After several snowfalls in the north, the last few leaves on the poplar trees have almost all fallen with the wind. Everything is wrapped in the huge "dumpling wrappers" made of snowflakes, and the whole world is a vast expanse of white.

Once it gets cold, people long for something warm to eat even more in their hearts.

As the saying goes, "Nothing tastes better than jiaozi, and nothing is more comfortable than lying down." For people who hurry home against the cold wind at night, a bowl of steaming hot jiaozi is probably the most accessible delicacy in winter. Looking at the energetic "white chubby dumplings" rolling in the hot pot, I suddenly feel a bit homesick.

A few days ago, quite a number of netizens were touched by "a plate of jiaozi".

In the news footage, a little boy who looked like a student stared blankly at the jiaozi cooked by his father in front of him. Hesitant, he was reluctant to pick up his chopsticks for a long time, and silent tears welled up in his eyes. His father gently reminded him to eat while it was hot. After a moment of silence, the little boy finally couldn't help crying and ran back to his room.

It turned out that this plate of jiaozi was wrapped by his mother who had passed away eight months ago when she was still alive. The boy recognized it at a glance when he saw the patterns on the edges of the dumplings. During those few seconds when he was lost in thought, perhaps he felt that his mother was still by his side.

In countless such moments, the emotional appeal contained in jiaozi is much greater than the allure of the food itself.

The infinite love of family members wrapped in the dumpling wrappers is the eternal warmth in winter memories.

A Bowl of the World
The stories of the world may be just like the ordinary taste of jiaozi, neither too salty nor too bland.

In the eyes of Dong Yuhui, a child from Shaanxi, "there is endless human touch in jiaozi".

During a live stream, he recalled the days when he was an English teacher in Xi'an. It was the first day of the Lunar New Year. After the training, Dong Yuhui was stopped by a student's grandmother. The old lady knew that he was alone outside and had nothing to eat. It was cold and the food cooled down quickly, so the old lady wrapped the aluminum lunch box containing the jiaozi with a handkerchief and held it in her coat while waiting for them to finish class.

Dong Yuhui said, "At that time, the whole hall was full of parents picking up their children. I ate that box of jiaozi with tears in my eyes. And it was from that time that I fell in love with eating jiaozi. Now, as long as there are jiaozi to eat, it means I'm home."

Chinese people express their emotions in an implicit and reserved way. All the thanks and care that they haven't said aloud are put into the food they make with their hearts.

Jiaozi is not a rare food nowadays. There is a dazzling array of jiaozi varieties in the freezers of supermarkets, almost everything you can think of. However, when you cook a bowl of those beautifully packaged frozen jiaozi, you always feel that something is missing in your heart.

Perhaps what people miss the most when eating jiaozi alone is the warmth and liveliness when family members sit around together during festivals.

At the end of each year, when children come home from other places one after another, cousins can finally enjoy a short reunion time under the same roof as they did in their childhood. According to the tradition in our family, jiaozi are always made.

Making jiaozi sounds simple, but it's actually a big project when you really do it. From kneading the dough, mixing the fillings, rolling out the wrappers to wrapping the dumplings, the whole "assembly line" operation must be completed in one go, and every step is crucial.

In our family, Auntie is the one who controls the whole process. After the prepared wheat dough has risen, it has to be pulled into dough pieces of just the right size. After sticking a little flour on both sides, they are pressed into small flat cakes with the palm of the hand. Then comes the important step of rolling out the dumpling wrappers.

More than ten years ago, when I was still a child, I began to participate in this food-making project full of family ritual. At that time, the whole big family would gather around the small square table in the warm stove room. Auntie taught me how to roll out the dumpling wrappers hand in hand. Aunts and sisters chatted about daily trifles while casually wrapping one cute and neat little dumpling after another.

In the laughter and chatter while making jiaozi year after year, time has slipped away unconsciously.

The square table in Auntie's house is still the "old-timer" that appears first when making jiaozi. The story of when I was a child and ate twenty dumplings in one meal is still something that aunts must tell again every year. It's just that there are more nephews and nieces who are growing up quietly as the audience.

These childhood embarrassments that are still vivid in my mind and the laughter and chatter among family members seem to have never changed. When we gather together to make jiaozi every year, it seems that we have never grown up, and our parents seem never to have grown old either.

Just like the bowls of steaming hot home-cooked jiaozi, the warmth contained in them has never gone far away.

A Touch of Happiness
Throughout history, perhaps people have endowed jiaozi with too many beautiful meanings. Eating a bowl of long-awaited jiaozi made by relatives and friends in the cold winter season doubles the sense of happiness.

Usually, people are busy with work. The holidays at the end of the year allow people to have some leisure time to show their elegance. So more and more young people are participating in the traditional activity of making and eating jiaozi during festivals, which is full of ritual sense.

Regarding the custom of eating jiaozi during festivals, a widely circulated saying nowadays is to commemorate the kindness of Zhang Zhongjing, the "Medical Sage", with his "Cold-Dispelling Jiao'er Soup". It was the winter solstice at that time. When Zhang Zhongjing returned to his hometown, he saw that many people had frostbitten ears because of the cold weather. So he ordered his disciples to cook mutton and other ingredients mixed with cold-dispelling herbs in a big pot, fish them out, chop them up, wrap them in dough and pinch them into the shape of ears, then boil them in water and distribute them to the villagers to eat.

It is said that many people's frostbitten ears healed soon after eating the "Cold-Dispelling Jiao'er Soup". Later, in order to commemorate Zhang Zhongjing, people imitated him to "pinch frozen ears" and eat them on the winter solstice.

In addition, people in ancient times thought that "jiaozi" had the same pronunciation as "jiaozhi". Eating jiaozi at the hour of "jiaozhi" when changing the year had the meaning of "bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new". So eating jiaozi on special days such as the winter solstice and the New Year carries the beautiful expectation of happiness and good fortune.

With the continuous development of jiaozi, their shapes are also diverse. In some places, people will wrap jiaozi into the shape of ingots, symbolizing that wealth will roll in like the ingot-shaped jiaozi in the bowl. In ancient times, people in places like Suzhou would make a bowl of "Number One Scholar Jiaozi" for family members who were promoted or went out to study, hoping that children going to take exams could win the title of the Number One Scholar.

Jiaozi also plays an irreplaceable role in the wedding customs in some areas. In some places in the north, on the morning of a daughter's wedding day, the mother will cook a bowl of "Dumplings for Boarding the Sedan Chair" by herself and put all the blessings that family members can't express in words into the dumplings.

Today, the tradition of putting mascots such as coins, dates, peanuts, and sugar cubes into the reunion jiaozi is still continued. People who eat them will not only receive the full blessings from their family members but also symbolize that they will gain wealth and good luck in the coming year.

People have different preferences for the fillings of jiaozi. Some people love shepherd's purse, some are afraid of fennel, some want thin wrappers with big fillings, preferably pure meat fillings, and others prefer vegetarian dumplings.

The flavors are not exactly the same, but the beautiful blessings wrapped in the wrappers are the same. On a cold winter night, eating a bowl of "Mom's" dumplings will make your whole body warm. Perhaps the happiness in the world is nothing more than this.

What kind of fillings are there in the jiaozi in your family?