About the dumpling, there are several different folk stories explaining the origin of dumpling.
Traditionally, dumpling was called jiaozi which were invented during the era of the Eastern Han (AD 25 - 220) by Zhang Zhongjing who was a great practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. Jiaozi were originally referred to as "tender ears" because they were used to treat frostbitten ears. Zhang Zhongjing was on his way home during wintertime, when he found many common people had frostbitten ears, because they did not have warm clothes and sufficient food. He treated these poor people by stewing lamb, peppers, and some warming medicines in a pot, chopped them, and used them to fill small dough wrappers. He boiled these dumplings and gave them with the broth to his patients, until the coming of the Chinese New Year. In order to celebrate the New Year as well as recovering from frostbitten ears, people imitated Zhang's recipe to make Jiao'er.
At the same time, dumpling look like gold ingots used as currency during the Ming Dynasty, and as the name sounds like the word for the earliest paper money, serving them is believed to bring prosperity.Many families eat these at midnight on Chinese New Year's Eve. Some cooks will even hide a clean coin inside a jiaozi for the lucky to find.
Mostly, dumpling was a symbol of reunion in a family, because when you make the dumpling, the stuffing was wrapped that means the family members who can not come back to home at the year time. the wrapper equals the family and the stuffing equals the family member. That is why Chinese have the dumpling at the Chinese New Year's Eve. In the meantime, dumpling is recognized the best food with an adage in folk " No food will be more delicious than dumplings", you can find different varieties of dumpling restaurant in anywhere of China.
Also, there is no any limit for enjoying, it could be served in breakfast, lunch and dinner, and also be eaten as appetizer, side dish or main course.
For dumplings, there are 3 ways to cook, boiled/steamed/pad fried, in North America, boiled and pan fried dumpling is known everywhere.
Dumpling is important for me because no matter where I go in the world, I could always get dumpling for meal. And I can purchase the fast-frozen dumpling in the supermarket and save it for a long time at home as a very convenient food. Furthermore, the stuffing is variety, no matter what ingredients I want, maybe meat, seafood or vegetarian, it will be found in the market.
