A nation totally wrapped
Jiaozi is a dumpling and is undoubtedly one of the best-loved Chinese foods for locals and expats alike. It is made with a flat dough wrapping and is stuffed with meat and vegetable and boiled or steamed.
Eating jiaozi on the Spring Festival Eve is a long tradition. Lu Zhongqiu |
Jiaozi is usually made by the whole family on Spring Festival Eve and eaten at midnight to mark the coming of the Chinese New Year. It has also become a daily staple, and is made into frozen food and sold at supermarkets.
While the dumpling is called jiaozi in North China, in South China people more often eat hundun, a similar food, which is a little different in shape and stuffing.
The first written record of jiaozi is in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was said the imperial family ate dumplings shaped like a camel's hump and stuffed with crabmeat. This makes the Chinese dumpling is at least over 1,000 years old.
There are different stories about the origin of the food. One says it was invented to mark the coming of New Year. That is because the Chinese used to call the midnight of the New Year's Eve jiaozi, which means "shift of two years at midnight," because jiao means "altering" and zi means "midnight time" in Chinese.
Another story goes that jiaozi got its name from its special shape, which looks like part of a horn. Others say it was first made as a medicine to cure frostbitten ears during the Spring Festival, and was distributed by Zhang Zhongjing, a doctor in Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) to the poor people of the time.
Nowadays, jiaozi is made with numerous different stuffings, such as pork with cabbage, egg with leek, and pork with fennel.
(China Daily 02/15/2007 page19)
