Why do you eat ducks on the Dragon Boat Festival?

As the saying goes, "ducks smell incense and wake up their spleen, and bitter summer is not bitter." Dragon Boat Festival is in the fifth month of the lunar calendar. Too much rain in spring and summer will lead to too much water and the weather looks very hot. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that duck meat is cold, which can replenish fatigue, nourish the yin of the five internal organs, clear away heat and relieve fatigue, replenish blood and promote blood circulation, nourish the stomach and produce fluid, clear away heat and strengthen the spleen, treat physical weakness, physical weakness after illness, malnutrition and edema, and dispel the qi of summer heat and dampness.

2. Commemorative significance

In addition, some citizens suspect that it is probably a duck symbolizing the dragon boat on the water, and it has the same commemorative significance as rowing the dragon boat. Some people say that ducks can swim and bring sacrifices to Qu Yuan. Superstition is certainly not credible.

The older generation of Yongzhou citizens said that the reason why they want to eat ducks on the Dragon Boat Festival is because before planting rice in Yongzhou countryside, every household would buy some ducks and raise them. By the Dragon Boat Festival, there were many ducks. Just at this time, ginger and mung beans were ripe, and farmers began to kill ducks for the festival. As time goes on, people are used to eating ducks on this day.

3. Traditional customs

It is also said that because the Dragon Boat Festival coincides with the duck season, Yongzhou is mostly a water town with many ducks. In the era of lack of materials, ducks breed quickly and hatch only when the weather is warm. Two or three months later, during the Dragon Boat Festival, the ducks grew up. Because people used to live in poverty and only wanted to kill ducks on festivals, every household killed ducks on the Dragon Boat Festival. Over time, a tradition has been formed.

Extended data:

There is a very special phenomenon in Yongzhou. People in counties and districts of Yongzhou don't eat zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival, which is different from the custom in most parts of the country. From textbooks and life, we know that eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival is a common phenomenon. Ningyuan, Xintian, Daoxian in Yongzhou, and even Lingling District in the central city of Yongzhou do not have the traditional habit of eating zongzi during the Dragon Boat Festival. Lingling District has been under the jurisdiction of Yongzhou Prefecture and Lingling County since ancient times, and is deeply influenced by relegation culture.

It stands to reason that many customs are in line with the national trend. However, this is not the case. Now, most Lingling people don't eat zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival. Nowadays, with the rapid economic development and information transmission, it is difficult to maintain many local customs in Yongzhou. Urban residents eat zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, which is repeatedly reported by TV, newspapers and other media, and Yongzhou people also begin to eat zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival.

Why don't Yongzhou people eat zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival? There are two conjectures. First, Yongzhou, formerly known as the land of barbarians, is located at the southern foot of Nanling Mountains. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were towering old trees, wild animals everywhere, inaccessible, inconvenient transportation and blocked news. It takes a long time from Miluo in northern Hunan to Yongzhou in southern Hunan.

Therefore, when the news came that Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, it was already the Mid-Autumn Festival in August. In order to commemorate Qu Yuan, we have to wrap zongzi in the Mid-Autumn Festival to commemorate it (there is also a saying to commemorate Wu Zixu); Secondly, the ancients ate zongzi in the Mid-Autumn Festival to celebrate the harvest of the year. Double-cropping rice has been planted in the south for a long time. Around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the fresh glutinous rice in the second season is ripe, and people have leisure time. The fresh straw ash can be used as an alkaline agent in jiaozi.

With these materials for making zongzi, people will get together and show their skills to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and the next autumn harvest. Compared with moon cakes, zongzi needs less raw materials and can be made by itself.

It's easier to prepare, which is completely in line with the characteristics of our "land of Yongzhou". Therefore, Yongzhou has formed the custom of making zongzi on the Mid-Autumn Festival in August. Anyway, making zongzi in August Mid-Autumn Festival has become the most distinctive custom in our hometown, which has been passed down to this day.

Jiaozi in Yongzhou is different from other places. First of all, we should choose clean straw and use fire to remove ash. As soon as the straw is burned, it should be put into a water tank, which is half filled with water and stirred vigorously until the grass ash is completely dissolved.

Then spread straw on the bottom of the washing basket, then put the soaked straw ash on the top of the washing basket, and then slowly filter out the water soaked in the straw ash. After five or six times of filtration, it finally becomes clean alkaline water.

When you have clean straw water, start to soak glutinous rice, wash rice with straw water for two or three times, and then soak rice with straw for three or four hours. When the glutinous rice turns golden brown, you can make zongzi.

In addition to the ordinary Yangjiao Zongzi, there are rare pillow Baba in Yongzhou. You should choose top-grade Baba leaves to wrap the pillow, and wrap it into a cylinder with a length of one foot and a diameter of two or three inches. It looks like a pillow, and the big pillow is about 3 kg. There is a folk saying that a child who sleeps in front of a pillow for one night can get rid of illness and keep fit, and get in and out safely.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Dragon Boat Festival