouthful of thick phlegm, woke up immediately, and then relieved All together, Xiaoming has been picked up since then.This is a fact that Yang Shixiang almost died eating Lantern Festival when he was young in the three eastern provinces of Kaifu.

The Yang family is a family of gourmets, and the Yang family also had a famous restaurant in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Later, he came to Yuhuatai as the head of the mansion. According to him, the Yang family is most taboo for people to send Lantern Festival. Every year during the Lantern Festival, the Yang family eats spring rolls. Do not eat Yuanxiao.Later, Yang Yuxun married the third princess of Emperor Yuan, and the couple did not eat Yuanxiao, probably because of their own reasons. Beiping was the capital of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and it emphasized the system in everything, so it has also formed the habit of eating at the right time and not eating from time to time.Flower cakes are not sold until Chongyang, and roasted shabu-shabu is not available until Liqiu. Therefore, when the lights fall on the 18th day of the first lunar month during the Lantern Festival, not only official dim sum shops do not sell Lantern Festival, but there are very few Lantern Festival stalls on the street.If you want to eat Yuanxiao as soon as you enter the February Gate, then you have to meet next year.Although there are no Lantern Festivals sold in Peking after the first lunar month, there are exceptions.There is a nunnery called Sansheng Nunnery in Deshengmen. The vegetarian food in the nunnery is fresh and refreshing, which is praised by everyone. Especially when they come to the nunnery in the first two months to offer incense and rejoice, they will offer a bowl of assorted dumplings to entertain the benefactor.It's called 粢团, and it's actually Lantern Festival with assorted vegetarian stuffing. When you eat it, the lotus root is fragrant and fragrant, and it tastes like pepper when dipped in it. Compared with ordinary sweet and salty Lantern Festival, it has a different taste.The wife of Wu Ziyu, who lived in Zhongzhou during the Eight-Four Wind and Rain Meeting, was the great benefactor of Sansheng Nunnery. As long as she visited Wu Yushuai's mansion in Shijin Garden to pay New Year's greetings in the first lunar month, and talked with Yushuai twice, the assorted Lantern Festival from Sansheng Nunnery would probably be brought out. It's time for guests.I have been in Taiwan for 20 or 30 years. Every year around the Lantern Festival, there are Lantern Festival sellers everywhere in the streets and alleys.