Tasting vegetable rice

People in Nanjing used to take Minor Cold quite seriously, and they still keep a custom of eating vegetable rice to celebrate this solar term. The rice is steamed with aijiaohuang (a kind of green vegetable), sausage and salted duck that are all the specialties in Nanjing.

Vegetable rice. [File photo]

Stocking up for New Year

During Minor Cold, people always start stocking New Year goods, which include Spring Festival couplets, New Year pictures, paper-cuts for window decoration, fire crackers, incense and lanterns.

Eating Laba porridge

Another important traditional food for Minor Cold is Laba porridge. It is made from more than 20 kinds of nuts, cereals and dried fruits. Local people in Beijing often cook Laba porridge on the night of the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month. After one night's slow simmering, all the ingredients melt into the porridge in the morning of the eighth day, becoming a warm delicacy to enjoy on cold days.

Making Chinese traditional herbal medicine

Minor Cold is also the busiest time for doctors and pharmacies of traditional Chinese medicine. Many people need them to prepare new medicines, which will be consumed before the Lunar New Year.