what kind of food do Zhuang compatriots like to make to celebrate the third day of the third lunar month?

Five-colored glutinous rice. Five-color glutinous rice is the most distinctive traditional food in Zhuang area of Guangxi. It is named after its various colors. Every family in Zhuang nationality likes to cook five-color glutinous rice on the third day of the third lunar month, Tomb-Sweeping Day and other traditional folk festivals. The colors of the so-called five-color glutinous rice are black, red, yellow, white and purple.

Five-color glutinous rice, commonly known as five-color rice, also known as black rice, green rice or flowered rice, is named because glutinous rice is generally black, red, yellow, purple and white. It is a traditional food for Buyi and Zhuang people to entertain their guests.

Every traditional folk festival, such as Tomb-Sweeping Day, the third day of the third lunar month, the eighth day of the fourth lunar month (Ox King's Day), Dragon Boat Festival, etc., every family of Zhuang people likes to cook five-color glutinous rice, which is used to drive away the song fair or to worship their ancestors and gods.

This kind of flavor food blends with the activities of offering sacrifices to ancestors and entertaining gods, and is full of ethnic and local interests. Family members, friends and lovers often taste five-color glutinous rice, which is naturally particularly delicious. This custom has a long history. In the Qing Dynasty, the Picture Book of Wuyuan County contained: "On March 3, take maple leaves and soak them in juice to dye rice black, that is, refined rice."

they selected high-quality glutinous rice, collected rattan, yellow flower or gardenia, maple leaf, red and blue, soaked the liquid, mixed with glutinous rice respectively, and then steamed it together, which was not only colorful, but also fragrant and pure, symbolizing a better life. Du Fu once wrote a beautiful sentence for it, "There is no refined rice, which makes my color good". On the eighth day of April, the early rice has been inserted and turned green. People knead it into small groups with five-color glutinous rice, stick it on bamboo branches, insert it in ancestral shrines, and take back a vigorous seedling from the field, wrap it with pumpkin leaves, put it in a bowl, and sacrifice it to the ancestors together, praying for their blessings for a bumper harvest.

Making:

Making five-color glutinous rice is more skillful. Need 35g glutinous rice. Black glutinous rice, that is, using the skin of maple leaves and their tender stems, is mashed in a mortar, slightly air-dried and immersed in a certain amount of water. After soaking for a day and a night, the leaf residue is taken out and filtered to obtain the black dye solution. Black dye juice should be boiled in a pot to 5-6 degrees, and then glutinous rice should be immersed in it.

Yellow dye can be extracted from the fruits and tubers of plants such as yellow flower juice (Buddleja officinalis, called "Huamai" in Zhuang language), gardenia jasminoides Ellis and Dioscorea zingiberensis. Boil yellow flower juice, or mash gardenia jasminoides Ellis and soak it in water to get yellow dye solution, or mash turmeric and mix it with glutinous rice and rub it vigorously to get yellow glutinous rice (it can be steamed directly without soaking).

Red dye and purple dye are made from the same variety of red and blue grass (called gogyaemq in Zhuang language) with different leaves. The leaves are slightly longer and darker, the boiled color is thicker, and the soaked rice becomes purple; The leaves are round, the color is light, the boiled color is light, and the soaked rice becomes bright red.

after extracting the four kinds of juice, put different amounts of rice into them to soak, and then put them in a steamer for about an hour after coloring, so that glutinous rice with five colors (black, red, yellow, purple and white) can be steamed. The five-color glutinous rice made in this way is bright in color, colorful, crystal clear and bright, and it is moist, soft, delicious, mellow and slightly sweet, which is really memorable to eat. The five-color glutinous rice dyed with natural plants is not only beautiful and delicious, but also has certain medicinal value. Red bluegrass has the function of promoting blood circulation. In the Qing Dynasty, Argument on the Class of Lvshantang said: "Red flowers are red and juicy, which can promote blood circulation", and "yellow flower rice" or gardenia has the functions of clearing away heat and cooling blood. The refined rice cooked with maple leaves can strengthen bones and muscles, benefit the stomach, be able to do things and replenish marrow.

Legend:

There is another interesting legend about the origin of five-color glutinous rice. In ancient times, there was a young man named Tenon in Zhuangjia village. His father had already passed away, and he only lived with his mother who was paralyzed in bed. Tenon is very filial to his mother, fearing that she will be bored at home alone. Sometimes she goes with her when she goes up the mountain to cut firewood or plant seedlings in the fields. Every time, he brought a big bag of his mother's favorite glutinous rice with him, so that his mother could eat it whenever she was hungry. This move of Tenon's mother and son was noticed by a monkey on the mountain.

Once, while Tenon was chopping wood on the other side of the mountain, the monkey sneaked up to his mother and snatched a big bag of steaming glutinous rice. Mother couldn't move, but watched the monkey take the glutinous rice. It was like this several times in a row, and Tenon was a little helpless. Looking at his hungry mother, Tenon tugged at the maple leaves around him, thinking about how to prevent the monkeys from taking away the glutinous rice. Suddenly, Tenon found that his hand pinching the maple leaves was stained with black, and immediately had a brainwave. He immediately cut the maple leaves on the tree home, mashed them and soaked them in water to get black juice, and then soaked the glutinous rice in the black juice.

the next day, the black glutinous rice was picked up and cooked, and suddenly a fragrance filled the whole house. Mother shouted in the room, what smells so good! Tenon said excitedly, Dabaa (Dabaa is Zhuang language, meaning mother), this is black glutinous rice, how fragrant and sweet it is! This day is the third day of the third lunar month. In the early morning, Tenon took his mother up the mountain to cut wood. He wrapped black glutinous rice with banana leaves and deliberately showed a little black color. When the monkey saw such a mass of dark things, he thought that Tenon was using some poison to trick it, but he dared not touch it and ran away.

On this day, Tenon ate black glutinous rice, and his mouth was dry and he didn't feel tired. Instead, he felt full of strength and hit more firewood. From then on, Tenon and his mother went up the mountain to cut wood, and they all brought black glutinous rice, so there was no need to worry about the monkeys taking the glutinous rice away. Later, the Zhuang family learned to cook black glutinous rice, and then gradually made yellow, red and purple glutinous rice with gardenia, red and blue grass, which gradually evolved into today's five-color glutinous rice. It has become one of the favorite flavor foods of Zhuang family.