Qingming Festival is the 108th day after the Winter Solstice, so sometimes it is on April 4, sometimes on April 5, or it may be on April 6, it is not fixed.
Qingming Festival turned out to be just a solar term. Take the meaning of clear scenery and clear scenery. After early spring, the weather got better, the rain increased, and it was time for the plants to begin to grow.
Later, it was gradually combined with the Cold Food Festival and Shangsi Festival. Therefore, it gradually turned into a festival integrating the three functions of ancestor worship, tomb sweeping and outing.
Qingming Festival is one of the four traditional Chinese festivals. It has great significance in people's minds like the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival.
In Wenzhou, a custom during the Qingming Festival is to eat Qingming cakes. Every year, my mother would buy something called cotton vegetables, wash them, crush them in a juicer, and knead them with glutinous rice flour. Then wrap it with stuffings such as shredded pork, dried bamboo shoots or pickles, steam it, and the attractive green Qingming pancake comes out.
When I was a child, people didn’t have many snacks to choose from. Qingming cake has become a rare delicacy. When I grow up, eating Qingming cakes becomes a memory, a tradition, and an emotion.
Before, I didn’t know what cotton cabbage looked like. Only later did I find out that the cotton cabbage was actually the sageweed. Every time around the Qingming Festival, the sageweed would bloom with small yellow flowers all over the mountains and fields.
Sage grass is also called sage grass, a plant of the genus Mouse grass in the Asteraceae family. The song is the same as "qu" (qu). It is recorded in "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Qu, it is said that its flowers are as yellow as the color of koji, and it can be eaten with rice flour. Rat's ear, its leaves are said to be like the body of a rat, and it has white hair. Velvet is like jade..."
Because the whole plant is densely covered with thick white cotton wool, it is appropriately called cotton cabbage in Wenzhou. It is best to pick the unflowered buds of cotton vegetables for making Qingming cakes.
Radial wormwood can eliminate phlegm, relieve cough, and has the effect of treating asthma and bronchitis. Therefore, eating Qingming cakes is not only a traditional cultural custom, but also has the effect of keeping people healthy.
In fact, in addition to Wenzhou, there are many places where people also have the habit of eating Qingming cakes, including Anhui, Jiangsu, Fujian and other places. But the materials used to make Qingming cakes are also different. In some places, cottonseed is used, and in other places, mugwort is used.
Mugwort is also a plant of the genus Artemisia in the Asteraceae family. It has antibacterial and antiviral effects. It also has antitussive, expectorant and antiasthmatic effects, and can enhance people's ability to resist diseases.
As for why different places use different plants to make Qingming cakes? Some people speculate that this may also be related to the climate. Around the Qingming Festival in Wenzhou, the wormwood has just sprouted, while the wormwood has grown very tall and is no longer edible. In the Jinhua area, the wormwood has just grown. sprouts. I think this also makes sense.
On Qingming Festival, you must eat Qingming cakes, not only because it is a cultural inheritance, but it also keeps you healthy.