Chapter 28 Dragon Boat Festival · Eating Zongzi

During the Dragon Boat Festival, about nine out of ten families eat zongzi.But the mouth and taste have different tastes, so the same rice dumplings, in terms of packaging methods, have various shapes such as regular triangles, oblique triangles, and shovel heads. Let’s take Peking as an example first!There are really not many people who make zongzi at home during the Dragon Boat Festival, and most of them buy some from the street to meet the occasion.Beiping zongzi is a small triangle, and they are very small in size. Beiping calls glutinous rice Jiangmi, and people who sell zongzi on carts on the street call it "Jiangmi Xiaozao Zongzi".This kind of zongzi should be wrapped tightly, boiled thoroughly but not rotten, the dates are small, the cores are thin, and the ice is cold, so you can enjoy it only when you eat the cold that sticks in your mouth.In addition, the Peking red bean paste is made thick, and most of them are not peeled. It is delicious to make red bean paste buns, but it looks rough and not smooth when wrapped in rice dumplings.People in Peking also like to eat white rice dumplings dipped in sugar or syrup. If you add some rose juice and osmanthus marinade, it will be more refreshing and fragrant, with a pleasant cold fragrance.

There are many styles of making zongzi and all the ingredients are used. They belong to Guangdong zongzi.Sweet rice dumplings include mung bean kernels, lotus seed paste, Sihuang, walnuts, jujube paste, red bean paste, etc., and salty rice dumplings include ham, egg yolk, bacon, barbecued pork, roast chicken, and roast duck.Everyone uses glutinous rice to make zongzi, whichever is more fragrant and sticky, but the gelatin is too thick, and it is afraid that it will be greasy and unpalatable. Therefore, Guangdong food experts pay attention to glutinous rice products from mountainous regions or lean land.There is also a lye rice dumpling in Guangdong, which is made by soaking rice in lye water, which is neither salty nor bland. The rice dumplings are boiled while they are hot and strangled into pieces with silk threads. They are strung together with threads and dried in the sun. Store them, and you can take a few pieces with porridge at any time. Cook and eat together.The jasper is astringent and has a sweet fragrance. It is said that it can clear stomach fire, but rheumatism, whether it is true or not, but it tastes really unique!

There are two types of Taiwanese zongzi: one is vegetable zongzi, which is stuffed with peanut kernels and peanut powder, and several dried fruits; the other is meat zongzi, which is wrapped with fresh pork, chicken and duck meat, egg yolk, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, and shallots. .Taiwanese rice dumplings are very particular about the choice of rice. Generally, they like to use round glutinous rice instead of long glutinous rice.So every time before the Dragon Boat Festival, the market price of Yuannuo and Changnuo varies a lot. It is not because there are rice shops that you know well, or you can’t even buy Yuannuo. This is the reason.Taiwanese zongzi is also a large triangle, with a huge body, even more spectacular than Cantonese zongzi. If you compare Beiping zongzi with Taiwan, they are so insignificant!There is a century-old shop in Tainan City. Its meat dumplings are well-known throughout the province because they are genuine. Many small food shops also call them "Tainan meat dumplings." Who is real and who is fake, only God knows.

Huzhou rice dumplings are not only well-known throughout the country, but also appear in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the United States.There are two types of sweet rice dumplings in Huzhou: the sweet one is fat and fine bean paste. This kind of sweet rice dumplings is the most difficult to make. If you can’t handle the rice close to the bean paste, it will cause the phenomenon of being caught. Therefore, sweet rice dumplings such as bean paste must be made with The net oil nets the bean paste first, so that there will be no problem of being caught.As for the salty rice dumplings, ham and bacon are both good.As long as it is Huzhou zongzi, it must be wrapped with a shovel head, one end is flat and the other is protruding, which can also be said to be the special mark of Huzhou zongzi.Huzhou zongzi is the most particular about fire work, the minced meat and rice are rotten, and the penetration is even. At the same time, the selection of zongzi leaves is also very fine.In particular, the zongzi leaves used for making sweet zongzi are best to use cyan-colored Hsinchu leaves, which have a clear and distant fragrance when eaten.The knotted rope should be tied tightly, otherwise the rice grains will swell when cooked, and the zongzi will not look beautiful when they are deformed.The amount of rice in each bag should be even, and the meat should be tightly wrapped, but not too full, or it will swell when it is full; at the same time, it should be cooked on a high fire, and it will last for two to three hours after cooking.Therefore, it is no coincidence that Huzhou Zongzi is very particular, and it is famous all over the world.

Although Huzhou Zongzi is so famous, if you let the northerners eat it, some people may think that the Zongzi is not salty, and it is rotten and not bone-boned at all.On the other hand, let the southerners eat the northern Jiangmi Xiaozao Zongzi. They may think that it is cold and hard, and it may not be easy to digest after eating it.It can be seen from this that red jujube and calamus have different preferences.There are many kinds of zongzi, but here are the big ones. The Dragon Boat Festival is here, let’s do whatever we like, eat a few of our favorite zongzi, drink some realgar wine, and have a long rainy and sunny Dragon Boat Festival!