The leaves of dumplings should be boiled. If they are dry, they need to be soaked one night in advance. If they are fresh, they don't need to be soaked. Before wrapping zongzi, boil the leaves, so that the leaves are soft and won't be hard and brittle, and secondly, the green taste of the leaves can be removed.

There are many kinds of zongzi. From the perspective of fillings, there are Beijing jujube zongzi wrapped with dates in the north. In the south, there are many kinds of fillings, such as mung bean, pork belly, red bean paste, eight treasures, ham, mushrooms, egg yolk, etc., among which Guangdong salted meat zongzi and Zhejiang Jiaxing zongzi are the representatives.

The word "Zongzi" was written as "_" (zòng) in ancient times, and the written records related to Zongzi in history probably appeared in Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi in the Han Dynasty, which was interpreted as "reed leaves wrapped in rice". At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the millet was soaked in plant ash water. Because the water contained alkali, the millet was wrapped in leaves to form a quadrangle and cooked, which was called Guangdong Suanshui Zongzi. At the same time, a small number of stuffed zongzi appeared, and the most popular one was pork zongzi.