Today is December 23, the year of the Republic of China. It is a small year in most areas of the north. As the old saying goes, "23, sugar cucumber is sticky, and master of kitchen god will go to heaven." According to the folklore, on the 23rd of the 12th lunar month, the kitchen god would report the good and evil of the family to the Jade Emperor and let him reward and punish them. Therefore, when delivering the stove, people offered the kitchen candy and other tributes to the kitchen god on the table in front of the kitchen god 's statue. It not only asked the kitchen god to report the time to the Jade Emperor, but also asked him to stick the sugar on the kitchen god 's mouth so that he could not say more about his mistakes.

Sugar cucumber is a kind of cooking sugar. The main raw material of the sugar cucumber is maltose, which is also blended with some yellow rice and boiled. If it is stretched to grow, it is called "Guandong sugar"; if it is rubbed into a flat and round shape, it is called " sugar cucumber ". There are two kinds of sugar cucumbers: sesame and non-sesame. They are made into melon shape or northern melon shape with sugar. The center is empty and the skin is less than five points thick. In winter, you can put the melon outside the house. Because of the cold weather, the sweet melon is very solid, but there are some tiny bubbles in it. It tastes cool, sweet and crisp, and has a unique flavor.

In ancient times, the sugar gourd was called "gum tusk". It can be seen that viscosity is one of its major characteristics. For example, the special food sticky cake in Shandong Province is related to this feature. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, every household in Shandong Province steamed sticky cake to eat sticky cake. There are folk ballads of "23, sticky cakes". Sticky cakes also take the auspicious meaning of "annual high".

In addition, there are also many special cuisines of a lunar year in many places, which are endowed with very good moral meanings: Like in Guiping, Xuanwu and other places in Guangxi, there is a custom of making rice cakes in a small year, indicating "reunion and reunion"; In Fuzhou, sugarcane is the necessary food for cooking, which means " Steadily high"; In Nanning, people have the custom of eating "Year Zong" in a lunar year, " Year Zong Year Zong, Every year get high school ", to make a good start for the new year.

Source: guangming.com

Time: January 17, 2020