New Year's Eve dinner is known in China as the longest meal of the year.
According to experts, the New Year's Eve dinner started to be eaten during the Han Dynasty and has continued to be eaten since then, with its spiritual and cultural connotations accompanying us. The word "New Year's Eve dinner" first appeared in the Qing Dynasty during the Jiaqing Daoguang period. According to "Qing Jia Lu," "On New Year's Eve, every family held a banquet, and many auspicious words were exchanged, which was called 'New Year's Eve Dinner,' commonly known as 'Family Reunion.'
In the Spring Festival of 1910, there was an extremely extravagant royal New Year's Eve dinner in the Qing Dynasty Palace, "The original banquet in the Hall of Supreme Harmony was 210 seats, with a hundred sheep and a hundred bottles of wine." In cities like Shanghai, wealthy families would add Western food to their New Year's Eve dinner.
After the Anti-Japanese War, a full meal was the "best New Year's Eve meal."
In the last 40 years, we can see the economic and social impact of China's reform and opening-up on the Chinese economy.
In the late 1950s, when life was hard and severe natural disasters hit, the New Year's Eve dinner was not worth the name; in 1959, people had to eat in big cafeterias, and even on such an important day as New Year's, the chef would only give two taels of rice, a spoonful of white radish, and a handful of tofu dregs. The Beijing Daily, published on February 3, 1957, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, mentioned the New Year's Eve dinner of an ordinary family: "We bought a few pounds of meat, a chicken, a fish, and some vegetables and tofu, which were enough for our family to eat happily for a few days.
Of course, the above story is about the affluent life of city dwellers. At that time, 87.3% of Chinese families' New Year's Eve dinner consisted of coarse grains such as sweet potatoes and potatoes, and very few fine grains such as white steamed buns and rice, which was everyone's greatest happiness as long as the whole family could eat a full meal on New Year's Eve.
In the early 1980s, fish, chicken, meat, and other dishes became the main characters of the New Year's Eve dinner. Due to the implementation of the family contract responsibility system, farmers were more active than ever in working, and the average farmer not only had more than enough food to feed himself but also raised poultry and livestock, which he could sell at the market if he couldn't eat them, and the market gradually flourished.
In the 1990s, the New Year's Eve dinner began to focus on meat and vegetable combinations, and the dishes became more diverse, with combinations such as roast chicken, braised pork, pine nut corn, vegetables, and fruits. White rabbit milk candies and cans of drinks were highlights.
In the millennium (2000), seafood dishes began to appear, including soups in addition to the traditional hard dishes. Green vegetables, which were not supposed to be on the table in winter, and products that did not belong to the region, began to appear on the family table. This also reflected the rapid development of agriculture and food transportation, where people could eat what they wanted when they wanted, where they wanted. With the advent of cell phones, New Year's messages began to make their presence felt at the New Year's Eve dinner time.
After 2010, New Year's Eve dinner dishes are rich and well-mixed and value and health concept.
"Times are changing, and Chinese people's demand for New Year's Eve dinner is also quietly changing."
"The food is getting richer and richer, and Chinese people are becoming 'picky,' which is mainly manifested in two aspects of the New Year's Eve dinner: first, the Chinese taste is getting lighter and lighter, focusing on balanced nutrition and healthy diet; second, they are more and more able to enjoy, and it is popular to eat the New Year's Eve dinner outside (restaurants). "
According to Yu Lei, "packaged New Year's Eve dinner" is also popular these two years. "Since last year, Grain Spring has started to offer 'New Year's gift package,' where the New Year's Eve dinner dishes are processed into semi-finished products, and customers can buy them at home and have a sumptuous New Year's Eve dinner."
Some people say that people are getting lazier and lazier in this era of diversified consumption in the Spring Festival, but it's just that the way to open the New Year's Eve dinner has changed. Whether you eat out or at home, the flow of affection at the dinner table, which is also the biggest meaning of the New Year's Eve dinner, is still heavy.
In addition, as we enter the 21st century, the number of dishes served on New Year's Eve dinner has not increased, but rather has declined. Of course, this doesn't mean that the standard of living has declined, but rather that people's philosophy of life has changed, their awareness has increased, and their diet is fresh, green, and healthy, with less being more refined.
Nowadays, New Year's Eve dinner no longer satisfies people's primitive craving for food but has become more of a symbol, symbolizing reunion, happiness, satisfaction, and symbolizing Chinese people's expectations for the New Year and the future. No matter how the forms and patterns of the New Year's Eve dinner will change in the future, what has never changed is the spiritual pursuit of the people behind the dinner to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new and reunite the whole family.