Folklore behind vegetarian dumplings

Ahead of this year's Spring Festival, two Egyptian students in Tianjin discovered one of the city's most iconic culinary traditions by learning how to make vegetarian dumplings with friends, getting to know firsthand the food culture that is rooted in Tianjin's 600 years of canal transportation history.

Walking through the old streets and alleys of Tianjin, they went from buying special ingredients such as red vermicelli sheets and Chinese cabbage, to rolling dough, mixing fillings and making dumplings with local young people, before finally tasting Tianjin-style vegetarian dumplings with laba vinegar.

Faced with red vermicelli sheets, a key ingredient for Tianjin-style vegetarian dumplings, Ahmed Mohamed Saleh, one of the two students, was full of curiosity. "I've never seen this ingredient in Egypt. I heard it's essential for Tianjin's vegetarian dumplings, which makes me realize every place has its own unique set of New Year customs."

Saleh and the other student, Hassan Sameh Hassan Elsayed, used their hands to mix fillings with the right ratio of sesame paste, fermented bean curd and sesame oil, rolled the dough to the right thickness, and pinched delicate folds to shape the dumplings. They gradually mastered the skills of making the dumplings through repeated attempts.

"Homemade vegetarian dumplings must be eaten at midnight on Chinese New Year's Eve. The filling includes red vermicelli sheets, Chinese cabbage, chives, fermented bean curd, vermicelli and more, with no meat allowed at all," said Huo Qingyou, a national inheritor of Yangliuqing New Year paintings, who explained the folklore of Tianjin's vegetarian dumplings to the international students.

"Pomegranate flowers are stuck on the wrapped vegetarian dumplings and thrown away when the dumplings are boiled at midnight, which symbolizes casting away bad luck. The dumplings are eaten with laba vinegar, and they are first used to offer sacrifices to express wishes for purity and peace. Only after the sacrifice does the whole family enjoy the dumplings together," he added.

"The sour aroma of laba vinegar blends with the fresh taste of the vegetarian filling. I finally understand the beautiful wish of Tianjin people to 'ring in the New Year in a pure and peaceful way'," Elsayed said as he tasted the dumplings he had made himself.

The two students recorded the whole process of making dumplings by taking pictures, planning to share them with their families and friends in Egypt so they too could experience some of the unique charm of China's Spring Festival.

A local senior resident of Tianjin explained the city's culinary New Year customs with the international students: "Tianjin people have certain traditional customs they must follow for eating dumplings during Spring Festival. We first eat meat dumplings at around 7 pm on New Year's Eve, and then serve a pot of steaming vegetarian dumplings when the bell rings at midnight. Some families even wrap a clean one-fen coin in a dumpling and whoever gets it will have good luck for the new year."

Tianjin-style vegetarian dumplings are more than just a festival food. With solid historical records to back them up, they are a folk custom deeply rooted in Tianjin's canal transportation culture. Passed down for hundreds of years, they have become one of the most representative parts of Tianjin's Spring Festival traditions.

This custom embodies Tianjin people's simple wish for a pure, peaceful and disaster-free new year, and is a concentrated reflection of the integration of northern and southern Chinese cultures and the wisdom of urban folklore.

Feng Jicai, a renowned writer and cultural scholar, has a unique insight into Spring Festival folk customs and cross-cultural communication. He believes the core of Spring Festival lies in a strong emotional cohesion.

Regarding the seemingly simple custom of eating dumplings, Feng defined it as a "sense of ritual in daily life".

Elsayed and Saleh believe that with the growing upsurge of international students coming to China, more and more young foreigners choose to stay in China to experience authentic New Year customs.

Jia Yunge and Cai Muzi contributed to this story.

yandongjie@chinadaily.com.cn