All households are very busy on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month, on which people offer sacrifices to the Kitchen God. The Kitchen God is said to go to the Heaven to report the good and evils of the family on this day for the Jade Emperor (the Supreme Deity of Taoism) to give his rewards and punishments. To give the Kitchen God a send-off, people make a special food called sticky Tanggua.

The sticky Tanggua, or candied melon-shaped maltose, is crisp, fragrant and sweet. It is used to enshrine and worship the Kitchen God. There are two purposes for this -- to make the Kitchen God say good things about the family when reporting to the Jade Emperor in heaven; the other, to seal the god's mouth with the maltose so he can't say bad things.