Editor's Note:
June 20 is the Dragon Boat Festival. In the shops in the streets and alleys, you can see beautifully packaged rice dumplings everywhere. With the original intention of commemorating Qu Yuan, generations of ancestors have created many ways to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, eating rice dumplings, perfume sachets, boiling wormwood, rowing dragon boats... These beautiful customs carry the thought of their loved ones and have become the most vivid colors in many people's childhood memories. Let's enjoy the fragrant rice dumplings while sharing these beautiful memories and emotions.
My bridesmaid, my humble wife
Wang Wanli
The Dragon Boat Festival is coming. My wife, who loves to read food books and loves to eat food, is eager to try, saying that she wants to make a dumpling for the first time, and my son is of course eagerly looking forward to it; and I, just waiting to see the joke: generally what she wants to do, I basically don't stop her, because I don't want to sweep her pleasure, and I can't stop her, so I simply toss her.
She first bought glutinous rice, rice dumpling leaves, sugar, and bean paste, and then soaked the glutinous rice and rice dumpling leaves in a similar way, and mixed the sugar and bean paste. When she was ready to stop, I deliberately hid aside and put up my ears to wait for her to "call for help." Sure enough, within twenty minutes, the wife's helpless and urgent shout came: "Husband, come and help!" I couldn't help laughing, walked to the kitchen, saw the mess on the ground, and then looked at the so-called rice dumplings in my wife's bag, but they were just a few green sticks that had been "tied up with five flowers", either the glutinous rice was squeezed out, or the ropes were entangled in a mess. I couldn't help but sigh and say to my wife, "When you do things, some of me are optimistic about their success, and some of them are optimistic about their failures." Look at you stupid! "My wife sensibly gave way to the side and let me clean up the mess.
While shaking open the unqualified rice dumplings in my wife's bag, re-smoothing the rice dumpling leaves, and starting to wrap the rice dumplings, I couldn't help but think of my hometown and my mother.
My hometown is far away in Northern Jiangsu, where the women are more beautiful and beautiful, and my mother is a Qiao Niang praised by the villagers in the township. The rice dumplings wrapped by the mother are particularly exquisite in appearance. She always wrapped as much glutinous rice as possible with as few rice dumpling leaves as possible, and never used thread to tie or rope, but only used a long rice dumpling needle to pass the outermost rice dumpling tip through the needle eye, like a stitch, inserting the needle into the center of the glutinous rice through tension. From the appearance point of view, the rice dumplings are full and firm, and a small section of the rice dumpling tips of "only the sharp corners" are convenient for people to extract, and when they eat, they are full of rich rice and rice dumplings. At this time, my sisters and I always gathered around my mother, eating sweet rice dumplings and praising her skillful hands. But my mother always gave me the credit, because I and my friends went to the reeds to pick them by hand.
Every few days before the Dragon Boat Festival, boys from their hometown row a small boat to Ludang to pick rice dumpling leaves. The rice dumpling leaves are not ordinary reed leaves, but long, wide, turquoise, smooth and traceless reed leaves that grow on the central reed. Compared with the other boys in the village, I rarely do farm work, and each time I don't pick as many rice dumplings as others, on the way home, the older boys will give me some rice dumplings so that I will not be ridiculed by my sisters when I go home.
After picking the rice dumpling leaves, the partners went to the reed together to pick up the snails, and the reeds look very soft, but they are actually made of crisscrossing the roots of the reeds. Carrying baskets, we walked step by step in the reeds, keeping our eyes fixed on the shallow water under our feet, and from time to time we would find snails in the clear water pond. At that time, the snail was very large and clean, and when a person approached, it would retract its head back into the shell. And every time I picked up one, my heart "jumped" with joy, because I could eat a small bite of meat at night.
The river is crystal clear, the water grass sways along the flowing water, the fish shuttle in the aquatic grass, the water birds spun out of the water from time to time, flapping their wings and stepping on the water surface to fly into the distance, not far in front of them there are often long-legged cranes standing, not waiting for the boat to approach to take off, the river surface is calm, the waterway is meandering...
My thoughts went far, and I couldn't help but stop the movement in my hands, and my wife stabbed me: "Husband, what do you want?" I smiled and said, "I think of my clever wife, stupid daughter-in-law!" My wife pinched me and went to the room and took a long needle and handed it to me. She said: "The last time I went home with you, I saw my eldest sister wrap rice dumplings with such needles, so I bought one a few days ago, but unfortunately I won't use it." ”
I took it in surprise, still praising my wife for her kindness, and then wrapped up the rice dumplings according to the way my mother and sister remembered. Although my bag is not as delicate as theirs, it is much better than my wife's "rice dumplings". YuBu's wife squatted aside again, her eyes full of admiration.
In fact, where did she know that people who grew up in Ludang were very good at weaving. In addition to the rice dumplings wrapped by adults, the children will do it themselves, tearing the rice dumpling leaves into slender strips, weaving them into a small rice dumpling, and then packing the soaked glutinous rice into the bag, and then sealing the mouth, so fine that it is impossible to see where the last rice is. Whether it is a boy or a girl, the rice dumplings they wrap are reluctant to eat immediately, and they always have to take them out and compare them with other people's children to see who looks better.
Today, guarding this pot of glutinous rice that my humble wife is tinkering with, I am wrapped in rice dumplings, and what I never forget in my heart is the childhood water town that I dreamed of, the Ludang in northern Jiangsu that has disappeared now, the elderly sister in my hometown who has been old, and the mother who has long left me and gone to heaven.
Fortunately, my humble wife, although clumsy, but her heart is extremely good, she once knelt before her mother's grave with her son in tears, saying that she thanked her mother, who had never met, for raising me and giving her the best husband in the world.
Such a life, I am content, but also cherished.
Protect this precious treasure
Deng Xiaoming
Among the three traditional festivals in our country, I have a special love for the Dragon Boat Festival.
I have always believed that the Mid-Autumn Festival is a good time for literati and inkers to show off their customs, the Spring Festival is the golden time for merchants to recruit wealthy officials and people to enter the treasure, and only the Dragon Boat Festival is a festival that belongs to the people, especially the peasants.
I was born on this beautiful holiday. Before the Dragon Boat Festival in 1956, my mother was named an active member of socialist construction in the province, which caused quite a stir in the town. But because I was in a hurry to come to this world, my mother had to give up the opportunity to go to the provincial city to attend the conference and receive the award.
And my teenage years were spent in the countryside. Around the Time Of the Dragon Boat Festival, in the south of China, the wheat in the field has matured, and the rice in the field has begun to be pumped and filled. At this time, the farmers finally survived the difficult days of the first half of the year, and the sorrow accumulated in their hearts dissipated, ushering in a small summer harvest.
On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, dozens of dragon boats from Xinjian County, Fengcheng County and Gao'an County gathered in Jinjiang to hold a dragon boat friendly race. Thousands of peasants, helping the elderly and their children, rushed from ten miles and eight townships to Shigang Town to watch. The two sides of the Jinjiang River are crowded with people, the voices are boiling, and they are very lively. At that time, the health center where my mother worked was located on the banks of the Jinjiang River. As soon as I came into this world, I heard the deafening sound of firecrackers and the shouts of dragon boat races. And my first cry became a small note in the Dragon Boat Race Symphony.
I remember that during the Dragon Boat Festival in a period of economic difficulties, my grandmother grinded the wheat glutinous rice from the production team into flour overnight, made it into cakes, wrapped it into rice dumplings, boiled the eggs she usually accumulated and dyed red, put on a body of dew, stepped on two feet of mud, and rushed from the countryside to the town. When Grandma's tall body, powerful footsteps, and hearty laughter came, we scrambled to surround her and devoured the hot hair cake, red eggs, and fragrant rice dumplings. And my grandmother's tired and kind smile with a flat shoulder will always be engraved in my heart.
After joining the work, my first Dragon Boat Festival was spent in Lushan. I remember that early that morning, I climbed to the top of the Hill, looked at the southern sky, thought of myself far away from home, separated from my lovers, "in a foreign land for strangers, every festive season to think of relatives" Feeling is particularly strong.
But then again, I am the first beneficiary of the reform of the higher education enrollment system, and I am the lucky one of the times. Now that the country is in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, it is necessary to make meritorious achievements on its own, and a good boy should aspire to be in the four directions, how can he be so affectionate? Back at the residence, I could not calm my heart for a long time, wrote a small poem "Duanyang Remembrance", and unknowingly submitted articles to literary journals, and was actually selected. Holding my debut in lead, I added a little love for literature to my excitement.
For a while, there were media reports that Koreans wanted to declare the Dragon Boat Festival as their world cultural heritage, and I was very angry and puzzled at first: The Dragon Boat Festival is obviously one of China's three traditional festivals, and it is Koreans who learn from us, how did it become a cultural heritage of South Korea? But when I think about it calmly, I think that the attitude of Koreans towards festivals is worth learning. China is an ancient civilization, but many of the Chinese civilizations and fine traditions created by the ancestors have been abandoned.
While the Dragon Boat Festival is being forgotten or even forgotten, Koreans are thinking about how to inherit and carry it forward. I don't know if this is the sadness of the Chinese or the luck of the Dragon Boat Festival, I am a little confused. Fortunately, through China's efforts, the "Dragon Boat Festival" was finally included in the "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of World Humanity", and the "Dragon Boat Festival" has officially become a national holiday.
The precious spiritual wealth left by the ancestors can only be carried forward by taking full care of it.
Reminiscences
Liu Ping
If it is the Dragon Boat Festival, if it is youth, the Dragon Boat Festival is approaching, and youth is gradually drifting away.
Early in the morning, I looked at the QiNan Mountain, and I didn't know when, the wheat waves between the rolling mountains fell and sprinkled with gold. Because of my work, I almost look at the distant mountains to estimate my visibility every day, watching the colors of the seasons change day after day, looking at the faint green in spring, the green deep green in summer, the golden yellow in autumn, and the white snow in the distance in winter. Yes, the years change so quickly.
Maybe it's that as I get older, my nostalgia grows day by day, and I like to immerse myself in the memories of the past, like looking through old photos and feeling warm and happy. In the impression, on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, Grandpa went out to collect a large amount of wormwood, and Grandma inserted it on the lintel window frame of the house, and there was always a faint fragrance in the house. Mom bought thumb-sized, paper-wrapped male yellow from the street, mixed it in wine, and sprinkled it in every room in the house, supposedly to drive out scorpions, snakes, centipedes, geckos, toads and other "poisonous insects" to keep the family safe.
The most impressive thing was the flower bun made by my mother and the extra rope on my neck, hands and feet after I opened my eyes in the morning. Flower steamed bun is a unique food of the Dragon Boat Festival. Mother usually do it on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, she mixes the fermented flour with egg whites and clear oil, adds pepper leaves, small incense and other spices, makes a round cake, and carefully carves out a variety of wonderful patterns with tweezers, scissors and other tools, including cats and dogs, dragons and phoenixes, carp playing in the water, zodiac signs, etc., and then put these carved buns into the pot and slowly dry them. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, we wear these delicious flower steamed buns with colorful ropes, next to which a bunch of wormwood and a sachet are hung on the chest, which is extremely beautiful. That feeling of contentment and happiness, to this day, I can't forget.
As the years pass, some of the past events drift away with time. The Dragon Boat Festival's customs in my youth are also gradually fading away, but there are more warm blessings on the mobile phone. I went all the way home, never looking back, leaving behind the sweet memories of the flower bun, wormwood and the rope. On this quiet morning, I understand that celebrating the holidays is to better cherish the life of the moment.
Wormwood is fragrant
Wu Jian
In the fifth month of the lunar calendar, the water is clear, the grass is green, and the rice dumpling leaves are also green. In the memories of the Dragon Boat Festival in childhood, there are wormwood hanging on the eaves, sachets worn on the chest, and the sweet fragrance of rice dumplings. These colorful festival customs are always nostalgic. Now the Dragon Boat Festival is coming, and the taste of the festival is refreshing with the fragrance of zongzi. As a result, May's thoughts once again returned to childhood with the memories of the flight.
On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, the adults began to be busy with the festivals at home after busy with the agricultural affairs in the field. My mother went to the river early in the morning to collect wormwood and some other weeds, while my father cleaned up at home, removed mosquitoes and flies, and made the house clean and refreshing. When my mother returned, she hung wormwood on the eaves. According to the "Chronicle of the Jing Chu Dynasty", Cai Ai thought that it was a person, hanging on the door, and using poisonous gas. My mother said that wormwood is a kind of herb that can cure diseases and detoxify, hanging in the doorway, can exorcise demons and exorcise diseases. Therefore, the people of the village have been passed down from generation to generation, and on this day, they must insert fresh wormwood on the door for peace. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, my mother put wormwood in the big pot of my house, filled it with water, put some eggs in the pot, and then began to burn, all the time boiling the water. The boiling water is turquoise, the water is boiled, and the eggs are cooked.
Wormwood we are not rare, we are rare is boiled eggs. Because eggs are usually sold for daily necessities, only on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival can you eat boiled eggs. Of course, eggs are reluctant to eat immediately, and we always hold the round and hot eggs in our hands and play with them. The eggshell is also stained with turquoise, which looks even more enticing. It wasn't until late afternoon that we crushed the egg shells and ate them slowly. After the water boiled, we fished out the wormwood inside, and we scooped the water into a wooden bucket for bathing, and when the water was warm, we took a bath. After I took a bath, my mother tied a silk thread around my neck. Around the Time Of the Dragon Boat Festival, there are silk threads sold everywhere in the town, colorful and beautiful. The silk thread worn was not cut until the seventh day of July, and thrown on the eaves, so that the magpie could build a colorful bridge for the evening meeting of the cowherd weaver girl. Grandma hung her hand-sewn sachet on my chest and said that she could ward off evil spirits. Although the smell is weird, I like it.
Of course, on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, for the villagers, the busiest thing is to wrap rice dumplings. Yuan Ming wrote in his "Suiyuan Food List": "Hongfu makes rice dumplings, takes the top of the high glutinous rice, picks up the perfect long white, removes its half of the scattered crusher, pans it extremely cooked, wraps it in a large basket, puts a large piece of ham in it, seals the pot and simmers for a day and a night, and the firewood is continuous." The food is creamy and gentle, and the meat and rice are melted. "Hometown people can't be so exquisite in production.
I remember when my mother wrapped rice dumplings, three reed leaves were placed side by side, wrapped between the fingers a few times, made into a funnel shape, scooped in a small bowl of glutinous rice, added red dates, lotus seeds and other fillings, and then covered the mouth of the funnel with the back half of the long reed leaves, and then wrapped the two corners of the mouth with a small leaf. The final rope is extremely important, not only to be tight but also to tie it skillfully, loose and easy to scatter, unfortunately not good-looking. Like magic, the mother quickly conjured up a small and exquisite tower dumpling and an axe dumpling, wrapped it up, and then strung four or five rice dumplings together and tied a knot. When cooking rice dumplings, the thick fragrance floats all over the streets and alleys, tempting people to salivate, so there is a saying of "a pot of rice dumplings fragrant ten miles".
Although the hometown is also a veritable water town, somehow there is no custom of dragon boat racing, and no one drinks Xionghuang wine. The night is cool outside the house, and the summer night sky is so deep and idyllic. My father, who was a primary school teacher, told me about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, and I learned that the dragon boat was to commemorate the poet Qu Yuan. The father told the story of "The Legend of the White Snake" in a colorful way, in which the white lady drank Xionghuang wine to appear in the original form. That beautiful and moving story is like a twinkling star in the night sky that lights up my ignorant heart.
It's another year of rice dumplings
Jian Chen
Wormwood, the fragrance of rice dumplings, and the thick folk culture charm of the Dragon Boat Festival are still passing on silently with the passage of time.
Every year on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, green wormwood is hung in front of the door, and the four corners of the meat are stuffed with tiger head dumplings. I remember that when I was a child, whenever the Dragon Boat Festival came, my mother would get busy with rice dumplings early. She first bought rice dumplings and glutinous rice from the market, the rice dumplings must be fresh, and the glutinous rice is full of grains, washed and drained with water.
Zongzi stuffing is the protagonist, and the hometown people eat salty and fresh meat dumplings, and the filling material is usually pork. Too fat meat to make stuffing will be greasy, too lean meat is not fragrant enough, the fat and moderate pork hind leg meat evenly cut into pieces, put into the soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, salt, sugar and other soup marinade for two or three hours. Wait until the rice dumplings are cooked, the fat meat naturally turns into oil, completely immersed in the glutinous rice, and the lean meat that is fully flavored makes the rice dumplings retain a strong meat aroma, and when you bite down, the meat aroma and the aroma of the rice dumpling leaves blend together, and the taste is very beautiful.
Later, when I came to work in the north, I found that there was a clear difference between the rice dumplings in the north and the south. Due to regional differences, the northern rice dumpling leaves generally choose narrow reed leaves, and the taste does not follow the salty taste of the northerners. It may be that just as the southerners taste sweet but wrapped in salty meat dumplings, the northern rice dumplings are filled with sweet dates, dates, red beans and other materials. I think that whether it is a southerner or a northerner, it is always necessary to change the taste.
Speaking of Zongzi, I have to mention the Famous Zongzi in Jiaxing, Zhejiang. Jiaxing Zongzi is known for its glutinous but not paste, fat but not greasy, fragrant and delicious, salty and sweet moderate. The first contact was more than ten years ago on the way to Zhejiang, I bought cooked Jiaxing meat dumplings in the supermarket in the highway service area, and the deepest impression was "big". With the development of logistics and the progress of food preservation means, the supermarket can buy packaged Jiaxing zongzi at any time, of which Wufangzhai zongzi is the most famous. Later, after watching the documentary "China on the Tip of the Tongue", I learned that Jiaxing has derived a developed Zongzi processing industry because of its famous Zongzi, but Bao Zongzi has not yet reached the level of mechanization, which makes bao Zongshi very popular. Skilled masters can wrap hundreds of rice dumplings every hour, only one rice dumpling leaf, the rice is weighed by hand, never tied with thread, and the rice dumplings are quickly flipped into shape on the fingertips, which is amazing.
Nowadays, the taste of zongzi is more diverse, and the beautifully packaged zongzi in shopping malls and shelves is dazzling, but I still miss the zongzi wrapped at home more because it has a homely taste. During the Dragon Boat Festival, families sit around the table, smell the overflowing rice dumplings, peel off the rice dumpling leaves, and eat not only the rice dumplings, but the smell of reunion. For every Chinese, the small rice dumplings are not only food, but also represent the symbol of home, symbolizing the inheritance of a culture. (Source: China Meteorological News Agency)