The Chinese tang yuan 湯圓 (also known as yuan xiao 元宵) is a glutinous rice ball filled with jaggery or red bean paste, or sesame seed paste and cooked by boiling in water usually sweeten with jaggery.
Tang yuan or yuan xiao is traditionally made and eaten during 元宵節 Lantern Festival and 冬至 Winter Solstice. Today, they are eaten as a dessert at anytime during the year.
Lantern Festival 元宵節 is the last day of Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. The Lantern Festival 元宵節 goes back to the Western Han dynasty (206 BC - 9 AD). 元宵 means "first night".
Winter Solstice 冬至 celebrates the start of winter. The festival was first celebrated during the Zhou Dynasty (1045 BC - 256 BC) and declared an official celebration during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).
The glutinous rice ball is believed to emerge during the Tang dynasty period (618 - 907) or Song dynasty (960 - 1279) in Mingzhou 明州 (today's Ningbo, near Shanghai). The Mingzhou glutinous rice ball is filled with sesame seed paste, lard and jaggery. As the glutinous rice balls float on the water when cooked, they were known as 浮元子 "floating balls".
During the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644), the glutinous rice balls became known as yuan xiao 元宵 because they are made and eaten during 元宵節. Also during the Ming dynasty, the name 湯圓 tang yuan appeared.
In northern China, the yuan xiao is made by coating balls of filling with glutinous rice flour. The technique is to toss the balls of fillings in glutinous rice flour till they are completely coated with flour.
The other technique more prevalent in southern China is to knead the glutinous rice flour into dough. Small lumps of dough are filled with jaggery, red bean paste, crushed peanut, etc., and hand rolled into balls.
Ming dynasty official 劉若愚 (born 1584) in his book 酌中志 has a chapter 飲食好尚紀略 A Guide to Good Eating in which he described the glutinous rice ball recipe.
"吃元宵. 製法用糯米細麵，內用核桃仁、白糖為果餡，灑水滾成，如核桃大小，即江南所稱湯圓也".
"Eat yuan xiao. To make, use glutinous rice dough filled with walnut kernels and white sugar, sprinkle with water and roll into a ball as big as a walnut. South of the Yangtze River, this glutinous rice ball is known as tang yuan."
From 劉若愚's account, yuan xiao and tang yuan existed together since at least the Ming dynasty and were considered synonymous.
In 1912, a year after the Republic of China was established, warlord 袁世凱 Yuan Shi Kai launched a coup and declared himself president. As he was paranoid, Yuan Shi Kai banned the term 元宵 yuan xiao as it sounds like 袁消 which means "eliminate Yuan". The rice balls were only to be called 湯圓 tang yuan.
Today by convention, northern style glutinous rice balls are known as yuan xiao, and the southern style as tang yuan. In addition, the Winter Solstice is celebrated with tang yuan, and Lantern Festival with yuan xiao. (Furthermore, tang yuan may have savoury fillings such as minced pork while yuan xiao have only sweet fillings.)
Nevertheless, in southern China and among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, it is common to use tang yuan for both Lantern Festival 元宵 and 冬至 Winter Solstice. The idea is to emphasis on unity and reunion 團圓 tuan yuan - 湯圓 tang yuan sounds like 團圓 tuan yuan which is an important goal of both Lantern Festival 元宵 and 冬至 Winter Solstice.
References
Got a saying dongzhi =winter solstice
ReplyDeleteSo in the olden poorer times , the ingredient is use to make tangyuan with dried fillings like sesame that can last through winter and not spoilt, the skin also act as protective layer for the seseme etc so bugs don’t eat it . so it a form of 粮食for winter
We eat glutinous rice balls on the Winter Solstice, and we also eat glutinous rice balls on the Lantern Festival? Have you ever wondered why you eat the same thing twice? In fact, the glutinous rice balls eaten during the Winter Solstice and the Yuanxiao eaten during the Lantern Festival are different foods! What is the difference between glutinous rice balls and yuanxiao? Yuanxiao and glutinous rice balls are made from glutinous rice flour.
ReplyDeleteBoth glutinous rice balls and yuanxiao are made of glutinous rice "raw flour". The so-called corn flour is rice flour made by soaking rice, wet grinding, and then drying. However, the practices of the two are quite different.
Yuanxiao is shaken out
Yuanxiao is an offering and snack eaten during the Lantern Festival. The preparation method is to cut the filling into small pieces, place them in a bamboo sieve filled with glutinous rice flour, shake them to roll them, and after rolling them for about dozens of times, take them out and dip them in water and put them back into the bamboo sieve to continue rolling. Repeat this for about 7 to 10 times, or sprinkle water while rolling, until the powder gradually thickens and shakes from the filling into pieces of Yuanxiao.