Qingming cake is a traditional snack of the Han people in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other Jiangnan areas, and is a food custom during the Qingming Festival.

Qingming cakes are also called Qingming dumplings, cotton vegetable cakes, Qingming fruit, green dumplings, etc.

So, where did Qingming cake come from?

Why do we eat Qingming cakes during Qingming Festival?

Let’s move on.

It is said that this traditional pastry for cold food during the Qingming Dynasty was created in the Song Dynasty and was commonly known as "noodles" at that time. It was not until the Ming and Qing Dynasties that it became officially popular in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

However, when making it among the people, it is advocated that it should be vegetarian and not meat, and fat meat should be excluded, so as to spiritually connect it with the Qingming Festival.

As for what kind of plants to use to reflect the green color, it doesn't matter much. If there is a shortage of Qingming grass, it is not a bad idea to tinker with some vegetable leaves. Although it is suspected of being fraudulent, it is still healthy and green after all.

From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, almost all cotton grass, mugwort or brome grass have medicinal functions.

Especially mugwort, its special fragrance can not only repel mosquitoes, but also was hung by the ancients on the door to ward off evil spirits.

It has the functions of restoring yang, regulating qi and blood, removing dampness and cold, stopping bleeding and relieving fetus, etc., and is affirmed by "Compendium of Materia Medica".

The Qingming Festival is here, and the function of using Qingming cakes to offer sacrifices has long been faded. Instead, it is common to go to bakeries to buy beautifully packaged Qingtuan balls as gifts for relatives and friends.

This is almost like sponge cake and dumplings. Over the years, it has gradually evolved into a fashionable delicacy that can be tried every day.

Taking a bite of the stylish green dumpling, although the taste is good, it just lacks the light grassy taste of the early years.

Legend has it that one year during the Qingming Festival, Chen Taiping, the most powerful general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Li Xiucheng, was hunted down by the Qing soldiers. A nearby farmer who was plowing the fields came forward to help. He disguised Chen Taiping as a farmer and plowed the land with him.

After returning home, when the farmer was thinking about what to bring to Chen Taiping, he stepped on a clump of mugwort and slipped. When he got up, his hands and knees were stained with green.

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He immediately thought about it, picked some mugwort at home, washed it, boiled it, squeezed out the juice, kneaded it into glutinous rice flour, and made rice dumplings.

Then he put the green dumplings in the grass and passed the sentry at the entrance of the village.

Chen Taiping ate the green dumplings and found them fragrant, glutinous and non-sticky to the teeth.

After dark, he bypassed the Qing guard checkpoint and returned to the base camp safely.

Later, Li Xiucheng ordered the Taiping Army to learn to form a Youth League to defend themselves against the enemy.

The custom of eating Youth League spread.

Before the Qingming Festival, families in urban and rural areas of Wenzhou grind glutinous rice flour to make cakes, stuffed with pork, shredded bamboo shoots, etc., or embedded with sweet sugar, commonly known as "Qingming cakes".

In mountainous areas, Qingming grass is used to make cakes.

Qingming grass is Miancai, also called "rice vegetable".

The scientific name is "sage grass", an annual grass.

During the Qingming Festival, the fine white leaves will sprout. People pick the tops of the leaves, wash them and mash them, mix them with glutinous rice flour, stuff them with fresh bamboo shoots, mustard greens, and diced meat, make cakes, steam them and eat them.

Some families collect wild vegetables or grasses such as mian cai, malan head, ramie sprouts, etc. from the fields, cook them and dry them in the sun, then grind them into pieces and make them into cakes.

, then steam it in a rice pot or steamer, commonly known as "artemisia cake".

In Taishun, steamed glutinous rice buns are stuffed with sweet potato leaves or basil and rice flour on the first day, which is called "steamed rice dumplings".

Cotton cabbage is green in color and tough. It is not only delicious, but can be stored for a long time and has a stomach-warming effect.

On the Tomb-Sweeping Day, no fire is raised, and cold food is eaten as food. This is the ancient intention to commemorate Jie Zitui's burning of Mianshan to obtain cold food.