Zee Wong

    zedwong@163.com

    SOME popular food and drinks were invented for medical applications. For instance, Coca Cola was an old time remedy for upset stomach and diarrhea, while jiaozi, a kind of Chinese dumpling, was first introduced as a soup remedy for frostbite. A doctor named Zhang Zhongjing from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) invented the remedy.

    It was a very bad winter. The endless war made it worse for the poor. Zhang saw many people suffering from cold and famine on his way home to Henan Province in central northern China. People were barely clothed and had frostbite all over their ears.

    Zhang felt sorry for them. He wanted to find a solution that could both feed people and cure their frostbite. He made a dumpling soup called quhan jiao’er tang (soft ear soup that expels cold). This soup is named after its effect to cure frostbitten ears and after the jiaozi, the ear-shaped dumpling.

    There were more secrets in the jiaozi soup that achieved the doctor’s goal. He broiled big chunks of lamb for hours in broth full of hot peppers and herbs, including ginger and Chinese aconite. Chinese aconite was first recorded in “Shen Nong’s Materia Medica” as a flowering plant, effective in curing the common cold and in promoting blood circulation. However, it is slightly poisonous. One must boil the Chinese aconite for a long time to detoxify it.

    Finally, when the lamb chunks were imbued with herbs, Doctor Zhang minced them into ground meat and made the filling for the jiaozi. Then, he wrapped the fillings with a flour skin and shaped them into ears. He tossed the jiaozi back into the herbal broth to boil and complete the soup.

    People ate the soup gratefully. They felt warmer instantly and their frostbite gradually went away. Doctor Zhang was rather pleased and continued to offer the soup from the day of Dongzhi (winter solstice) until the end of the year.

    Zhang earned his name as the saint of medicine, not only for his crowning medical skills, but also his charitable acts. People in central and northern China honor him by eating jiaozi on Dongzhi. As the cultural assimilation between northern and southern China progressed, the tradition of eating jiaozi on Dongzhi was also adopted by the south.

    Dongzhi usually occurs on Dec. 21 or 22 on the Gregorian calendar. It is written as “冬至” in Chinese, which means the extreme of winter and signifies the beginning of the coldest days. Similar to Thanksgiving Holiday in western culture, Dongzhi is also a celebration and appreciation of a good harvest. Moreover, Dongzhi and Thanksgiving seem like warm-ups for the holiday season since Thanksgiving precedes Christmas Eve while Dongzhi precedes chuxi (Chinese New Year’s Eve).