| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The rice dumpling (粽子 or 糭子, pinyin: zòngzi, WG: tsung-tzu) is a traditional Chinese food.
The origins of rice dumplings are traced to the legend of Qu Yuan, a well-loved poet who drowned himself in a river. To stop the fish from eating his body, people made rice dumplings and threw them into the river. Another version of the legend states that the dumplings were to placate a dragon that lived in the river.
Rice dumplings are made for the Dragon Boat Festival, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar.
The fillings for the dumplings vary from region to region but the rice used is always glutinous rice. Fillings may be sweet, such as mashed yellow beans or savoury and may include porkPork is meat from the pig. While it is one of the most common meats eaten by Chinese and Europeans, it is considered inedible under Islamic and Orthodox Jewish law. Varieties of pork Pork from the haunch of the pig is called ham. Other parts include pork, Chinese mushroomA mushroom is an above ground fruiting body (that is, a spore-producing structure) of a fungus, having a shaft and a cap; and by extension, the entire fungus producing the fruiting body of such appearance, the former consisting of a network (called the mys, salted eggBird and fish eggs are common food sources. Fish eggs are known as roe or caviar. The most commonly-used bird eggs are those from the chicken, duck and goose, but smaller eggs such as quail eggs are occasionally used as a gourmet ingredient, as are the la, chestnutalnifolia Bush chinkapin C. crenata Japanese chestnut C. dentata American chestnut C. henryi Henry's chestnut C. mollissima Chinese chestnut C. ozarkensis Ozark chinkapin C. pumila Alleghany chinkapin C. sativa Sweet chestnut C. seguinii Seguin's chestnuts or even no filling at all and eaten with sugarThis article deals with sugar as food and as an important, widely traded commodity; the word also has other uses; see Sugar (disambiguation A sugar is a form of carbohydrate; the most commonly used sugar is a white crystalline solid, sucrose; used to alte or syrupSyrup is the name given to a thick, viscous liquid, containing much dissolved (generally crystalline) matter, but showing little tendency to deposit crystals. The viscosity arises from the multiple hydrogen bonds between the dissolved sugar, which has man.
The rice dumpling is usually a pyramid of rice which encloses the filling and wrapped in dried reed leaves or lotusAmerican Lotus The term lotus may refer to: The Indian lotus of the genus Nelumbo (see Nymphaeaceae). Particularly the sacred lotus plant of Hinduism and Buddhism, Nelumbo nucifera''. All parts of nucifera are edible and the plant is a popular ingredient leaves. Wrapping a dumpling neatly is a skill which is passed down through families, as are the recipes. Dumpling-making is usually a family event with everyone helping out.
The dumplings need to be steamed for several hours and one superstition says that dumplings will never cook if a pregnant woman enters the kitchen whilst they are being steamed.