What does "Zongzi" mean?

Zongzi is the festival food of Dragon Boat Festival, which was called "Zongzi" in ancient times. According to legend, it was invented for the sacrifice of Qu Yuan who threw himself into the river, and it is the traditional food with the deepest cultural accumulation in the history of China.

history

The record of Zongzi in history was first seen in Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi in Han Dynasty. The word "Zongzi" is written as "Yi", and there is "Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xin Fu"? "Mibu" means "Sui, reed leaves are wrapped in rice. From the meter, it is embarrassing. " "Said the article? Yan: "Hey, that's enough. "When a bird flies, it will fold its legs and claws." Rhyme: "Hey, the horn is also." Or jiaozi. "

Zongzi, also known as "crossing toes", was first recorded in the local custom of the Western Jin Dynasty: "On the fifth day of midsummer, Fang Bo is extremely harmonious. Enjoy the corn tortoise scale in Shunde. Note: the end is also the beginning, which means the fifth day of May. Sizhong is Fang Bo. The custom of May 5th is very heavy, just like the solstice in summer. ● (Same as "duck"), Chunfu chicken can be eaten during the summer solstice. First, the first two festivals are one day, then glutinous rice is wrapped with leaves, mixed with millet and cooked with pure ash juice. The second festival is still good. ..... wrapped in glutinous rice, a' glutinous rice' and a' corn millet' cover up the image that Yin and Yang are still wrapped around the package. "

It is clearly recorded in Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in the Ming Dynasty that millet is wrapped in leaves and cooked into food in the shape of sharp horns or palm leaves, so it is called "horn millet" or "zongzi".

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, zongzi were mostly wrapped in glutinous rice, so they were called zongzi instead of millet.

folklore

Since the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there has been a folk saying that Zongzi originated from the folk memorial to Qu Yuan.

Wu Jun of Nanliang (467-520) wrote in "Continued Harmony": "Qu Yuan died in Miluo on May 5, and the Chu people mourned it. Every day, rice is stored in bamboo tubes and sacrificed in water. During the military construction of Han Dynasty, Changsha returned to Europe. During the day, I suddenly saw a man who called himself Dr. San Lv. He said, "You should see this sacrifice. Very kind. But it is often stolen by the bitter dragon. If there is any benefit today, you can put neem leaves on it and tie it with colored silk. These two things are also afraid of dragons. "Back to him. The world uses five-color silk and neem leaves to make zongzi, all of which are gurgling. "

There is also a saying that people are afraid that Qu Yuan's body will be eaten by fish in the river, so they wrap up Zongzi and throw it into the river to feed the fish.

The view that Zongzi is associated with Qu Yuan is widely circulated because of its romanticism. Zongzi often appears in literati's poems.

Yuan Zhen wrote in "Ten Summer Poems": "The colorful clouds are continuous, and the fragrant white jade beads."

In Song Dynasty, Yang Wuxia wrote in Qi Tianle Dragon Boat Festival: "Spare a few Huang Meiyu. It is noon again. Corn is covered with gold, calamus is full of jade, and the scenery is still beautiful. Shirt Ai Hu. Zhu Fu has more curly hair and red thunder on his arm. Float powder and fragrant cotton, call the fan noon window. "

Zongzi practice

The zongzi in Han dynasty is "rice wrapped in zongzi leaves"; In the Western Jin Dynasty, it became "glutinous rice wrapped in leaves and mixed with millet". At the end of Wei Dynasty, Jia Sixie recorded this in more detail in Qi Yao Min Shu:

"Food Classic" says: "Millet millet method: take rice first, dye it and then put it. Count two liters of rice, a bucket of millet, a row of rice, a row of millet, wrap it with a rope and tie it up. The ropes are different. It must be cooked in a kettle, and it can be cooked in ten stone meters. "

"Food Times" said: "●: Mix rice flour, silk, water and honey, such as thick soup and cake noodles. Hold it in your hand and make it more than a foot long and two inches wide. Four pieces, jujube and chestnut meat all over the ground, wrapped in oil bamboo, rotten steamed. I couldn't open the second cup, but I broke both ends and untied the bag. "

In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica:

"China, common for zongzi. The ancients cooked it with reed leaves wrapped in millet, and the tip of the horn was like the shape of a palm leaf, so it was called glutinous rice. Glutinous rice is widely used in modern times, but it is considered as a festival on May 5th. Or as a sacrifice to Qu Yuan, throw it into the river to feed the dragon. "

At present, the traditional method is to soak the leaves of Zongzi (reed leaves or bamboo leaves, etc.). ) First soak the glutinous rice in water and take meat, bean paste, jujube kernels, etc. As stuffing, it can be wrapped into triangle, square and pillow shape and steamed.

It can be seen that in the Ming Dynasty, glutinous rice has become the main raw material of zongzi. However, the modern zongzi method of mixing red beans, dates and glutinous rice became popular in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

The shape of zongzi

Because of different regions, the material and even the shape of the "wrap" are very different. For example, people used horns to worship the sky in the early days, so in the Han and Jin Dynasties, zongzi was mostly made into horns as one of the products of ancestor worship. In addition, there are regular triangles, regular quadrangles, pointed triangles, squares, long strips and so on.

Zongzi genre

Zongzi in the north is mostly simple white rice or mixed with red beans, dates and sugar. Zongzi in Jiangnan is the most famous and complicated, especially the stuffing, which is ever-changing. A big difference with the northern rice dumplings is that the glutinous rice raw materials of Jiangnan rice dumplings are mostly soaked in soy sauce in advance and steamed with meat stuffing, which is fragrant.

China's Zongzi is the most famous one in Jiaxing, south of the Yangtze River. Jiaxing Zongzi enjoyed a high reputation as early as the Qing Dynasty. Food books record the types and practices of Jiaxing zongzi;

Bamboo Dumplings: "Take bamboo leaves and wrap them in white glutinous rice dumplings and cook them. The tip is like a cut raw water chestnut. "

"Ai Xiang Zongzi": "The glutinous rice is washed clean, wrapped with dates, chestnuts and mung beans, and boiled in a pot."

Mint-flavored Zongzi: "Mint soaked in rice and steamed until soft, mixed with foreign sugar and wrapped in glutinous rice."

"Red bean paste jiaozi": "Red bean paste, sugar, fat oil, cooked in a small jiaozi."

"Lotus Stuffed jiaozi": "Peel the heart, mix the foreign sugar and wrap the steamed buns."

"Songren Zongzi": "Little Zongzi without a purse"

Jiaozi of Ham: "Put jiaozi in the ham. If the ham is Jinhua, the fine fertilizer should be uniform. Also, diced meat can be wrapped in jiaozi. "

Among Jiaxing Zongzi, Wufangzhai is the most famous. Authentic Wufangzhai Zongzi should be available in supermarkets in major cities in China.

The interesting story of zongzi

The oldest zongzi is Xi 'an's honey cold zongzi, which is included in Tang Wei Juyuan's cookbook. It is characterized by using glutinous rice without stuffing, cooking it, cooling it, drawing it into thin slices with silk thread when eating it, and pouring honey and yellow osmanthus sauce-white sugar pickled osmanthus sauce.

The largest zongzi, Darou Zongzi, is produced in Nanning, Guangxi, each weighing about two kilograms. There are fat pork and mung beans inside, which are soft, sticky and not greasy.

The smallest zongzi is found in Shanghai City God Temple, Green Wave Gallery and Lake Pavilion. About an inch long, shaped like a pillow, filled with ham, small and fresh; Huting thinks tea and food are great.

Super girl "Zongzi"

The word "Zongzi" became popular in the super girl program in 2005. At first, it was compared by Chengdu Snack Group to a person who provoked discord among the fans of the Snack Group. From an interview with Sina on July 2nd:

Moderator: I usually ambush in your QQ group.

He Jie: I remember a joke she told (Chris Lee). The steamed stuffed bun family and the rice family fought, and the steamed stuffed bun family gained the upper hand. At that time, Mijia was squeezed into one. ...

Chris Lee: Thank you. You are completely behind. Bun family and rice family fight, fried rice with eggs, etc. And when they beat the burrito out of the water and forced Zongzi into the corner, Zongzi took off his coat and called me a spy!

But gradually, zongzi has a new meaning. Zongzi is an identity, which can be KGB, 007, Zhang Yi of Su Qin, or an ambassador for peace. Zongzi is a state of mind, some are extremely bored, some are eager for harmony, some try to profit from it, and some hope to create joy. Baidu Post Bar has a famous "Super Zongzi Bar". It has become the legendary "Zongzi habitat, corn resort, pot fan nursery, bean jelly refuge ..."

Black Zongzi: the so-called spy, spy, troublemaker and fear of chaos in the world. Also called low-level zongzi.

Green Zongzi: Fans of all factions put down their positions and became the most detached group of super girl fans. Also called senior zongzi.

Pure zongzi: objective and neutral. When judging super girls and fan groups, there is basically no tendency.

Eating zongzi is learned.

You can drink some tea or sugar water to help digestion when eating zongzi. It is better to eat with some fruits and vegetables, which is more nutritious. In addition, people with chronic gastrointestinal diseases should not eat more.

Zongzi was called "crossing toes" in ancient times. Legend has it that it was invented to sacrifice Qu Yuan who threw himself into the river ―― this is just a legend, but Zongzi recorded in real words can be found in the local chronicles of the Jin and Zhou Dynasties. The most widespread and oldest zongzi is the honey-juice zongzi of Xi 'an, which is included in the cookbook of Juyuan in Tang Wei. It is characterized by using glutinous rice without stuffing, cooking it, cooling it, drawing it into thin slices with silk thread when eating it, and pouring honey and yellow osmanthus sauce-white sugar pickled osmanthus sauce.

The largest zongzi, Darou Zongzi, is produced in Nanning, Guangxi, each weighing about two kilograms. There are fat pork and mung beans inside, which are soft, sticky and not greasy.

The smallest zongzi is found in Shanghai City God Temple, Green Wave Gallery and Lake Pavilion. About an inch long, shaped like a pillow, filled with ham, small and fresh; Huting thinks tea and food are great.

The most famous zongzi in China are all produced in the land of fish and rice in Hangjiahu, northern Zhejiang: fresh meat zongzi in Wufangzhai, Jiaxing, which is supplied all the year round. Use chopsticks to clamp four pieces, each piece looks delicious, fragrant, moist, crisp and tender, fat and waxy but not greasy. Huzhou's oldest zongzi, good at washing sand, is sweet with red bean paste and diced meat. What is rare is that the red bean paste is washed and shelled, and then fried with sugar, cooked lard and rose juice until it is dark and bright. This kind of bean paste tastes fragrant, moist, fine and smooth-the bean paste in Beijing market is more like Japanese, but it is ground by machine and added with sugar. Dry but not slippery, the fragrance is light and thick, and there is no word "run".

Jujube zongzi, which has always looked down on Beijing, is not only tasteless, but also spits out the core when eaten. If jujube is cooked or worms are born, the taste will become strange and depressing. A few days ago, it was discovered that the zongzi in Zigui, Hubei, Qu Yuan's hometown, was actually the same kind of goods. Beijing Zongzi seems to be "justified" at once, which is very strange.