The green color of Qingming Gourmet Youth League was originally taken from plants.

The green color of "Youth League" was originally taken from green plants, such as wormwood, mucro grass, Hu-cai, and rat-weed. It is best to use wormwood before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, because the leaves of wormwood are tender and green. When making "green balls", green plants such as tender leaves of wormwood should be put into a cauldron and steamed with lime, then the lime water should be removed to make "green slurry", then the "green slurry" should be kneaded with glutinous rice flour to make a green dough embryo, and finally the green dough can be made by stuffing and kneading into balls.

"Qing Tuan" is a special food, also called "Ai Tuan" and "Qing Ming Guo", which is mainly popular in southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. According to textual research, "Youth League" was once a sacrifice used to worship ancestors in Tomb-Sweeping Day, which originated in the Tang Dynasty. After more than 1 years of development, the shape of "Youth League" has not changed much, but the application scene has changed from offering sacrifices to a special snack in people's daily life.

Historical origin of the Youth League

According to research, the name of the Youth League began in the Tang Dynasty. Up to now, almost every family in the south of the Yangtze River steamed the Youth League every Qingming Festival. Although the shape of the Youth League has remained unchanged for thousands of years, people should try something new now, and the function of the Youth League as a sacrifice is gradually weakening.

According to legend, chefs are forbidden to smoke in the Hundred Five-Year Plan, and the red lotus root youth league is sacrificed first. This poem "Wumen Zhuzhi Ci" says that people eat cold food youth league in Tomb-Sweeping Day and sacrifice red lotus root and youth league to their ancestors. The "Hundred Five-Year Plan" means that 15 days after the winter solstice is cold food. Qing Dynasty's Qing Jia Lu has a more clear explanation for Qing Tuan: "Qing Tuan cooked lotus roots are sold in the market, and they can be eaten cold."

Yuan Mei, a literature and gourmet in the Qing Dynasty, recorded in detail the making of the Youth League: "Muddle the grass into juice, and make it into a ball with powder, and the color is like jasper." Qing Tuan, also called Ai Tuan, is a kind of green cake made of grass head juice, some of which are made of green Ai, and some are made of bromegrass juice and glutinous rice, so that the green juice and rice flour are blended with each other, and then stuffed with bean paste, jujube paste and other fillings, with reed leaves at the bottom, and placed in a steamer.