In the morning, before I could get up, my mother pushed open the door and told me, "I'll go outside the neighborhood and buy some wormwood, calamus, and amaranth." ”
It turns out that it is the Dragon Boat Festival again, and these things are essential for the Dragon Boat Festival! Mothers who follow tradition will make the traditional festival very traditional every year.
I was also embarrassed to sleep any longer, only to get up and zhang Luo. There are many customs during the Dragon Boat Festival, and I am not afraid of trouble to have a sense of ceremony, and I should also participate.
When I finished washing, my mother came back. She was a little disappointed: "I didn't see wormwood or calamus outside the community, but fortunately there were amaranth in the vegetable shop." ”
Although the Dragon Boat Festival hangs wormwood and calamus on the gate, although it is a traditional custom, but now people gradually forget these procedures, but the festival is not festive, whether there is a taste or not, it does not care.
Therefore, it is really not easy to buy wormwood and calamus in big cities.
Mother's generation cares most about traditional taste, whether you eat it or not, some etiquette can never be ignored.
So, in order to let my mother have a happy holiday, I immediately went out to look for it.
After walking around the Yingfeng Market, I finally found an old woman selling wormwood and calamus. It's not expensive either, a handful, a dollar. After buying it back, my mother was immediately cloudy and sunny!
The Dragon Boat Festival, hanging wormwood, calamus, many places in the country have done this, but also to eat amaranth, which is not popular, I believe many people are also the first time to hear.
So, what is the origin and exquisiteness of this?
In fact, amaranth, the vernacular chinese cabbage, sweat cabbage or dry cabbage, is an annual herb with a thick stem, green or red, often branched.
Red Amaranth.
The leaves, seeds and roots of amaranth can be used medicinally, cool and sweet, can clear heat and detoxification, diuretic and dehumidify, and tonify stool. According to the "Dictionary of Chinese Medicine", amaranth "clears heat and sharp tips, can cure red and white dysentery, and the two stools are not passed"; the "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "Six amaranth, and good for large and small intestines." ”
Amaranth likes to be warm and heat-resistant, and some people figuratively call it "dry vegetables"; others call it "sweaty vegetables", which means the dishes eaten when sweating in the summer; and some people call them "Chinese cuisine".
According to legend, during the Chu-Han War, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu chased after the Central Plains, and Liu Bang was besieged by Xiang Yu's hundreds of thousands of troops in Xingyang, Henan.
It was a sweltering summer heat, Liu Jun was short of food and water, the hungry sergeants were not even willing to let go of dead cats and rotten rats, and countless people with dysentery fell ill, fell ill in a large area, and completely lost their combat effectiveness.
There was no cure in the army, and Liu Bang was in a hurry. When an old man saw this scene, he immediately collected a large basket of amaranth and boiled it into a large pot of soup for more than a dozen soldiers guarding Liu Bang to eat, not only dysentery was better, but also full of spirits, protecting Liu Bang from killing a bloody road and breaking through.
Later, Liu Bang was grateful for this dish and said, "Amaranth, it is the dish of my Han family!" ”
Since then, people have called Amaranth "Chinese cuisine"!
Amaranth is considered to be a treasure in vegetables, folk as a good blood vegetable, there are "longevity vegetables" and "blood vegetables" and other reputations, is a vegetable with high nutritional value, especially contains more iron, calcium and other minerals.
At the same time, amaranth contains more carotene and vitamin C, and the folk have the saying of "June Amaranth, when eggs; July Amaranth, gold does not change".
Because amaranth has strong resistance, easy to grow, like heat, drought tolerance, moisture tolerance, and less disease and insect pests, it is one of the main green leafy vegetables loved by the public in summer.
In fact, the red amaranth in amaranth is also a favorite of children.
I have been to many places and eaten many delicious foods, and in people's memory, the most memorable and delicious is still the food of my hometown.
When we were young, our families were generally poor, and now that we look back, we spend more often in hunger. However, there is always a bowl of rice that accompanies us throughout the summer of childhood...
This bowl of rice is red amaranth soaked soup rice!
Red amaranth is soft and slippery with thick leaves, sweet in the mouth, scoop a spoonful of soup on the rice and mix well, in an instant, the white rice becomes red and lustrous, not ostentatious but absolutely charming, each grain of rice seems to be particularly hungry...
When I was a child, as long as there was such a bowl of rice, that meal would not be picky and eat happily.
Of course, not only me, but how many people of the same age have never eaten such a bowl of red amaranth soup rice in their childhood? What's not to like about this?
In fact, there are many children who like this beautiful meal. "Color" temptation, few people can withstand it!
Talking about so many good amaranth, let's get back to the point and see why the Dragon Boat Festival should eat red amaranth.
Before and after the Dragon Boat Festival, red amaranth is everywhere, this delicious and refreshing dish, naturally is also the most indispensable dish in many places. Amaranth has red and green, and at this time, it is necessary to use red amaranth.
There are many ways to celebrate the festival, and eating "five reds" during the Dragon Boat Festival is a peculiar custom in some places. The most traditional and solemn custom of the Dragon Boat Festival in Nanjing is to eat the "Five Reds", that is, amaranth, roast duck, duck eggs, lobster and xionghuang wine.
It is said that the Dragon Boat Festival eats these five kinds of "red", and you can ward off evil spirits and escape the heat throughout the summer. The red amaranth is the most senior and representative of the "five reds". Pan Zongding in the Republic of China period once recorded in the "Chronicle of jinling years" that in the past, people in Nanjing would eat amaranth on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, which could avoid abdominal pain.
Fresh red amaranth.
Eating red amaranth during the Dragon Boat Festival, in addition to the meaning of red fire and fierce auspiciousness, the key is to take the tenacious meaning of the vitality of red amaranth and its health benefits, because it can clear heat and detoxify, dehumidify and stop diarrhea.
The fifth month of the lunar calendar is known as the evil month in the common belief, and the folk are also known as the "poisonous month". At this time, the temperature rises rapidly, miscellaneous bacteria multiply, miasma breeds, and people are very susceptible to illness.
In order to cope with the evil moon and spend the summer day in peace, the folk will eat amaranth at this time to prevent disease and fitness, remove poison and eliminate impurities, that is, the so-called "help the right and dispel evil".
On the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, it is the early summer season, the weather is getting hotter, bacteria breed, mosquitoes are infested. In the eyes of the ancients, red amaranth can not only lubricate the intestines and excrete toxins from the body, but also avoid evil and pray for health.
The Dragon Boat Festival is mostly after the summer solstice, which is the time of year when the yang qi is at its peak, and it is also the "long summer season" when the main qi is wet, if the human body is invaded by wet evil, it is easy to appear dizzy and tired, chest tightness and bloating, loss of appetite, etc., and red amaranth is the best choice.
It has both a beautiful meaning and a traditional culture, and it is also beneficial to the body, so why not enjoy it? Therefore, eating red amaranth during the Dragon Boat Festival is also logical and inherited from generation to generation!