Five-color glutinous rice, commonly known as five-color rice, also known as black rice, green rice or flower rice, is named because glutinous rice is generally black, red, yellow, purple and white. Every year on the third day of the third lunar month or in Tomb-Sweeping Day, people of all ethnic groups in Guangxi generally make five-color glutinous rice. The Zhuang family loves five-color glutinous rice very much and regards it as a symbol of good luck and good harvest.
Every Tomb-Sweeping Day, the third day of March, the eighth day of April (Ox King Festival), Dragon Boat Festival and other traditional folk festivals. Every family of Zhuang people likes to cook five-color glutinous rice, and every family should cook five-color glutinous rice for eating in order to catch up with 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 national and local interests. Family members, friends and lovers often taste five-color glutinous rice, which is naturally particularly delicious.
Five-color glutinous rice is also the mascot of Miao people, indicating that life is like a hundred flowers, symbolizing that people of all ethnic groups are United as glutinous rice balls. The natural pigments of three kinds of leaf juice are used in the battle of heaven and earth, green and black, and the natural pigments boiled from the corolla of yellow rice flowers are used in yellow, and several plant pigments are steamed, that is, five-color glutinous rice.
Origin of five-color glutinous rice
Legend 1:
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.
And every time he brought a big bag of his mother's favorite glutinous rice with him, so that his mother could eat it at any time when 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 to his mother and took away 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. 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 monkeys taking it 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.
Legend 2:
Legend has it that Wei Dagui, a strong man with superior intelligence, was a minister under the local emperor. One year of drought, in order to relieve the sufferings of the people, he invited the local emperor to visit Zhuangxiang personally, and used a trick to save the emperor from the imperial grain. The local tyrant later found out that he had been taken in, regarded Da Gui as a thorn in his side and ordered him to be arrested and brought to justice. The people of Zhuang Township heard about it and sent it to Guangxi to hide in the mountains overnight. If the imperial soldiers can't catch them, let Yamakaji go.
It was the third day of the third lunar month. After the imperial soldiers left, the villagers found Da Gui's body in a big maple tree hole and buried him beside the maple tree with tears in their eyes. And it happened that the emperor was killed by a snake of five colors. Therefore, on March 3rd every year, the Zhuang people dyed glutinous rice in red, yellow, purple and black with plant juice such as maple leaves, steamed it and took it to the mountain for sacrifice.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Five-color glutinous rice