In the old days, dumplings were often eaten in menory of Doctor Zhang Zhongjing. Doctor Zhang was not only a brilliant doctor, able to cure all sorts of diseases, be was also very kind to the poor.
One year the winter was so cold that many people in Zhang Zhongjing's home town of Nanyang, in today's Henan Province, suffered from very painful chilblains. Seeing that his small clinic was no longer able to accommodate the ever increasing number of patients, Zhang asked his brother to put up a tent in the village square.
A large cauldron was placed inside the tent to prepare a decoction of red pepper mixed with other medicinal he
rbs. Doctor Zhang had dumplings stuffed with mutton boiled in this medicinal soup. Every patient got a bowl of the spicy decoction with two dumplings. He had only just invented this mixture, but it worked like a dream: chilblains disappeared in a day or two. Doctor Zhang's mixture soon became a popular recipe throughout the land. When Zhang Zhongjing died, people began to eat dumplings on the day of the Winter Solstice in memory of the kind doctor , and also, perhaps, to prevent or cure chilblains.
