Zongzi is eaten on Dragon Boat Festival in memory of the great poet Qu Yuan. According to legend, in 340 BC, Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet and doctor of Chu, faced the pain of national subjugation. On May 5th, he threw a big stone into Guluo River with grief and indignation. In order to prevent fish and shrimp from damaging his body, people throw rice into the river with bamboo tubes. In the future, in order to show respect and memory for Qu Yuan, people will put rice in bamboo tubes and throw it into the river to pay homage. This is the origin of the earliest zongzi in China.
The legend of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival
Legend of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival 1: In memory of Qu Yuan
In 340 BC, Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet and doctor of Chu State, faced with the pain of national subjugation, was filled with grief and indignation. On May 5, he threw a big stone into Guluo River. In order to prevent fish and shrimp from hurting his health, people put rice in bamboo tubes and put it into the river one by one. Later, in order to show respect and memory for Qu Yuan, people put rice in bamboo tubes and put it into memorial ceremonies on this day, which is the origin of the earliest zongzi in China.
Why did you wrap zongzi with wormwood leaves or reed leaves and lotus leaves later? There is such a record in the Elementary Book: During the Jianwu period of the Han Dynasty, Changsha people dreamed of a man who called himself Dr. San Lv (the official name of Qu Yuan) at night and said to him, "Everything you sacrificed was stolen by the dragon in the river, so you can wrap it with mugwort leaves and tie it with colorful silk thread in the future. Dragons are most afraid of these two things. " So, people made "corn millet" with "leaves wrapped in millet". From generation to generation, it has gradually developed into the Dragon Boat Festival food in China.
The second legend of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival: the legend of "Jiuzi Zongzi"
Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, after eating Jiuzi Zongzi in the palace during the Dragon Boat Festival, Long Yan was overjoyed and full of praise, and happily wrote a poem: "The four seasons are so beautiful, and Jiuzi Zongzi seeks novelty." Jiuzi Zongzi: It is a kind of Zongzi, that is, nine Zongzi are connected in a string, big and small, the big one is on the top and the small one is on the bottom, with different shapes and very beautiful. And nine colors of silk thread tied together to form colorful. Jiuzi Zongzi is mostly used as a gift for relatives and friends, such as a gift from a mother to her married daughter and a gift from her mother-in-law to her wedding. Because "Zongzi" is homophonic for "neutron", there is a folk custom that eating "Zongzi" can give birth to a son, so it is called "Jiuzi Zongzi". Wu Manyun, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, also wrote a poem praising Jiuzi Zongzi: "Even a bucket of rice is wrapped in spring, Jiuzi's colorful light is re-tied, the green leaves are all white, and the lotus root of the smiling cook is loose." Zongzi not only has many shapes and varieties, but also has a sweet and salty taste in different parts of China. Sweet dumplings include white dumplings, red bean dumplings, broad bean dumplings, red date dumplings, rose dumplings, melon seeds dumplings, red bean paste lard dumplings, jujube paste lard dumplings and so on. Salty taste: pork jiaozi, ham jiaozi, sausage jiaozi, shrimp dumplings, diced pork jiaozi, etc. But there are more pork dumplings. There are also assorted dumplings, bean paste dumplings and mushrooms with southern flavor; There is also a sweet and salty "double dumpling". These zongzi have different tastes, which makes the zongzi family colorful.
The Historical Development of Eating Zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival
Eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival is another traditional custom of China people. Zongzi, also known as "millet" and "Zongzi". It has a long history and various patterns.
According to records, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, millet was wrapped into horns by leaves of zinia latifolia, which was called "horny millet". Rice packed in bamboo tubes is sealed and baked, which is called "tube zongzi". At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, millet soaked in plant ash water. Because the water contains alkali, the millet is wrapped in leaves into a quadrilateral, and when cooked, it becomes Guangdong sour rice dumplings.
In Jin Dynasty, Zongzi was officially designated as Dragon Boat Festival food. At this time, in addition to glutinous rice, jiaozi also added Alpinia oxyphylla, and the boiled jiaozi was called "Yizhi jiaozi". Zhou Ren's "Yueyang Local Records" records: "It is customary to wrap millet with leaves, cook it and cook it thoroughly. From May 5 to the solstice in summer, there is a zongzi and a millet. " During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, miscellaneous zongzi appeared. Rice is mixed with animal meat, chestnuts, red dates, red beans and so on. And there are more and more varieties. Zongzi is also used as a gift for communication.
In the Tang Dynasty, the rice used for zongzi was "white as jade", and its shape appeared conical and rhombic. There is a record of "Da Tang Zongzi" in Japanese literature. There was a kind of "candied zongzi" in the Song Dynasty, that is, fruit was put into zongzi. The poet Su Dongpo has a poem "See Yangmei in Zongzi". At this time, there were also advertisements for building pavilions and wooden chariots and horses with zongzi, indicating that eating zongzi was very fashionable in the Song Dynasty. In the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the wrapping material of zongzi changed from leaves to leaves. Later, zongzi wrapped in reed leaves appeared, and additional materials such as bean paste, pork, pine nuts, dates and walnuts appeared, and the varieties were more colorful.
To this day, at the beginning of May every year, people in China have to soak glutinous rice, wash zongzi leaves and wrap zongzi, with more varieties of colors. From the perspective of stuffing, there are many dates in the north, such as jiaozi; There are many kinds of fillings in the south, such as red bean paste, fresh meat, ham and egg yolk, among which Zhejiang Jiaxing Zongzi is the representative. The custom of eating zongzi has been popular in China for thousands of years and spread to South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian countries.