Sweet dumplings: Yuanxiao versus tangyuan

Sweet Dumplings. [Photo/People's Daily Online]

The custom of eating sweet dumplings on Lantern Festival was first recorded in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). At that time, Mingzhou -- known today as Ningbo, Zhejiang province -- created a new variety of food. The people stuffed dough made of glutinous rice flour with various fruit-flavored fillings, rolled them into balls, and then boiled them in a pot.

On the 15th day of the first lunar month, people in northern China eat yuanxiao and those in the south eat tangyuan. What's the difference between the two? In places such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in East China, the dumplings are rolled by hand using moist flour, stuffed with more filling, and slightly thinner in terms of dough. In areas such as Beijing in the north of China, yuanxiao have drier flour and more of it as well as less filling. Eating sweet dumplings in Spring Festival represents happiness and reunion.