Dumpling / Jiǎozi 餃子
My Background
For those who don’t know my ethic background, I am full Chinese. My mother is from northeastern china and was raised in South Korea. My dad is from Taiwan but his family originated from northern China as well. Both my parents’ families are from Shan Dong, (on a side note) which is where Confucius is from. In Chinese culture food is an essential part of where you’re from. Because geographically, China is so large that different regions are known for their different dishes and cuisine styles. This is kind of like barbequing in America, where Texan specializes in a dry rub with no sauce, North Carolina has vinegar-based sauces, and Memphis generally uses a sweeter sauce base. Chinese food is too broad of a category, so first I am going to separated it into two categories: rice and flour. Then flour, which makes up your noodles, dumplings, and buns, can be further divided into two sections, raised and not raised. Southern China is generally known, as rice eaters while northern china prefer their flour-based foods.
As I was doing my research I have found that every culture has its version of the dumpling. The Polish have their pirogues and the Italians got the raviolis. I am not going to argue who copied the idea or which dish came first but Chinese dumplings go as far back as China’s history. The dumpling or Jiǎozi has an exterior of thinly rolled dough; the inside is filled with ground meat and vegetables. The combinations are endless, it can be filled with fish, eggs, chives, anything to the hearts desire. Dumplings can be enjoyed any time of the year but what separates Chinese dumplings from other cultures are that Chinese dumplings are a necessity during Chinese New Year and has special meaning to the people that eat them.
Chinese New Year
Before this gets into dumplings, I must explain Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is determined by the lunar calendar. It usually occurs between late January and mid February. When it comes to Chinese culture, everything symbolizes something, from the food you eat to the clothes you wear. To understand the importance of Chinese New Year, in my opinion the equivalent American holiday would be Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year combined together. It combines the food aspect of Thanksgiving with the mentality of New Year sprinkled with the spirituality of Christmas.
Celebrating Chinese New Year is as old as documentation goes, which is about five thousand years. Going as far back as I can remember we always celebrated Chinese New Year. There are many versions of the origins of Chinese New Year but a book titled Chinese New Year by Alice Flanagan, explains a common version. “…people painted the doors of their houses red. They built fires and set off firecrackers until the beast ran away.” (Flanagan) The beast is called Nian, which in Chinese is translated to year. To sum up the story the beast would terrorize the farmers every year until the farmers found the beast’s weakness. Nian was scared of loud noises and the color red, thus why people set off firecrackers and color/dress everything in red during Chinese New Year. That’s a cute story but you might be wondering how food gets incorporated into this tradition. Well, before communist China, the majority of the populations were farmers. Not only were they farmers but their fathers were farmers, and so were their grandfathers and so on so forth. “Farmers started the holiday in China to mark the end of winter and the beginning of spring.” (Flanagan) In essence Chinese New Year was an indication to plant your spring crops. This marked a new year because you survived another winter. This meant a new beginning and hopefully the coming year will be just as good if not better.
Every New Year begins with cleaning. There is a saying in Chinese that falls somewhere along the lines of “if you don’t get rid of the old, the new will never come.” So you clean everything and literally sweep the dust out your front door. You dress in new clothes, which represents a new start. You want to bring good fortune to your family and have the sprits in your favor so that in the future when the new clothes get old, you will able to get newer ones. Now, before you eat a single bite of your food, you are to pay homage to all your ancestors. Culturally, Chinese people are very family oriented and the family name is very important, almost more important than anything else. Explained to me by my mother and participating in the ritual my whole life, you first set out empty seats with food, fruits and alcohol. These foods are top quality, because you don’t want to offend the dead by serving them anything that you wouldn’t want to eat yourself. You don’t want to offend the spirits or they will haunt you. The table setting is usually by a window or some type of opening for the sprits to gain access. Empty bowls of uncooked rice are set at each spot and the family members are to light incense and say a prayer that invite the spirits to enjoy the food and watch over the family. Then, incense is stabbed into the bowl of rice. This is also why it’s very rude to stab your chopsticks vertically into your rice bowl. Now the living members of the family may eat. This process is a way of bringing the past to the present. So it’s not just eating with your uncle Steve, but also with the members of your family that have passed to the other side, like your grandma or your great-great grandfather. Everyone that is in your family tree comes together to enjoy a meal together. Dinner is always enjoyed at (or just before) midnight on New Years Eve and it’s a northern Chinese tradition to eat dumplings.
Red envelopes, which are stuffed with money, are distributed upon greeting but sometimes it’s done after dinner. Elders and people who are married are to prepare red envelopes for single members of the family and people who are younger. The amount varies but people like to give amounts involving the number “eight” because in Chinese, it rhymes with the word for “striking it rich”.
Food
Before I get into the symbols and meanings behind dumplings, I want to explain that all foods have meaning in Chinese culture. When they are eaten on Chinese New Year, you bet there’s a story behind it or at least a supposed perk. Two examples of these symbol-ridden foods I can give are noodles and fish. For the northern Chinese people it is customary to eat noodles on your birthday. Noodles (Chang Shou Mien, or Long Life Noodle) can be consumed during Chinese New Years as well but it is not a crucial dish. “Long noodle is the symbol of longevity in China, so that youngsters or seniors all will have a bowl of Long Life Noodle to expect a healthy life.” (Chinese food and culture) Fish, on the other hand, is a must have on the dinner table. “Fish is always served to symbolize prosperity and wealth accumulation in the New Year's Eve.” (Chinese food and culture) In Chinese, fish and “having extra” (as in prosperity) are homophones. There’s a Chinese proverb, “prosper every year” (nian nian you yu) that sounds like (and thus interpreted as) “fish every year” (also nian nian you yu). Therefore, when you are eating the fish, you are eating your prosperity for the coming year. If you don’t eat it, then you might have a difficult time ahead of you or other people might steal your luck.
Dumplings
Finally we are going to dive into the topic of dumplings. As stated earlier, dumplings are versatile; they can be filled with anything imaginable. However, when it comes to Chinese New Year, dumplings are traditionally served with pork. There are a couple of methods to cook dumplings. You can boil, steam or pan-fry them (although pan frying is commonly used for heating up left over dumplings). In the north, the dumplings are boiled and the water used to boil the dumplings makes a dumpling soup to be enjoyed after the main meal. The dumpling soup doesn’t have much taste; it’s primarily just flour water. It is not quite a dessert (that is served also) but more for cleansing the digestive tract, like how tea is served after meals sometimes.
My mother explained to me that dumplings represent yuanbao, which were gold or silver nuggets that are a half moon shape or boat shaped. “A yuanbao is a small metal ingot that was used in ancient China as money. Being made out of silver or gold, the value was determined by weight in taels, which is a weight measurement, part of the Chinese system of weights and currency.“ (Chinese Customs) Therefore, part of the cultural belief in eating dumpling is to bring good luck and fortune to you for the coming year, just like eating fish. This, of course, is one of many myths regarding the origins of dumplings. Another common myth relates dumplings to a medical story in ancient China. Once upon a time, during a particularly difficult and cold winter, there was widespread poverty and disease. Many villagers were severely frostbitten due to lack of warm clothing or adequate shelter. Their ears were exposed and were rotting and falling off. A healer/doctor created a remedy under the commission of the local officials and distributed Chinese herbal medicines wrapped with meat and cooked in soup.
Recipe
Here is a recipe if you want to make them yourself. This version is a bit different in that they steam instead of boil the dumplings and substitute the Chinese cabbage for chives: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pork-dumplings/detail.aspx.
The skin is sold at any regular Chinese supermarket, but if you want to make your own, it’s simply a mixture of water and flour. Here is a video of an Asian mother working the dough and making the skins. For vegetarian dumplings, a common recipe for the filling uses chives and fried eggs (sometimes also chopped up vermicelli or mushrooms). Today, there are restaurants in northern China that specializes in dumplings (with names such as “Jiao Zi Wang, or Dumpling King) with a full menu of different types of fillings to cater to modern tastes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOXWSMlSq98
Relating it back to me:
The foods that we eat are a good indication of the culture and geographical region that you and your family came from. The Chinese culture instills values that are passed from parent to child. Every dish has a myth or story behind it. Although I have lived in America for most of my life, I have spent some time in Asia. Going to school in Taiwan from second to fourth grade showed the practices of the culture first hand. Instead of watching just my family participating in Chinese traditions, I see whole cities celebrating the occasion. Dumplings are a delicious food item but it has tons and meaning and a rich history. I don’t want to become someone who doesn’t know his or her own culture. These stories and traditions will be passed onto my kids, and their kids for generations to come. Through the ages some of the meaning is lost and not everything will be passed on, but as long as the core and spirit is there, that is what’s important. In America there seems to be a need to identify yourself, even at a young age: the class clown, the popular kid or the weirdo. Because America is a melting pot of cultures, people hold on to their roots to give a sense of identity and past. For example, in The Meaning of Food by Patricia Harris, David Lyon and Sue Mclaughlin, the Makah people were a community centered on whale hunting. After hunting whales to near extinction, the Makah decided to give up whale hunting. When the grey whale rebounded back to healthy numbers in the 1990’s, generations of Makah people have lived without ever hunting a whale. While the traditions were kept in song and dance, there was no one with first hand experience of hunting whales. However, the Makah still set out to hunt their first whale in seventy years. “Whale meat connects us with our grandparents and our great-grandparents” says Bowechop. “It’s not just about food and it’s not just about spiritual strength and it’s not just about culture. It’s really about the connection of all of those.” (Harris) I agree with Bowechop. Participating in these traditions is something bigger than you and I. To eat dumplings that your grandfather and ancestors had is neat. Knowing that at the some point in their lives, though the setting might be different, you all enjoyed the same dumpling over time is a remarkable concept.
Work Cited
3, Feb. "History of Chinese Dumplings - Search." Google. Web. 01 May 2010.
"Chinese Culture." Telephone interview. 21 Apr. 2010.
"Chinese Food Culture: Chopsticks, Table Manners, Food Symbolism." China Tours,China Tour Package,China Tour Company, Small Group, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Guilin. Web. 07 May 2010.
Harris, Patricia, David Lyon, and Sue McLaughlin. "The Meaning of Food." PBS: 61-105. Print.
"History of Chinese New Year." TheHolidaySpot: Holidays and Festivals Celebrations, Greeting Cards, Activities, Crafts, Recipes Wallpapers, and More. Web. 03 May 2010.
"YouTube - How to Make Dumplings!" How to Make Dumplings. Web. 01 May 2010.
"Yuanbao, Ingot, Good Luck Coins - Chinese Customs." Nations Online Project :: A Destination Guide to Countries and Nations of the World. Web. 01 May 2010.
