Chapter 54 Chinese Zongzi

Chinese people are best at expressing commemoration through food.So many festivals are inextricably linked with specific foods.For example, mooncakes are eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tang Yuan during the Lantern Festival, rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival, and even the most personal festival—birthday—eating a bowl of longevity noodles.The Chinese are the nation with the most delicious food. Chinese cooking is world-renowned, and only Chinese dare to elevate food to the realm of culture—and are proud of their unique food culture.Let me just give you an example: a small zongzi can also contain a rich cultural heritage - this statement is not an exaggeration at all.

Zongzi is the only offering for the Dragon Boat Festival.The Dragon Boat Festival is dedicated to commemorating a great poet.It is said that after Qu Yuan sank in the Miluo River, the people along the bank wrapped glutinous rice in reed leaves (or calamus?) and threw them into the river to feed the fish, lest they peck the poet's body out of hunger. memorial service.This custom has spread to all parts of the country and has lasted for nearly two thousand years.The great poet over two thousand years old lives in the palace of water and in the blood of the whole nation.Yu Guangzhong from Taiwan said: "The upper reaches of my blue ink is the Miluo River." In 1995, I made a special trip to visit Qu Yuan's hometown and wrote a note: "Zigui is a small wharf in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. We will admit that it is also a small wharf in Chinese history. Just as Florence gave birth to Dante, this small and exquisite mountain city has also contributed a heavyweight great poet to the world. For this alone, Zigui should also be under the spotlight. Wear the sacred laurel crown carved with gold and jade. However, Zigui does not. Zigui lives by the water in a plain way. Celebrate the festival for yourself. And the whole of China is celebrating a person who was born in Zigui. Zigui is indeed blessed."

Zongzi is undoubtedly a blessed food.It is the protagonist of a poet's festival, entrusting the national memory of a great poet from generation to generation-can you say that it has no cultural flavor?The taste of allusions cannot be concealed by the fragrance of reed leaves and the sweetness of glutinous rice.Imagining our ancestors wrapping this special tribute with their own solemn expressions under the oil lamp, expressing the same mood with the same gestures—I almost doubt that the zongzi displayed in front of me today also has their fingerprints left behind.Oh, the ancient zongzi, ups and downs in the river of time, facing it we are eternal children.

Now we don’t need to make zongzi with our own hands. Every Dragon Boat Festival, there are zongzi produced by manufacturers in the store for sale. It is estimated that they are still handmade, but I am worried that one day, zongzi will also appear on the assembly line of the machine.In an industrial society, everything is simplified—including human memorials.People also become lazy.We gradually forgot how to make zongzi.If you don’t believe me, ask school-age teenagers. They can make paper airplanes and play computer games, but they definitely don’t know how to make a zongzi with edges and corners.

It wasn't like that when we were kids.A few days before the Dragon Boat Festival, fresh reed leaves were bought, rinsed in a large basin, and then the whole family sat around the basin and made zongzi lively - this scene itself was full of festive atmosphere.The straight reed leaves are rolled into sharp tubes, stuffed into washed white glutinous rice, and then wrapped into ingots, tied with fine hemp ropes, and a heavy zongzi is born in the palm of your hand.Boil a bunch of them in a water pot, and the whole room is filled with the indescribable fragrance of reed leaves.It can be said that half of the real fun of eating zongzi has been realized in advance in the process of making zongzi.It was a poor era. The reed leaves were used once, but they were reluctant to throw them away. They continued to be put back into the basin for rinsing, so that they could be wrapped for another round, until they turned yellow like rags and no longer had any plant aroma.Cook a pot of zongzi, only a few of which are mixed with red beans, red dates or ham, so picking them up has the nature of drawing lots, adding a bit of loss or surprise to test luck.A pair of small scissors is essential for eating zongzi, specially used to cut the knots that bind zongzi. It was not until many years later that I poetically thought that this is a ribbon-cutting festival for the soul.It was not until today that I realized the wealth at that time—that simple joy and simple sense of happiness cannot be regained.

I attended a banquet today, and the snacks included included a rice dumpling, which was really pretty on a white porcelain plate.After I unwrapped it and ate it, I suddenly discovered something, which made me feel a little disgusted: the brown rice was actually tied with a thin white plastic rope (which is commonly used for binding books or bags in our daily life).My palate was immediately filled with the smell of plastic and industrial society.Can you say that this thin plastic rope is not a big spoiler?After careful observation, I found that the zongzi sold in the store were also like this.I refuse to eat rice dumplings tied with plastic ropes.Maybe I'm being overly sensitive (it doesn't necessarily have a real smell, it's just a psychological effect), or overly picky (where can I find that rustic oily hemp thread now), but I don't want to spoil The impression of Zongzi can be called a classic created by ordinary people.Or to put it more exaggeratedly, even though the times have changed, I try to maintain the tradition and dignity of zongzi.This is an unforgivable failure: the abused plastic rope is incompatible with the rustic reed leaves, just like writing poetry on the computer, I feel equally awkward.