The Significance of Winter Solstice in Song Dynasty Life

In the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE), the Winter Solstice was not merely an astronomical event—it was a cultural phenomenon rivaling the Lunar New Year in importance. Government offices closed, merchants shuttered their shops, and even the poorest citizens donned new clothing to greet neighbors. The festivities extended into nights filled with drinking, gambling, and merrymaking, as imperial edicts temporarily lifted anti-gambling laws for three days. This extraordinary social license reflected the solstice’s sacred status as a temporal threshold when cosmic yin energy peaked before yielding to yang’s gradual return.

The culinary rituals began on Solstice Eve with families preparing dumplings (jiaozi)—not just for immediate consumption but as sacred offerings. After ancestral worship ceremonies, some dumplings were reserved for a symbolic breakfast the following morning, blending sustenance with spiritual continuity.

Lunar New Year: A Diminished Celebration?

Curiously, the subsequent Spring Festival often paled in comparison to solstice revelries. Poet Lu You’s New Year’s Day verses reveal key distinctions:

> “Midnight offerings of botuo shared at ancestral altars,
> Dawn breaks as households replace old door gods with new.”

His accompanying note clarifies: “The new year demands soup cakes—winter’s wonton yielding to spring’s botuo.” Here lies the cultural crux—where solstice featured celebratory dumplings, New Year meals centered on botuo: humble, unleavened dough scraps resembling cat ears when hand-pinched. This culinary downgrade stemmed from exhausted household budgets post-solstice and agricultural cycles leaving pantries sparse before spring harvests.

The Forgotten Pantheon of Song Dynasty Cuisine

### Botuo: From Humble Staple to Cross-Cultural Legacy

Documented in Jia Sixie’s 6th-century Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People, botuo’s preparation involved:

1. Kneading dough into slender ropes
2. Pinching segments into concave shapes
3. Boiling in broth until buoyant

This thrifty dish transcended dynasties—modern Shanxi’s getuo and Japanese udon (originally called hakutaku in Yamanashi Prefecture) descend from Song-era botuo. Its migration to Japan saw transformation: hand-pinched lumps became precisely cut noodles, yet some temples still preserve the ancient name on signage.

### Tadpole Noodles and the Art of Culinary Mimicry

Southern Song’s Lantern Festival menus (Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital) listed fantastical delicacies like:

– Dripping Cream Conches: Spiral-shaped butter pastries
– Dragon-Twisted Candies: Malt sugar sculptures
– Tadpole Noodles (kedoufen): The simplest yet most imaginative

Creating these “tadpoles” required:

1. Pouring batter through perforated steamers into boiling water
2. Retrieving the teardrop-shaped strands with tails
3. Chilling and dressing with savory sauces

This technique survives in Henan’s Frog Tadpole Noodles, now made using modern colanders but retaining the Song-era flavor profile of garlic, vinegar, and chili oil.

Funeral Feasts and the Power of Ritual Bread

Central Plains burial customs involved elaborate mourning cycles with edible symbolism:

– Jiabao Mo: Sacrificial steamed buns slit open and stuffed with meat after ancestral offerings
– Folk belief attributed intelligence and health to consuming these
– Contrasted with Shaanxi’s unfilled mourning buns, where mere splitting transformed sacred food into edible form

A 12th-century account by Hong Mai describes plague-stricken villagers saved by a Daoist priest’s instruction to “split sacrificial buns and eat them”—revealing deep-rooted faith in the liminal power of ritual foods.

The Bitter Feast: Wild Plants and Imperial Disdain

Spring foraging traditions brought:

– Chrysanthemum Greens steamed with cornmeal
– Willow Catkins blanched for salads
– Locust Blossoms (huaifan): The seasonal highlight

Modern diners enjoy locust flower pancakes, but Song-era maifan differed drastically—it denoted plain boiled wheat berries, not the fragrant blooms we know today. Emperor Huizong’s infamous complaint about “eating gravel-like wheat gruel” during his captivity underscores this divide. The absence of edible black locust trees (introduced later from North America) made floral delicacies impossible in Song cuisine.

Legacy of a Culinary Golden Age

The Song Dynasty’s gastronomic innovations reveal:

1. Ritual and Sustenance: Food bridged earthly and spiritual realms
2. Technological Diffusion: Noodle-making techniques spread across East Asia
3. Social Leveling: Temporary gambling legalization created rare communal equality

From solstice dumplings to mourners’ buns, these traditions persist in regional cuisines and festivals—a testament to how Song-era commoners and emperors alike shaped China’s culinary soul through necessity, creativity, and reverence for cyclical time.