Beginning of Summer Food

“立夏吃了蛋，热天不疰夏。” Eating eggs at Beginning of Summer is one of the most widespread customs of the solar term. Folk tradition explains its origin through a legend of the goddess Nüwa: she told the people that every year on the day of Beginning of Summer, hanging cooked chicken, duck, or goose eggs against a child’s chest would help prevent *zhuxia*. 《后汉书·祭祀中》 records that on Beginning of Summer, the emperor would lead officials and the people to the southern suburbs to perform a ceremony welcoming summer, during which the emperor and common people ate eggs together and prayed for a good harvest in the coming season. The ancients also regarded the smooth, rounded shape of an egg as a symbol of completeness and fulfillment, and eating eggs on this day therefore became a way to pray for peace throughout the summer.

Lixia Eggs are generally made with chicken or duck eggs. Traditionally, they are boiled together with tea leaves or walnut shells, which gradually stain the shells reddish brown. Tea leaves or walnut shells are first placed in the pot, followed by salt, light soy sauce, and other seasonings. Once the eggs are cooked, their shells are gently cracked and the eggs are soaked overnight so the flavors can penetrate. Beginning of Summer usually falls in the fourth lunar month, when the saying “四月鸡蛋贱如菜”—in the fourth month eggs are as cheap as vegetables—was commonly heard. People would cook eggs in leftover “Seven-Family Tea,” creating an early form of tea egg. Later, the method became more elaborate, with fennel, meat braising liquid, cinnamon, and minced ginger added to the tea.

Lixia Eggs carry the auspicious meaning of praying for peace and strengthening the body. Folk sayings include “立夏吃了蛋，热天不疰夏” and “立夏吃蛋，石头都踩烂”, both expressing confidence in the vigor believed to come from eating eggs at the start of summer. The custom has continued to the present day, embodying the wish to remain healthy, safe, and strong throughout the hot months.

Eating Lixia Rice is a long-standing Beginning of Summer tradition. In earlier times, rural households mixed five kinds of beans—red beans, soybeans, black beans, green soybeans, and mung beans—with white japonica rice and cooked them together as “Five-Color Rice.” Later, the dish evolved into glutinous rice cooked with broad beans and cured pork and came to be known as Lixia Rice, carrying the meaning of welcoming summer and tasting the new harvest.

On the day before Beginning of Summer, children would go from house to house asking neighboring families for a bowl of rice, a custom known as “兜夏夏米.” They might dig up some bamboo shoots and even “steal” a few broad beans and garlic shoots. On Beginning of Summer itself, the gathered rice and ingredients were cooked outdoors, with green plums, cherries, and other seasonal foods placed on top. The finished rice was then shared with the families who had contributed ingredients, each receiving a small bowl. Folk belief held that eating it could help children avoid heatstroke.

The custom is especially popular around Ningbo in Zhejiang. Traditionally, Five-Color Rice was prepared from red beans, soybeans, mung beans, black beans, green soybeans, and white japonica rice. Over time, local people preserved the custom while changing the ingredients, using broad beans, peas, bamboo shoots, shepherd’s purse, cured pork, and other foods to make modern Lixia Rice. It is also called Five-Grain Rice, and is often made from rice steamed together with broad beans, peas, bamboo shoots, and cured pork. Other variations include Wumi Rice and pea rice.

Traditional method: mix the collected rice with five-colored beans, add seasonal vegetables such as thunder bamboo shoots and broad beans, and simmer outdoors over a wood-fired stove. In some regions, bamboo tubes are used as cooking vessels to add fragrance. Modern variations include glutinous rice with cured pork and Cantonese-style sausage fried rice, with ingredients expanded to include braised pork, spring bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and more.

Lixia Rice carries wishes for abundant grain and good health. The five colors of beans correspond symbolically to the five grains and thus represent harvest and plenty. Folk tradition holds that children who eat Lixia Rice can strengthen their bodies and resist summer heat, an idea reflected in the saying “千补万补，不及立夏一补”—a thousand tonics are not as valuable as one replenishment at Beginning of Summer. Ingredients such as thunder bamboo shoots, peas, broad beans, and amaranth also reinforce the association with 五谷丰登, a bumper harvest, while eating Five-Color Rice is also said to symbolize health throughout the year.

In earlier times, people observed the custom of “tasting three fresh delicacies at Beginning of Summer.” The exact composition of these “three fresh” foods varied throughout Jiangnan. In Suzhou, the saying “立夏见三新” referred to three newly available seasonal foods—cherries, green plums, and wheat—which were used in ancestral offerings. In Changshu, the foods tasted at this time were even more abundant, with the expression “nine meats and thirteen vegetables.” The “nine meats” included crucian carp, salted eggs, river snails, prepared chicken, cured fresh meat, braised shrimp, and cherry-flavored pork, while the “thirteen vegetables” included cherries, plums, young wheat, bamboo shoots, broad beans, wild shoots, peas, cucumbers, stem lettuce, clover greens, radishes, roses, and preserved eggs. There was also a traditional trio of new foods consisting of cherries, green plums, and shad.

The central meaning of “tasting the Three Fresh Delicacies” is welcoming summer, tasting newly available foods, and giving thanks to nature. By eating fresh seasonal produce as it first comes into maturity, people greet the arrival of summer and express gratitude for the gifts of the natural world. Broad beans carry the auspicious symbolism of “发”, flourishing and prosperity, while fresh fruits such as cherries and loquats help replenish fluids and nutrients lost in the summer heat.

Lixia Soup is a festive food traditionally eaten on Beginning of Summer. Across broad areas of southern China, from Yunnan to Jiangnan, there is a custom of eating it on this day. Lixia Guo is made by steaming rice, kneading it into a soft mass, rolling it into small dumplings, then cooking them together with bean sprouts, dried tofu, dried shrimp, peas, and other ingredients. The resulting dish is also called Lixia Soup. Tradition holds that eating it symbolizes sending off spring and welcoming summer.

Methods vary by region, but most versions rely on rice flour and seasonal vegetables, and the finished dish generally has a thick, soup-like consistency. Rice is steamed, kneaded until soft, shaped into small dumplings, then cooked together with various seasonal ingredients.

Lixia Soup embodies the meaning of bidding farewell to spring and welcoming summer. A single bowl serves both as a farewell to one season and a greeting to the next.

At Beginning of Summer, households in Leiyang, Hunan, traditionally cook Lixia Porridge. It is a local seasonal specialty made primarily from rice and simmered together with more than ten ingredients, including lean meat, glutinous rice balls, snow peas, and chives.

Lixia Porridge is cooked by adding more than ten supplementary ingredients—including lean pork, vermicelli, glutinous rice balls, red dates, pork offal, dried bamboo shoots, peas, bean sprouts, and others—to rice and simmering the mixture into a fragrant porridge.

Lixia Porridge carries folk meanings of praying for a good harvest and passing through summer in peace. A single bowl gathers the richness of many ingredients and symbolizes both abundance and well-being.

In Ningbo, eating “Leg-Bone Bamboo Shoots” is one of the most distinctive customs of Beginning of Summer. The arrival of the season also marks the beginning of intense agricultural labor, so people naturally hope to have “strong leg bones,” meaning a healthy and vigorous body. Eating bamboo shoots resembling the bones of the legs therefore became a symbolic prayer for health. A local saying goes: “立夏吃脚骨笋，一年脚骨健健过。” Zhou Zuoren also wrote about the customs of weighing people and eating Strong-Leg Bamboo Shoots at Beginning of Summer in 《儿童杂事诗·立夏》.

A bowl of bamboo shoots is considered indispensable on the Beginning of Summer table. By this time, large bamboo shoots have already gone out of season, so people eat small shoots roughly the thickness of a thumb. Most are wild mountain shoots, long and slender like bones, and they came to symbolize the hope that farmers who ate them would have strong, powerful legs. Hence the name Leg-Bone Bamboo Shoots.

Villagers traditionally use yellow-stem bamboo shoots and cut them into sections about five centimeters long so they resemble leg bones. Whether one uses traditional black bamboo shoots, wild mountain shoots, or the more common thunder bamboo shoots, the key lies in the shape. The shoots are split and flattened, then cut into sections about four centimeters long to resemble bones. To ensure “strong leg bones,” diners are expected to choose two shoots of similar thickness and eat them together in a single bite.

Leg-Bone Bamboo Shoots express the wish for good health and strong legs. With the beginning of the busy agricultural season, people hope for strength in their limbs and a healthy body; eating bamboo shoots shaped like bones becomes a symbolic expression of that desire.

Rural eastern Zhejiang preserves a custom of eating Seven-Family Porridge at Beginning of Summer. Farming households exchange beans and rice with their neighbors, combine them with brown sugar, and cook everything together into one large pot of porridge. The dish takes its name from the idea that rice is gathered from seven neighboring households and combined with assorted beans and brown sugar before being shared by the community.

There is also a custom of drinking “Seven-Family Tea.” Each household brings newly roasted tea leaves, which are mixed together and brewed into one large pot for everyone to drink. In Hangzhou, on Beginning of Summer, people prepare fresh tea along with fruit and pastries, then exchange tea and gifts among relatives and neighbors. This practice is known as “drinking Seven-Family Tea at Beginning of Summer.”

The central meaning of Seven-Family Porridge is neighborhood solidarity and communal harmony. Tradition holds that those who eat the porridge will live peacefully with their neighbors and work together in summer plowing and planting. This ritualized form of communal eating was intended to unite the village as everyone prepared for the summer harvest. In southern Fujian, households also cook noodles with red fermented rice lees. Because the lees are red, an auspicious color, and because fermentation suggests growth and expansion, the dish symbolizes prosperity and wealth.

Wumi Rice is another major food of Beginning of Summer. In the Banshan area, many households become busy making black glutinous rice on this day. Wumi Rice is a purple-black glutinous rice prepared by cooking rice with juice extracted from the leaves of a wild shrub known as the Wufan tree.

According to folk belief, eating Wumi Rice at Beginning of Summer prevents *zhuxia*, dispels wind and toxins, and keeps dark mosquitoes from biting. It is also said that those who eat black glutinous rice on this day are less likely to suffer heatstroke or mosquito bites during the summer.

The Wufan leaves are first pounded and soaked in cold water. After the plant matter is strained out, washed glutinous rice is soaked in the dark leaf juice until the grains absorb the color and turn black. The rice is then steamed in an iron pot and finally sprinkled with white sugar.

Wumi Rice carries the wish to dispel harmful influences, resist summer heat, and avoid mosquitoes. Its deep black color is regarded in folk belief as possessing a special protective quality.

Some regions preserve the custom of drinking tea at Beginning of Summer. People believe that drinking Lixia Tea can dispel wind, ward off harmful influences, and help protect one’s health throughout the summer. In Hangzhou, people traditionally prepare new tea on this day, set out fruit and pastries, and exchange tea and gifts with relatives and neighbors.

Lixia Tea carries auspicious wishes for dispelling wind, warding off harmful influences, and preserving health. A cup of Lixia Tea expresses the hope of remaining healthy through the entire summer.