During Winter Solstice of the traditional Chinese calendar, dumplings become the essential festival food. Every one in China will eat dumplings in Winter Solstice, so supermarkets and store are quick to sell out of the festival favorite. But why do people eat dumplings in midwinter? It is said this custom is to commemorate the great medical sage Zhang Zhongjing.

(Source: blog.163.com)

Zhang Zhongjing, who wrote treatise on exogenous febrile disease and miscellaneous disease, was from Canglang of Nanyang. Doctors of successive dynasties recognized the work to be classic. Zhang Zhongjing was Changsha’s satrap in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and he also practiced medicine at the same time. To cure disease of his villagers, Zhang Zhongjing firmly resigned his official title to go back to his hometown. It was just winter when he went back to his hometown. He saw many villagers were emaciated with sallow complexion and suffering from cold and hunger. Many of their ears were mashed because of the cold weather. Zhang Zhongjing asked his disciples to pitch a medical tent and put up a pot to boil “charming ear soup” during midwinter to dispel cold and cure chilblain. He put mutton, red pepper and some medicines which can dispel cold together into the pot. After a few minutes, he fished the mutton and medicine out of the pot and cut them up. Then he used dumpling wrapper to wrap the diced mutton to make “charming ears”, which looked like ears. People felt warm all over and their ears become warm after they ate “charming ears” and drank “dispelling cold soup”. Their frozen ears were cured. Later, ancestors learned to make “charming ears”, which are now called “dumplings”.