Zongzi
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The zongzi or rice dumpling (Template:Zh-cpw) is a traditional Chinese food, to which the Mesoamerican tamal is similar. Many other Asian cultures also claim these rice dumplings as traditional dishes. In Taiwanese, the meat version is "bah-tzang" whereas the vegetable version is "tsai-tzang." Laotians and Vietnamese also have a similar dish.
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 made 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 (also called "sticky rice"). Fillings may be sweet, such as mashed yellow beans, or savoury, and may include pork, Chinese mushrooms, salted egg, and chestnuts. Some types of zongzi contain no filling at all, in which case they are usually eaten with sugar or syrup.
The rice dumpling is usually a pyramid of rice which encloses the filling and wrapped in dried (or more rarely fresh) leaves. Bamboo leaves are perhaps the most common, but lotus, maize, banana, canna, Alpinia zerumbet and Pandan (Pandanus amaryllifolius) leaves are not unknown. 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.
Image:Zhongzi unwrapped.JPG Image:Zhongzi wrapped.JPG
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.
Dumplings may also be frozen for later consumption, but must be boiled instead of steamed when stored in this fashion.
In 2005, the earliest zongzi ever found in China was discovered in a 700 year old tomb in De'an County, Jiangxi Province. [1]