What is zongzi?

Zongzi is the festival food of Dragon Boat Festival, which was called "Zongzi" in ancient times. According to legend, it was invented for the sacrifice of Qu Yuan who threw himself into the river, and it is the traditional food with the deepest cultural accumulation in the history of China.

history

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The record of Zongzi in history was first seen in Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi in Han Dynasty. The word "Zongzi" is written as "Yi", and there is "Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xin Fu"? 6? "1 rice part" means "reed leaves cover rice." In terms of rice, it is squeaky. "Shuo Wen"? 6? 1 Ba ":"Hey, astringent. "When a bird flies, it will fold its legs and claws." 6? 1 send rhyme: "Hey, the angle is also. Or jiaozi. "

Zongzi, also known as "crossing toes", was first recorded in the local custom of the Western Jin Dynasty: "On the fifth day of midsummer, Fang Bo is extremely harmonious. Enjoy the corn tortoise scale in Shunde. Note: the end is also the beginning, which means the fifth day of May. Sizhong is Fang Bo. The custom of May 5th is very heavy, just like the solstice in summer. ● (Same as "duck"), Chunfu chicken can be eaten during the summer solstice. First, the first two festivals are one day, then glutinous rice is wrapped with leaves, mixed with millet and cooked with pure ash juice. The second festival is still good. ..... wrapped in glutinous rice, a' glutinous rice' and a' corn millet' cover up the image that Yin and Yang are still wrapped around the package. "

It is clearly recorded in Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in the Ming Dynasty that millet is wrapped in leaves and cooked into food in the shape of sharp horns or palm leaves, so it is called "horn millet" or "zongzi".

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, zongzi were mostly wrapped in glutinous rice, so they were called zongzi instead of millet.

folklore

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Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, people began to eat zongzi, which originated from the saying that people paid tribute to Qu Yuan.

Wu Jun of the Southern Dynasty (467-520) wrote in Continued Harmony: "Qu Yuan died in Miluo on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and the Chu people mourned it. Every day, rice is stored in bamboo tubes and sacrificed in water. During the military construction of Han Dynasty, Changsha returned to Europe. During the day, I suddenly saw a man who called himself Dr. San Lv. He said, "You should see this sacrifice. Very kind. But it is often stolen by the bitter dragon. If there is any benefit today, you can put neem leaves on it and tie it with colored silk. These two things are also afraid of dragons. "Back to him. The world uses five-color silk and neem leaves to make zongzi, which is the legacy of Miluo. "

There is also a saying that people are afraid that Qu Yuan's body will be eaten by fish in the river, so they wrap up Zongzi and throw it into the river to feed the fish.

The view that Zongzi is associated with Qu Yuan is widely circulated because of its romanticism. Zongzi often appears in literati's poems.

Yuan Zhen wrote in "Ten Summer Poems": "The colorful clouds are continuous, and the fragrant white jade beads."

In Song Dynasty, Yang Wuxia wrote in Qi Tianle Dragon Boat Festival: "Spare a few Huang Meiyu. It is noon again. Corn is covered with gold, calamus is full of jade, and the scenery is still beautiful. Shirt Ai Hu. Zhu Fu has more curly hair and red thunder on his arm. Float powder and fragrant cotton, call the fan noon window. "

Zongzi evolution

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In the spring and autumn period, millet was wrapped in water bamboo leaves into horns, which were called "horny millet"; Rice packed in bamboo tubes is sealed and baked, which is called "tube zongzi".

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty: plant ash soaked millet, and because the water contained alkali, the millet was wrapped in leaves into a quadrangle, and cooked to make Cheng Guangdong alkaline zongzi.

Jin Dynasty: Zongzi was officially designated as Dragon Boat Festival food. At this time, in addition to rice, Alpinia oxyphylla was added to make zongzi, and the boiled zongzi was called "educational zongzi".

Southern and Northern Dynasties: Miscellaneous Zongzi appeared. The variety has increased, and the rice is mixed with animal meat, chestnuts, red dates and red beans, and the wrapped zongzi is also exchanged as a gift.

Tang dynasty: the rice used for zongzi is "white as jade", and the shape of zongzi appears conical and rhombic. There is a record of "Da Tang Zongzi" in Japanese literature.

Song Dynasty: "Ai Xiang Zongzi" and "Candied Zongzi" with mugwort leaves. See Su Dongpo's poem "See Yang Meizi in Zongzi". At this time, there were also advertisements for building pavilions and wooden chariots and horses with zongzi, indicating that eating zongzi was very fashionable in the Song Dynasty.

Yuan dynasty: the wrapping material of zongzi changed from wild vegetable leaves to wild vegetable leaves, which broke through the seasonal restriction of wild vegetable leaves.

Ming Dynasty: Zongzi wrapped in reed leaves appeared, and additional materials such as bean paste, pork, pine nuts, dates and walnuts appeared, and the varieties were more colorful.

Qing Dynasty: "Ham Zongzi" appeared.

Now there are thousands of kinds of zongzi, colorful. Nowadays, glutinous rice is usually wrapped in glutinous rice shells, but the connotation and color depend on local specialties and customs. The more famous ones are longan, meat, crystal, lotus seeds, candied fruit, chestnut, spicy, sauerkraut, ham and salted eggs.

The interesting story of zongzi

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The oldest zongzi: Xi 'an honey cold zongzi in Tang Wei Juyuan cookbook. It is characterized by using glutinous rice without stuffing, cooking it, cooling it, drawing it into thin slices with silk thread when eating it, and pouring honey and yellow osmanthus sauce-white sugar pickled osmanthus sauce.

The largest zongzi (for normal consumption): Big meat zongzi is produced in Nanning, Guangxi, each weighing about two kilograms. There are fat pork and mung beans inside, which are soft and moist but not greasy.

The largest zongzi (Guinness Book of Records):

During the Nanning International Folk Song Art Festival and Guangxi (Nanning) Tourism and Food Festival in 2000, the chef of Nanning Mingyuan Xindu Hotel cooked a giant zongzi, which was 3 meters long, 2. 1 m wide and 1.2 m high. After steaming, it reached more than 2,000 kilograms, breaking the record of Zhejiang Zongzi King and becoming the new Guinness World Zongzi King. Jiaozi Wang used more than 20 vats, 550kg glutinous rice, 150kg pork belly, 500kg mung bean, 150kg chestnut, 10kg shrimp skin, 10kg mushroom, 7. 5 kg of jiaozi sauce, wrapped and boiled. In addition, in order to cook this giant jiaozi, the Machinery Factory of Nanning Chemical Industry Group specially made a giant pot with a length of 3. 5m and a width of 2. 6m. * * * More than 3000 people tasted this zongzi.

The smallest zongzi: in Shanghai Chenghuang Temple, Lubo Gallery and Huxin Pavilion. About an inch long, shaped like a pillow, filled with ham, small and fresh; Huting thinks tea and food are great.

Zongzi genre

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Zongzi in the north is mostly simple white rice or mixed with red beans, dates and sugar.

Zongzi in Jiangnan is the most famous and complicated, especially the stuffing, which is ever-changing. A big difference with the northern rice dumplings is that the glutinous rice raw materials of Jiangnan rice dumplings are mostly soaked in soy sauce in advance and steamed with meat stuffing, which is fragrant.

China's Zongzi is the most famous one in Jiaxing, south of the Yangtze River. Jiaxing Zongzi enjoyed a high reputation as early as the Qing Dynasty. The food book records the types and practices of Jiaxing Zongzi: "Bamboo leaves Zongzi": "Take bamboo leaves and wrap them in white glutinous rice Zongzi and cook them, and their tips are like raw water chestnuts."

"Ai Xiang Zongzi": "The glutinous rice is washed clean, wrapped with dates, chestnuts and mung beans, and boiled in a pot."

Mint-flavored Zongzi: "Mint soaked in rice and steamed until soft, mixed with foreign sugar and wrapped in glutinous rice."

"Red bean paste jiaozi": "Red bean paste, sugar, fat oil, cooked in a small jiaozi."

"Lotus Stuffed jiaozi": "Peel the heart, mix the foreign sugar and wrap the steamed buns."

"Songren Zongzi": "Little Zongzi without a purse"

Jiaozi of Ham: "Put jiaozi in the ham. If the ham is Jinhua, the fine fertilizer should be uniform. Also, diced meat can be wrapped in jiaozi. "

Among Jiaxing Zongzi, Wufangzhai is the most famous. Jiaozi, the fresh meat of Jiaxing Wufangzhai, is supplied in all seasons. They divided it into four pieces with chopsticks. Each piece looks like meat, fragrant and moist, crisp and tender, fat and waxy but not greasy. Huzhou's oldest zongzi, good at sand washing and sweet zongzi. It is not uncommon to fill them with bean paste and diced meat. What is rare is that the red bean paste is washed and shelled, and then fried with sugar, cooked lard and rose juice until it is dark and bright. This red bean paste is delicious, moist, fine and smooth.

In Jiangnan, the Dragon Boat Festival is quite grand. This festival with a strong folk flavor is also the time when all kinds of zongzi foods are on the market. I still remember when I was a child, my grandmother would hang a string of miniature zongzi around my neck every holiday. Green zongzi leaves and faint fragrance are happy topics for my friends to get together. Gradually, I understand that zongzi is delicious for no reason. It turns out that zongzi in the south of the Yangtze River can be divided into Cantonese style and Soviet style, just like the classification of moon cakes. Cantonese dumplings include coconut dumplings, lotus dumplings, roasted duck dumplings, lard bean paste dumplings, barbecued egg yolk dumplings and so on. Su style, there are white dumplings, red bean dumplings, fresh meat dumplings, ham dumplings and so on. Later, I went to Jiaxing, which is famous for producing zongzi, only to know that the meat zongzi here is really extraordinary, its fragrance is delicious, and there is no comparable zongzi so far.

I have been to Shaoguan, Guangdong Province for more than 20 years, and I can see the giant zongzi produced. That kind of big square zongzi, as long as you eat one, you will feel full, but in terms of taste, it is still normal.

The older generation said that the rice dumplings wrapped in rice dumplings are exquisite, a kind of specially planted green reed leaves or bamboo rice dumplings with special width and length. If you cook them in zongzi, you can make them fragrant and not go bad easily.

As a traditional food, zongzi produced in various places can be supplied all year round, which is Jiaxing meat zongzi mentioned above. Today, all Chinese and foreign tourists who come to Jiaxing know how to taste new products and buy some strings to take home. In Hongkong, some shops specializing in selling Jiangnan food also supply homemade bacon ham jiaozi or fresh meat jiaozi all the year round. But in terms of taste, they are naturally inferior to local producers in Jiaxing.

The more famous zongzi is:

1 Wufangzhai Zongzi (China famous trademark, China famous trademark, China time-honored brand)

2 Daoxiang Village Zongzi (founded in 1895 (Guangxu 2 1), a Chinese time-honored enterprise)

Holiland Zongzi (famous brand, large pastry chain enterprise)

Sanquan Zongzi (China famous brand, national inspection-free product)

5 Missing Zongzi (China famous brand, national inspection-free product)

6 Likoufu Zongzi (famous brand, owned by Guangzhou Catering Enterprise Group)

7 Laobian Zongzi (founded in 1829, a Chinese time-honored catering enterprise)

8 Miqi Zongzi (1994 Xi 'an, a famous brand)

9 kg of Paradise Zongzi (1996 a famous brand in Tianjin)

10 Kutokuhayashi Zongzi (founded in 1922, a time-honored enterprise in China)