What does the slight cold solar term mean?

Slight cold is the 23rd solar term among the 24 solar terms, the 5th solar term in winter, the end of the second month of the dry calendar and the beginning of the ugly month. "Twenty-four solar terms" explains: "December solar terms, the cold at the beginning of the month is still small, so it is cloudy and half a month." Slight cold refers to the cold air accumulated for a long time, which means that the weather is cold but not extreme. Like great cold, slight summer heat, great summer heat and intense summer heat, it is a solar term indicating temperature change. The slight cold solar term is characterized by cold, but it is not extremely cold. After the winter solstice, the cold air frequently goes south, and the temperature continues to drop, and the temperature drops to the lowest during the slight cold and severe cold in a year.

The weather characteristics of slight cold are: it gets cold, but it is not cold yet. In the slight cold season, the direct point of the sun is still in the southern hemisphere, and the heat in the northern hemisphere is still in a state of loss. The heat absorbed during the day is still less than the heat released at night, so the temperature in the northern hemisphere continues to decrease. The climate in south and north of China is quite different. According to China's long-term meteorological records, the slight cold solar terms in the northern region are colder than the severe cold solar terms; But for most parts of the south, the big cold solar terms are colder than the small ones.

In the slight cold season in Anhui, we have the habit of eating Laba tofu. Laba tofu is one of the traditional foods in Anhui. Because Laba Festival and Xiaohan are not far apart, Anhui people will choose to eat Laba tofu in Xiaohan solar terms. Anhui people will cut tofu into pieces, then dig holes in it to put salt, and finally dry it. It can be eaten raw or stewed with meat.

There is also the habit of eating Laba porridge. Laba porridge is cooked with yellow rice, white rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut, red cowpea and peeled jujube paste. And dyed with red peach kernels, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, white sugar, brown sugar and grapes. All the above foods are sweet and warm, and have the effects of regulating the spleen and stomach, invigorating the middle energizer, invigorating qi and nourishing blood, expelling cold and strengthening the body, promoting fluid production and quenching thirst. The ancients in China called porridge rice the first tonic in the world, and thought that eating porridge could prolong life. Li Shizhen said in Compendium of Materia Medica that porridge can "replenish qi and promote fluid production, tonify spleen and stomach, and treat deficiency cold". Zhang Lei's "The Story of Porridge" also said: "Eating a big bowl of porridge every day is empty on an empty stomach, and the grain will be necessary. The tonic is not refined, and it is very soft and greasy, which is in line with the stomach."