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Chinese Dumplings

Chinese dumpling is a traditional Chinese Food, which is essential during holidays in China. Chinese dumpling becomes one of the most widely loved foods in China.
Chinese dumpling is one of the most important foods in Spring Festvial. Since the shape of Chinese dumplings is similar to ancient Chinese gold or silver ingots, they symbolize wealth. Traditionally, the members of a family get together to make dumplings during the New Year’s Eve. They may hide a coin in one of the dumplings. The person who finds the coin will likely have a good fortune in the New Year. Chinese dumpling is also popular in other Chinese holidays or festivals, so it is part of the Chinese culture or tradition.

5c4d_20070126185448 Chinese Dumplings

Chinese dumpling is a delicious food. You can make a variety of Chinese dumplings using different fillings based on your taste and how various ingredients mixed together by you.
Making dumplings is really teamwork. Usually all family members will join the work. Some people started to make dumplings when they were kids in the family, so most Chinese know how to make dumplings.

53c2_20070120200610 Chinese Dumplings

Dumplings dates back many centuries. It originated in the Yellow River valley where wheat was grown. During the Spring and Autumn Period, about 2,500 years ago, people already knew how to grind wheat into flour, make wheaten food with stuffing and steam it in bronze pots.
During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), a kind of food called jiaozi(dumplings) already existed. In Jin Ping Mei, a famous erotic novel from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Yue Leng, in chapter 80, asks Xue E to prepare jiaozi(dumplings).
The earliest Dumplings  known was made more than 1,300 years ago and was found in a tomb of the Tang Dynasty unearthed in Turpan, Xinjiang in the 1970s. The semicircular  dumplings was about five centimeters long. The wrappers were made of flour and the stuffing was made of vegetables. It was almost the same as the jiaozi of today.

7f59_20070124121028 Chinese Dumplings

As a carrier of culture, dumpling is typical of traditional Chinese cuisine culture. It is different from Western food. A hamburger is sandwiched with beef or an egg. It can be seen clearly from the outside. But dumpling is quite different. You can’t know its stuffing from the outside. You can only find out when you eat it. It is identical to the spirit of traditional Chinese culture, especially the reserved and moderate character fostered by Confucianism.
Dumpling is probably not the representative of delicious Chinese food, but the psychological enjoyment is just as important, if not more so. This aspect cannot be displaced by any other food. dumpling has been with the Chinese people over so many auspicious occasions and it has become the most representative example of Chinese cuisine.

6d89_20070123223324 Chinese Dumplings

The history of dumplings dates back to ancient times. But the custom of making dumplings a special dish during the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, started in the Ming Dynasty, some 500 to 600 years ago. The reason is simple. The appearance of dumplings looks like the V-shape (some say half-moon shaped)gold or silver ingot used as money in ancient China. As the Spring Festival marks the start of a new year, people choose to eat jdumplings to connote their wishes for good fortune in the new year. Although time has changed, the tradition has remained. But today,dumplings is considered more as a sign of blessing than of fortune.

283f_20070120191700 Chinese Dumplings

“There is nothing better than dumplings,” as the Chinese saying goes. For eating dumplings, there is no better time than Spring Festival. Dumplings are a boiled, moon-shaped dumpling. Traditionally, they are prepared on the eve of the lunar New Year and eaten before midnight.They are eaten during the moment when the old year ends and the new year begins. Dumplings are eaten at that precise time called ”dumplings of the changing year.” They are stuffed with pork or mutton and garlic and spice-flavored vegetables.

d9c8_20070120203354 Chinese Dumplings
(litte lock like dumplings)

f4de_20070120203550 Chinese Dumplings
(clam like dumplings )

72af_20070120203448 Chinese Dumplings
(ripple like dumplings)

2d67_20070120203625 Chinese Dumplings
(sun like dumplings)

04e8_20070120203718 Chinese Dumplings
(four happines dumplings)

c337_20070120203752 Chinese Dumplings
(fish like dumplings)

92aa_20070120204023 Chinese Dumplings
(triangle dumplings)

bc87_20070120205616 Chinese Dumplings
(moon like dumpling)

6801_20070120205729 Chinese Dumplings
(purse like dumplings)

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