Many traditional festivals in China are related to food. According to the customs in my hometown, there are: March 3rd black rattan rice dumplings, Dragon Boat Festival rice dumplings, Mid-Autumn moon cakes, winter solstice glutinous rice balls, New Year's cakes, fried dumplings... Maybe in the past, material life was poor, so the holidays were just an excuse to have a big meal and enjoy the delicious food.
The Dragon Boat Festival rice dumplings in my hometown have various flavors: salty rice dumplings are wrapped in pure glutinous rice or mixed with peanuts or mung beans, and the fillings include pork belly, bacon, sausage, dried shrimps, shiitake mushrooms and salted egg yolks. . In addition to these fillings, the most distinctive feature of authentic Taishan meat rice dumplings is the indispensable red olive. Honglan is a Chinese herbal medicine (scientific name is "Red Silk Thread"), which has the functions of clearing the lungs and relieving cough, dispersing blood stasis and stopping bleeding. The leaves of red olives are cut into fine pieces and marinated with the pork belly. When cooked, they can reduce the oiliness of the fatty meat and the greasiness of the glutinous rice. Taishan meat rice dumplings are not wrapped into a flat four-cornered rectangle, but the two corners on the other side are twisted around, so that there is more space in the middle of the rice dumpling to put more fillings. Therefore, Taishan meat rice dumplings are also called twisted angle rice dumplings. .
After five or six hours of steaming, the fat of the pork belly has melted, and the oil has penetrated deeply into the rice. The meat dumplings taste particularly salty and plump. The red olives turn a beautiful red color when ripe and adorn the center of the rice dumplings. The rich fillings make the taste endless aftertaste. Coupled with the fragrance of rice dumpling leaves and the special aroma of red olives, the color, smell and taste of Taishan meat rice dumplings are unforgettable.
The sweet rice dumplings are filled with red bean paste, which is sweet and soft, giving it a different taste. There are also alkaline rice dumplings. The glutinous rice is first soaked in alkaline water, and then steamed. The rice dumplings are golden and bright in color. Because of the sappan wood (also a Chinese medicinal material) inserted in the middle, they have a touch of rose red and a special fragrance. They taste refreshing and flexible. It is delicious with honey, white sugar or ginger-flavored brown sugar syrup.
Making zongzi requires a lot of preparation: tearing water grass (used to trap the zongzi), picking rice, soaking rice, washing zongzi leaves, cutting fillings, cooking red bean paste, etc. Other processes are complicated and require skills, so children cannot help. What children can help with is picking rice. The glutinous rice grown in the fields is usually mixed with sticky rice. Zongzi mixed with sticky rice will have a compromised taste and appearance, so the sticky rice needs to be sorted out. As the Dragon Boat Festival approaches, children are "caught" picking rice whenever they have free time. A large aluminum plate is filled with rice. Pile it into a pile first, pull some out, pick out the sticky rice and put it on one side, and put the clean glutinous rice on the other side. When the rice changes from one pile to three piles and finally to two piles, the picking is over. The rice for making dozens or hundreds of rice dumplings has to be sorted one by one like this, and sometimes I feel dizzy. The wrapped rice dumplings need to be continuously steamed for several hours before they are ready. The adults are busy making the rice dumplings, while the children are waiting patiently, excited and happy. After a long wait, the child was filled with joy when he got a cooked rice dumpling. He hung it on the button on his chest like a treasure and was reluctant to eat it all at once.
When I immigrated to the United States to study in college, I went home for the weekend. It happened to be the Dragon Boat Festival, so I brought a few rice dumplings back to school. My roommate is an African American and is taking Chinese and Asian culture. I gave her one of the rice dumplings to try, hoping to let her experience our traditional Chinese food culture: in addition to dumplings and dumplings, we also have this Kind of wrapping dumpling, rice dumplings. My roommate unwrapped the rice dumpling leaves, took a small bite at the corner of the rice dumpling, tasted it, and swallowed it with a look of confusion on his face. He said "no any flavor" and put away the rice dumpling. Set aside. No matter how I explained "the good stuffing is inside", she would stubbornly wave her hands and shake her head, refusing to take another bite. I watched my roommate throw the meat dumpling into the trash can. I felt sad that my good intentions were not understood, and that the rice dumpling was wasted.
It was an unintentional move by my roommate that suddenly made me understand something. When we were eating zongzi when we were children, adults were worried that the children would not eat the entire zongzi and it would be wasted. They would always coax the children by saying that eating the corners of the zongzi would attract leeches to suck their blood. Children are generally afraid of leeches, so they obediently let adults eat the four corners of the rice dumpling. I was a "smart" child and could easily see through adults' tricks: What leech? It was obviously adults who "tricked" children into eating rice dumplings.
And I am a child with a greedy mouth. If an adult wants to eat my rice dumpling corner, I will definitely cry loudly and never compromise. When I was a child, I was so "smart", so why didn't I understand that adults also like to eat rice dumplings? Why don't they take the whole rice dumpling, but only like to "cheat" the corners of the rice dumpling from children? Why don't they share a rice dumpling equally with the children, but only eat the tasteless corners of the rice dumpling, leaving the center part of the rice dumpling with rich fillings and delicious taste to the children?
A small rice dumpling shows the endless dedication and selfless love of Chinese elders for their children: they only "love" to eat rice dumplings, just like they only "love" to eat fish when eating fish. First, eating meat only "loves" eating fat meat, leaving the best things to the children. And how much careless children can understand the dedication and painstaking efforts of their elders? How much can you give back?