食物英语.ppt

Eating & Drinking
Dumplings
Jiaozi, or dumplings with meat and vegetable fillings, is very popular during the Spring Festival and other festivals. It tops the list of delicacies of people in north China, where people eat jiaozi at midnight on New Year's Eve and for breakfast on New Year's Day.
History
The history of jiaozi dates back to ancient times. But the custom of making jiaozi a special dish during the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, started in the Ming Dynasty, some 500 to 600 years ago. The reason is simple. The appearance of jiaozi looks like the V-shape (some say half-moon shaped)gold or silver ingot used as money in ancient China. As the Spring Festival marks the start of a new year, people choose to eat jiaozi to connote their wishes for good fortune in the new year. Although time has changed, the tradition has remained. But today, jiaozi is considered more as a sign of blessing than of fortune.
Culture
As China is a country with a vast territory, there are great differences in various regions in ways of making jiaozi or even serving it. For example, dumpling wrappers are made with a rolling stick in most areas of Beijing and Hebei Province, whereas in some parts of Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, wrappers are hand-pressed.  There is no set rule as to what makes dumpling fillings. They can be anything from vegetables, meat to seafood. Whatever the fillings, the wrapping skill needs to be exquisite to
make jiaozi look attractive. Ways of serving jiaozi also vary from place to place.  Generally, dumplings are boiled in clear water and served dry with vinegar, soy sauce, garlic or pepper oil if one likes them hot. In some parts of the Northeast China, however, dumplings are boiled in broth together with vermicelli made from bean starch, and served together. People in Henan and Shanxi provinces like to boil jiaozi with noodles and serve them together. They name the serving "golden threads piercing through silver