Home > Festivals > Cold Food Day

Cold Food Day (寒食節)

Cold Food Day is celebrated 105 days after the winter solstice of previous year. 

When Cold Food Day starts, no one is allowed to start the fire. People eat cold congee and steamed date cakes baked a day before the Cold Food Day.

It's widely believed that Cold Food Day is for memorizing a man called 介子推 of Tsin.  He followed the king for 19 years and experienced lots of difficult moments with the king but when the king got back his kingdom, he rewarded everyone but had forgotten about 介子推.  介子推 was not happy and so he left the king quietly and be a hermit.  When the king noticed what he had done, he tried to invite 介子推 to go back but 介子推 won't.  The king even tried to start a hill fire and hoped that he would come out but 介子推 didn't.  介子推 and his mother died in the fire.  The king was sad and he ordered that there would be no fire in this whole month.

However, some believed that 介子推's story is not the origin of Cold Food Day. It can date back to Chow Dynasty that people worship fire.  In order to give fire a rest, there were rules about no fire.  No fire causes eating cold food.

Cold Food Day first last for one month, then it was shortened to 3 days, then one day.  It is because festivals are often enjoyable and be happy and eating cold food for a month is not nice.  So first there were government officials tried to convince people to eat warm food and then it was slowly abandoned.

Write Your Own Hotel Review -- Earn US$25