Read: It is said that the Chinese food culture is profound, so the history of each festival has a corresponding exclusive food culture, take the Qingming Festival, on this day, people generally want to eat cold food to celebrate the festival, especially in the south of the Yangtze River, the green ball is its traditional snacks, but do you know why Qingming to eat green dumplings, here we look at the significance of eating Qingming dumplings.
Why eat green dumplings in Qingming
1, the old system of banning fire
Qingming Festival to eat cold food originated from the old system of banning fire in the Zhou Dynasty. According to the "Rites of Zhou" records, at that time, there was "in the middle of spring to the Wooden Duo follow the fire ban in the country" of the regulations, so the people out of cooking, "cold food for three days". During the cold food, that is, one or two days before Weiming, but also specific for the "cold day festival".
That is, during the Qingming Festival can not make a fire, this time can only be prepared in advance cold food, such as Qingming fruit green dumplings is one of the very popular food.
2, symbolizing hope and life
Qingming Festival, also known as the Cold Food Festival, the main cold food festival is the family ban on smoking and eating cold food, in ancient times this is a kind of transition ceremony to leave the old and welcome the new, symbolizing the new hope, new life. In addition, the Qingming Festival to eat cold food there is a "thanksgiving" meaning, emphasizing the "past" of nostalgia and gratitude.
3, the cultural heritage
Now the green dumplings may be used as the function of tomb-sweeping rituals gradually faded, and more people use as a snack. Eating cold food at Qingming Festival is also a kind of cultural inheritance and development, will "eat" up to "culture", but also to better promote our traditional culture, so that the Chinese culture is flowing in every corner of the world.
What is green dumplings
Green dumplings, as the name implies, is a kind of green dumplings, produced in the south of the Yangtze River region, Zhejiang as the center of the radial popularity in the south of the Yangtze River region, the main material for the seasonal weeds, glutinous rice flour, stuffing material, the collection of weeds is often based on the mugwort, the mugwort crushed and beaten with the juice of the green mugwort, and then glutinous rice flour and the juice of the clear mugwort Then the glutinous rice flour and the clear wormwood juice are mixed and pounded, and then kneaded evenly into a powdered dough. The filling is then added and steamed, and the dumplings are brushed with a layer of oil before cooking to make them look shiny. The development of the fillings for the dumplings is also very contemporary. In the past, the fillings were made of bean paste, sugar, or salted meat; now, in order to meet the development of the times, the fillings of the dumplings appeared fruit fillings, what blueberry flavor, strawberry flavor, and even chocolate flavor and so on.
Legends of Qingming Festival
Legends of Qingming Festival:
Legends of Qingming Festival, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Li Xiu-cheng powerful general Chen Taiping was pursued by the Qing soldiers, a farmer nearby plowing field to help Chen Taiping disguised as a farmer look like, plowing the land with himself. The Qing soldiers did not stop at Chen Taiping's capture, so they set up guards in the village, and every person who left the village was inspected to prevent them from bringing food to Chen Taiping.
After returning home, the farmer was thinking about what to bring to Chen Taiping to eat, out of the door, a foot on a clump of mugwort, slipped and fell, climbed up only to see the hands, knees are stained with green color. He was immediately on the mind, and quickly picked some mugwort home to wash and boil squeeze juice, kneaded into the glutinous rice flour, made a rice ball. Then put the green dumplings in the grass, mixing with the sentries at the entrance of the village.
Chen Taiping ate the green dumplings and found them fragrant and sticky and not sticky. After dark, he bypassed the Qing sentries and returned safely to the base camp. Later, Li Xiu Cheng ordered the Taiping army to learn how to make green dumplings to protect themselves from the enemy. The custom of eating green dumplings was then spread.
In addition, there is a legend of eating green dumplings at Qingming.
Legend of green dumplings II:
About the custom of eating green dumplings at Qingming Festival, the Chinese Folk Literature Collection has been published.
Once upon a time there was a young man named Jinlan. His father died, and he relied on his mother to spin and weave at home. Jinlan grew up arrogant and lazy, but also scolded his mother. But the imperial court ordered him to be executed for deserting his fields, so he had to go to his family's ancestral fields to work.
Jinlan overheard the scene of a mother sheep breastfeeding her cubs in the field, and came to his senses, determined to repay his mother for her kindness. He took the initiative to welcome his mother when she came with a bamboo basket to deliver food. The mother mistakenly thought that she was late in delivering the food and would be scolded by her son, so she could not think of anything else to do and threw herself into the pond. Jinlan immediately jumped into the pond, but only touched a plank. He took the plank home and enshrined it in front of the hall. It is said that this is how the tablet came to be.
In honor of his mother, he picked back the weed Mianqing, which grows in the place where she put her rice basket, and made it into bitter cakes. The story goes on to say that this is the day when the young man comes to his senses, so he calls it Qingming. Every year, he would bring the bitter cakes to the roadside near the watering hole to pay homage. Later generations called it visiting the grave.
The symbolism of eating green dumplings on Qingming Festival is to honor the ancestors and reunion.
Qingming Festival eating green dumplings in the South is more common, and eat green dumplings like its name, meaning reunion, but also to commemorate the ancestors, expressed their feelings of remembrance, in addition, the green dumplings is a kind of nutritious value of the pastry, containing vitamins, dietary fiber, starch and other nutrients, moderate consumption, can supplement the human body nutrients to improve their own immune system.
The way to make green dumplings
The traditional way to make green dumplings is to make the green juice first, which is made from young ayurveda, wheatgrass, and green vegetables. The green juice is mixed into the hot glutinous rice flour and kneaded into a green dough, and then picked into each weighing about fifty or sixty grams of small dough, one by one, flattened, wrapped into the bean paste filling and other fillings, closed the mouth and rolled into a ball, that is, into the green dough billet. The cage is covered with a wet cloth, put in the green dumpling blanks, steam on the pot for about 15 minutes until cooked, and then on the green dumplings can be brushed with oil. In addition to the traditional green dumplings, there are also many other flavors available in the market, such as marjoram, meat floss, egg yolk, fruit, assorted, taro green dumplings, and so on.
Precautions for eating green dumplings
First of all, you need to control the amount of green dumplings you eat. The main ingredient is glutinous rice flour, which can be regarded as a staple food, and the calorie and fat content varies depending on the filling. Therefore, you should not consume them as a substitute for your favorite food. For some of them (e.g., meatballs and egg yolks), the fat content is high and the calorie content is also high, so they should be consumed in limited quantities.
Secondly, there are people who are not suitable for green dumplings. The green dough is made of glutinous rice flour, people usually cold food, sticky soft glutinous rice cold texture becomes hard, more difficult to digest (if and fat high food with food is more difficult to digest). People with indigestion and insufficient gastric motility should control the quantity of green dumplings they eat and eat less each time. Since glutinous food can stimulate stomach acid, green dumplings are also not suitable for people with excessive stomach acid and gastric ulcers. In addition, green dumplings are not suitable for diabetics. Glutinous rice flour has a higher glycemic index than white sugar, even without sugar, eating it is just as detrimental to blood sugar control, so diabetics should be very careful.