MUZIChinese Matrix
Little New Year · FFET10344
Sweets for the kitchen god in the late twelfth month: vegetarian food and malt-sugar beans in the Song era, Guandong sugar in Qing Beijing.
The kitchen god is sent off on the 23rd or 24th of the twelfth month, opening the New Year season
Jizao at the Little New Year is the custom of offering sweets to the kitchen god in the late twelfth month. Southern Song Hangzhou households prepared vegetarian food and malt-sugar beans for the god on the 24th, and jiaoya malt candy was sold in the market (Mengliang lu, scroll 6). In Northern Song Kaifeng, the 24th brought wine and fruit, a paper horse pasted on the stove, and wine lees smeared on its door (Dongjing menghualu, scroll 10). Beijing offerings consisted only of southern sugar, Guandong sugar, sugar cakes, clean water and grass beans (Yanjing suishiji, postscript dated 1900).
At the Little New Year a household offers sweets such as candy, sugar cakes and syrup to the kitchen god before he goes up to Heaven.1,3
The rite falls in the late twelfth month, from the 23rd to 25th depending on the place; Fuzhou has the saying guan san min si qu ti wu. Southern Song Hangzhou households prepared vegetarian food and malt-sugar beans on the 24th (Mengliang lu, scroll 6); Northern Song Kaifeng used wine and fruit and a paper horse on the stove that day (Dongjing menghualu, scroll 10). A Tang account also mentions wine lees smeared on the stove (Nianxia suishiji), but its original text was not checked here.1,2,4
Households set out sweets and clean water. Some smear sweets or wine lees on the stove or the god's image; today some wave candy toward the incense burner. In Northern Song Kaifeng a paper horse was pasted on the stove. Beijing offerings consisted only of southern sugar, Guandong sugar, sugar cakes, clean water and grass beans (Yanjing suishiji).1,3,4
Tradition holds that the kitchen god reports on the household to Heaven, so sweets sweeten or seal his mouth to soften the report. This traditional explanation is not an established fact: the early texts checked do not explicitly state this purpose.1,2,3,4
It is a household rite at the end of the year; the available material gives no figures.1,2,3,4
Legend has it that the stove god was named Zhang Dan and his wife was called Wang Bojia. Chinese Wikipedia says this account goes back to Han-era texts.
Told in: A popular tale, relayed in the Chinese Wikipedia entry on the kitchen god, which traces it to Han-era texts; those texts were not opened here, so this is second-hand.
One telling says a man named Zhang Zhou died in a stove to protect his wife's honor. Chinese Wikipedia says no literary source supports it.
Told in: A folk tale, relayed in the Chinese Wikipedia entry on the kitchen god, which says no literary source supports it.
