Winter Solstice and 饺子

In China, winter solstice, is a sign that Spring Festival and Chinese New Year (around mid January this year) are just around the corner. In order to manifest a healthy and bountiful year, families make 饺子 (jiaozi, aka dumplings) together and eat it on this day. I had the absolute pleasure of spending this day with my friend Michelle and her parents, who patiently taught me how to make a vegetarian version of this traditional meal. 

I always joke that Chinese people think everything comes from China. From porcelain (ok, they can have that one) to pizza and soccer (hmmmm) there is no doubt that Chinese people think they live at the centre of the world. Furthermore, every family thinks that their version of whatever is being done (playing mahjiang by their family rules) or made (any meal at all) is the best version and no other families in the area know how to do it as well as them.

In the case of Michelle's family, they are from Northern China, and 饺子 is a traditional Norther Chinese dish. Thus, Michelle's parents were not shy in touting that their 饺子 was much better than any other 饺子 in Wuhan. Furthermore, no one in Wuhan even really knows how to make real 饺子. Therefore, I was learning from real pros!

Roll up your sleeves and wash your hands.
It all starts with filling and dough. Chinese dumplings to me are almost exactly like perogies. When I began to tell them that Perogies are common in Canada and come from Northern Europe, I was quickly silenced with a comment about how they come from China.
Ha ha ha. I love Chinese pride!

The filling is usually a combination of green onion and pork. But in my case, we added green onion, cooked egg, and a bit of shrimp. The dough is made of rice flour and water and a bit of baking powder. Michelle's dad, whom I call 'baba' (chinese for dad) kneeded the dough to perfection while I sat wide eyed and regressed back to being a 7 year old.



准备好了啊！ Let the games begin.....


First you take the dough and roll it into long cylinders about 1.5cm in diameter.

Then you cut each cylinder into 1cm pieces. BUT you HAVE to turn the cylinder 90 degrees with every cut. There are many essential small details that must be followed.... this is about the part where I begin to fail. I missed the class on details in grade school.

You then take each little 1cmX1.5cm cylinder and sprinkle a bit of flour on them and stir them around. This step is crucial, of course. Then you squish each piece down.
At this point, baba took over. I must not have impressed him thus far with my skills. So he showed me how to properly roll each piece out. It is a long and arduous ordeal and I will not explain it here. I think if you just roll them out like you would roll out pie crust you'd be alright. Baba would ardently disagree.
The meticulous way in which this entire process occurred was unbelievably endearing and quite a family bonding event. IN addition, each individual dumpling takes at least 15 minutes to prepare from start to finish. Wow does that ever make them taste better in the end.


Once baba felt I was ready to jump into the line again, he showed me how to fill the dumpling. Jeeze Louise.
我覺得我很差。 不過他是很好老師。

Although my folding, nipping and tucking skills are not yet honed, I think I did ok for a white girl....

Baba, on the other hand, repeatedly showed me how to improve. Perfection is something that really does exist in Chinese culture. (Y'all know I'm not too big into that.) But I persevered and tried to make baba proud.


And finally, I think maybe my attention to detail paid off. I made one that made baba smile!

The history of the jiao zi dates back to the Northern Song Dynasty. During this time, merchants in Chengdu distributed one of the earliest known paper money. The currency was called 'jiao zi.' With the high circulation of the currency, the local government of Chengdu established the earliest administrative and savings bank known as the Office of Jiao zi (Chengdu Government). The word jiao zi then began to be used as a general term for money.

In ancient China, yuan bao was used as currency before the use of jiao zi paper money. P.S. Chinese people think they invented money. Back in the day, jiao zi looked like shoe shaped gold and silver ingots known as yuan bao. In the Chinese culture, jiao zi are made during the New Year to resemble the gold and silver ingots. Eating the dumplings during the New Year is a metaphor for eating money; when people eat jiao zi during the New Year celebration, they hope that it will bring prosperity and good luck for the forthcoming year.

The term jiao zi has multiple meanings, one of the meanings means "midnight or the end and the beginning of time." This is why the jiao zi are made the midnight of the last day of the passing lunar year. Another meaning of the term comes from the literal translation to "sleep together and have sons" which is a long lost good wish for a family. Not only does the shape of the jiao zi resemble the golden ingots, it also represents a crescent moon and symbolizes the hope for a year of plenty. Occasionally people will add specific fillings to select dumplings in order to symbolize certain wishes. Those who receive sweets will have a sweeter life, peanuts symbolize long life, and dates and chestnuts represent the imminent arrival of a son. Because the word "dates" is homonymic with the word "early" in Chinese, so are chestnuts (zhenzi), the syllable "zi" is homonymic with children.

The tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance of wealth in the household. Rich families in ancient times added gold, silver, and other precious stones in their dumplings. To get one of these dumplings was considered good luck. Later this transitioned to adding coins in the dumplings. Copper coins, for example, meant that one would never lack money.

In contemporary times, only a few coins were washed and add to the batch of dumplings, the person who discovers the coin would enjoy good luck and make a lot of money in the coming year.

for more info on jiaozi, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaozi


P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!