There are many stories about the emergence of green dumplings in history, one says that more than two thousand years ago during the Spring and Autumn Period, the Duke of Jin forcing the meritorious Jie Zi push out of the mountain to be sealed, listening to the words of the villain set fire to the forests of Mianshan Mountain, resulting in the heart of the hermit of the Jie Zi push the last and his mother was buried in the forest fire. Duke Wen of Jin, grief, ordered the anniversary of the death of Jie Zi push in the country strictly prohibit cooking, can only eat cold food, cold food festival thus came. So people "red lotus root and green dumplings for the ancestors", steamed in advance of the green dumplings after the cooling is easy to preserve, but also easy to eat, so it became the best choice for people to pay tribute to their ancestors, fill their stomachs, this custom has been passed down. There is also another legend that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Li Xiu Cheng successfully escaped with the green dumplings made by the villagers. There are many stories to tell, but what is certain is that the custom of eating green dumplings during the Qingming Festival has been around for a long time and has always been very popular.

The green dumplings are called differently in different regions, the Hakka people call it mochi, Zhejiang and its neighboring regions have called it Qingming cake, and called Ai rice fruit, Qingming kuey teow. Although the names and practices of the green dumplings may vary from region to region, they are all made of green glutinous rice dumplings wrapped with various fillings. Mugwort is picked before Ching Ming, when the leaves are green and lush, creating the perfect color for the green dumplings. First blanch the mugwort in a pot, cook it, then pull it out, mash the mugwort to extract the juice, and add the dregs of the mugwort and the juice to the powder to make the dough with a heavier mugwort flavor. If you don't want a heavier flavor of mugwort, you can just add the juice of the ground mugwort, so that the skin of the green dumplings is pure green.

Just as there are sweet and salty dumplings and mooncakes, there are north-south wars, and there are sweet and savory choices for green dumplings. The most traditional would be the sweet-tasting bean paste green dumplings. Roll the dough into long strips, divide it into small, equal portions, and roll them one by one into small balls. When wrapping the dough, use your thumb to make an opening in the dough, scoop a spoonful of red bean paste into it, and then roll it into a round ball, which is the sweet, soft, and sticky bean paste green dumpling. The Hakka people make mochi with a sesame and peanut filling. The more representative fillings for savory green dumplings are egg yolk and meat floss filling, diced bamboo shoots with snow peas, and pickled dukkah filling, etc. These are basically made by adding salted egg yolks or salted meat with ham to create a savory flavor, so meat lovers shouldn't miss them!

As people's needs become more diversified, a variety of Netflix-flavored green dumplings have also come out. Jiangzhe region, the old bakery this year launched a variety of new flavors, such as Shanghai apricot flower building of shredded chicken and bacon dumplings, Shanghai Xinya Cantonese restaurant Q heart milk purple potatoes and meat floss dumplings, Shen Dacheng matcha milk dumplings ...... other things such as quicksand popping beads green dumplings, pickled fish green dumplings. These flavors may seem a bit "strange", but they attract many young people to buy them, and they are willing to stand in long lines just to try these fresh flavors. Recently, the green dumplings are definitely one of the most searched products on Taobao, and because of the development of e-commerce and the innovation of merchants, this year, people from all over the country can taste this Jiangnan characteristics of the Qingming cuisine more easily than ever before.

While it's now easy to buy a variety of flavors of green dumplings, there are still many food lovers who make their own green dumplings at home. They pound the mugwort leaves, knead the dough, pack the filling, and steam it in a steamer basket for about 15 minutes, or longer if it's filled with meat. After steaming, the green color of the green dumplings is bright green, with the fragrance of mugwort, and when you take a bite, the soft and sticky crust wrapped with the hot filling makes it hard to stop thinking about it. However, the green dumplings are delicious and can not be eaten too much, especially the elderly and children should pay attention to the amount of food, after all, the green dumplings are mainly glutinous rice, glutinous rice is a kind of difficult to digest food, eat too much if you will cause too much burden on the digestive system, and may cause gastrointestinal discomforts.

"It's raining at the time of the Qingming Festival, and the people on the road want to break their souls." Even if the weather during Qingming Festival puts people in a bad mood, don't forget that there are still Qingming delicacies represented by green dumplings to save this spring. The healing emerald green color is not limited to the many flavors of red bean fine sand, meat fluffy egg yolk, and cheese runny heart, and it definitely won't disappoint.