Yuanxiao and the Yuanxiao Festival

Yuanxiao is a thin piece of glutinous rice dough with fillings wrapped up in it looking like a ball. It is also called “tangyuan”. As tangyuan has a similar sound effect with tuanyuan (meaning “reunion” in Chinese) and Yuanxiao Festival comes with the first full moon of the year, tangyuan has a symbolic significance of family reunion and people simply call the food yuanxiao.

Fillings for yuanxiao are various. There are meat, vegetables and spicy fillings. The common ones are sweetened bean paste, sugar, sweet-scented osmanthus, nut meat, hawthorn, pork, etc. Yuanxiao is also filled with a mixture of five different elements, including onion, ginger, garlic, chives and mustard. The mixture of the five elements has a double meaning of “reunion” and “endurance”.

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Yuanxiao made in Chengdu Sichuan Province and Ningbo Zhejiang Province are well-known in China. It is filled with black sesame and sugar mixed with lard. 

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