Text / Tamsui Spring The Spring Festival is a festival for Chinese family reunions. It is the most solemn and festive. Even the words and deeds will become a sign of the year. People are naturally very particular about their food choices.

In addition to seafood and meat, Fuzhou people eat a few plain green vegetables during the Chinese New Year, and wild rice is one of them.

Wild rice was called Diaohu and Qing wild rice in ancient times. Before the Tang and Song Dynasties, most people ate wild rice. The "Book of Rites of Zhou" listed wild rice as one of the six cereals "rice, millet, millet, beam, wheat and wild rice".

This shows the importance of wild rice as a food crop.

The rice cooked with wild rice is called "diaohu rice". It is fragrant, soft and glutinous, very delicious and highly praised by many people.

Song Yu wrote in his "Feng Fu": "The master's daughter cooks carvings of Hu's rice and cooks dew and sunflower soup for her ministers."

Especially in the Tang Dynasty, wild rice was a good meal for entertaining guests.

"I stayed under the five pine trees, lonely and joyless. The Tian family had a hard time in autumn, and the neighbor girl was cold at night. I knelt down to eat the carved rice, and the moonlight shone on the plain plate. It made me feel ashamed, and I couldn't eat after three thanksgivings." This is Li Bai's stay in Anhui.

A poem written by the owner of the old farmhouse at the foot of Wusong Mountain in Tongling after being treated with wild rice.

In fact, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, people were surprised to find that some wild rice plants did not ear due to infection with smut fungus, but the stems continued to expand and gradually grew into fat, spindle-shaped stems. In ancient times, they were called "wild wild rice plants".

At that time, people tried to use wild rice to satisfy their hunger, and found it quite delicious.

Later, farmers removed the "flowering wild rice plants" that could produce seeds in order to obtain more wild rice plants. By the Song Dynasty, such artificial selection had been completed on a large scale.

Wild rice has become a common vegetable for us today, while its predecessor, wild rice, has been slowly forgotten in the wilderness.

The improved wild rice was transformed into an aquatic vegetable with a unique flavor. Because its white buds are like bamboo shoots and as tender as jade, later generations called it wild rice.

The climate in the south of the Yangtze River is warm and humid with abundant water, which is suitable for the growth of wild rice.

Even at the beginning of spring, there are still fresh and tender wild rice on the market, so wild rice has become an unforgettable delicacy for people in Jiangnan.

Mr. Lu Xun wrote in the introduction to "Morning Blossoms Plucked at Dusk": "For a while, I repeatedly recalled the fruits and vegetables I ate in my hometown when I was a child: water chestnuts, mangosteen, wild rice, and cantaloupe. All of these are extremely delicious.

Delicious and delicious; they all once made me homesick." Duan Yu, the prince of Dali in Jin Yong's novel "The Eight Parts of the Dragon", is said to have eaten all kinds of delicacies.

But I also fell in love with the wild rice from Jiangnan.

"Wild rice shrimps and Longjing tea leaves and chicken are all delicious and refreshing. The fish, shrimp and meat are mixed with fresh petals and fruits. They are beautiful in color and have their own natural fragrance." But Mr. Lu Xun and Jin Daxia are not the only ones who like wild rice, according to "Shishuoxinyu"

"There is such a record in it: "Zhang Han, a literary giant of the Western Jin Dynasty, was an official in Luoyang, the capital. When autumn came, he suddenly thought of wild vegetables, water shield soup and seabass in his hometown, and he felt homesick. He immediately resigned from his post to the King of Qi and returned home.

Go to my hometown in Suzhou".

This is also an allusion to the idiom "Thinking of Water Shield Perch".

That wild vegetable is wild rice.

He would rather resign for the sake of the delicious food in his hometown. Such an open-minded attitude also made Li Bai admire him and wrote the famous line "When you don't see Zhang Han in Wuzhong, he is called Dasheng, and the autumn wind suddenly reminds him of his journey to the east of the Yangtze River."

When the wild rice is freshly broken from the field, it still has a little dew on it.

Peeling off the layers of pampas grass-like green clothes, a smooth body is revealed, as tender as gelatin. It is really pure and lovely, and it makes people feel a little happy just looking at it. Some people call it "beautiful legs" because of this, although it feels like

There is some ambiguity in the text, but the image is also appropriate.

The Sanzhi area in Taiwan holds a "Beauty Legs Festival" every year. For those who don't know what's going on, at first glance, they might think it has something to do with Sister Zhiling, who was as stunning as a hibiscus during this year's Spring Festival Gala. You probably wouldn't have thought of it even if you thought about it.

This is a celebration of the wild rice harvest.

This reminds me of Tang Xuanzong's prosperous Tang Dynasty. He used "warm and soft freshly peeled chicken heads, which are as smooth as stuffed with crispy meat."

This fragrant poem depicting a royal concubine taking a bath is used to describe fresh chicken head rice.

It seems that associating food with beauty is not the exclusive property of one person. Everyone from the emperor to the common people seems to have this hobby.

Indeed, you have to admire the Chinese people's super imagination in this regard, but in this way, it is not clear whether it is appetite or lust that is satisfied.

It is said that "beautiful women have been like famous generals since ancient times, and they are not allowed to grow old in the world", and the same is true for water bamboo shoots.

Since they have the nickname of "beautiful legs", they naturally have a constant connection with beauty.

Although she is beautiful and delicious, her youthful beauty is short-lived and she will become old and yellow in a few days.

When choosing, you should keep your eyes open. Don't be fooled by the jade bodies lying around. You must carefully observe its roots. If there are black spots, it will not taste good. Just like a beautiful woman, her appearance will fade with age and she will be disliked by others.

"Beauty Legs" can be paired with various ingredients. Whether steamed, stir-fried, stewed, boiled or simmered, they are smooth and delicious. If combined with chicken, duck, bacon, etc., the cooked dishes will be even more delicious and fragrant.

It tastes very meaty.

For those who love meat, wild rice is the greenest gift from nature.

In Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, wild rice can not only be eaten raw and cold, but can also be pickled in sauce.

Especially the cold dishes and soups are fresh and elegant, with a watery flavor.

If you are lucky enough to taste the first crop of fresh wild rice from Taihu Lake in Wuxi, let alone the taste. Whether eaten raw or stir-fried, it is tender, smooth, crispy and sweet. It is truly the best among vegetables.

In Fuzhou, whether it is a high-end restaurant or a home kitchen, in addition to braised wild rice with lees oil, fried shredded pork with wild rice is also common.