What to eat in Hangzhou at the beginning of summer "Lixia dog", wild rice, gray duck eggs

Lixia is the seventh solar term of the year and the first solar term of summer. It is celebrated on May 5 or 6 every year when the sun reaches 45 degrees of the yellow meridian. "Summer" means "big", and at this time of the year, the plants sown in the spring have already grown, so it is called "Lixia". What are the food customs in Hangzhou on this day?

1, "Lixia dog"

Lixia season, Tangqi folk have let the children eat "Lixia dog" custom. It is said to eat the summer dog, children in the summer will not be propulsion and resistance to summer (body tired, less food). This is also recorded in the "Tangqi Customs": "summer, the countryside passes do 'summer dog', with glutinous rice flour pinched into the shape of a dog, steamed and eaten. It is said that children who eat 'Lixia Dog' will be as Xie (strong) as a dog and will not propel the summer." The villagers, under the leadership of the master of the old knife cake store, followed the traditional custom of using rice flour to make "summer dogs", building earthen stoves to steam "wild rice", and using grass ash to make "gray duck eggs" to welcome the early summer with the unique folk customs of the water town. The unique folklore to welcome the early summer.

2, wild rice rice

Black Rice Cake is one of the traditional summer snacks, is the Ushu leaves pounded and soaked in water, Ushu leaf juice soak glutinous rice to make it black, and then soaked black glutinous rice steamed with sugar and hand-pressed into glutinous rice cake, eat a light Ushu leaf flavor.

3, gray duck eggs

In Hangzhou, there is a local custom of "pickling eggs in summer, eating eggs at the Dragon Boat Festival", put the duck eggs into the grass ash and yellow mud in the pickle for about a month, it becomes the characteristic "gray duck eggs".