the Lantern Festival

Eating Yuanxiao is a traditional festival custom in ancient China, which means reunion and peace.

Most of them are eaten during the Lantern Festival, and some of them are eaten as snacks. There are many kinds of fillings in general, among which black sesame stuffing is the most common. In addition to the general kind, there are all kinds of glutinous rice balls.

Eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month, as a kind of food, has a long history in China. In the Song Dynasty, a novel food became popular in Mingzhou (now Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province). This kind of food was originally called "Floating Zi Yuan", later called "Yuanxiao", and merchants also called it "Yuanbao". Yuanxiao is filled with white sugar, rose, sesame, red bean paste, osmanthus fragrans, walnut kernel, nuts and jujube paste, and wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a round shape, which can be both meat and vegetarian with different flavors. It can be boiled, fried and steamed, which means happy reunion. Jiaozi, Shaanxi is not wrapped, but "rolled" in glutinous rice flour, or boiled or fried, warm and round.