What is green dumplings, the traditional food of Qingming Festival?

The green dumplings are the special snacks of Jiangnan, which have a history of more than 1,000 years since the Tang Dynasty. Whenever it comes to Qingming, the ancients would make green dumplings to offer sacrifices, and now everyone has taken green dumplings as a traditional snack. Green dumplings have the symbolism of honoring ancestors and reunion.

The green dumplings are a traditional snack in the south of the Yangtze River, green in color, mixed with the juice of mugwort into the glutinous rice flour, and then wrapped in bean paste filling or lotus seed paste, not too sweet and not too greasy, with a light but long-lasting fragrance. Green dumplings are a traditional snack eaten by people in the south of the Yangtze River during the Qingming Festival, with the symbolism of honoring ancestors and reunion.

According to evidence, the name of green dumplings began in the Tang Dynasty and has a history of more than 1,000 years, and almost all of the green dumplings are steamed every Ching Ming, and in ancient times they were mainly used for rituals, and although they have been passed down for thousands of years and their appearance has remained unchanged, their function as a ritual has become increasingly diluted, and they have become a highly seasonal snack.

Historical allusion

Legend has it that one year during the Ching Ming Festival, when the Taiping general Li Xiu-cheng was being pursued by the Qing soldiers, a farmer plowing a field nearby came forward to help by disguising Li Xiu-cheng as a farmer and plowing the field with himself. Not having captured Li Xucheng, the Qing soldiers did not rest, so they set up additional guards in the village, and every person leaving the village was inspected to prevent them from bringing food to Li Xucheng.

After returning home, the farmer was thinking of what to bring to Li Xucheng to eat, a foot stepped on a clump of mugwort, slipped and fell, and when he climbed up, he saw that his hands and knees were tinted with a greenish color. He immediately had a plan, and quickly picked some mugwort home to wash and boil squeeze juice, kneaded into the glutinous rice flour, made a rice ball.

And then put the green dumplings in the grass, mixed with the sentries at the entrance of the village. Li Xiu Cheng ate the green dumplings and found them fragrant, glutinous and non-sticky. After dark, he bypassed the Qing sentries and returned safely to the base camp. Later, Li ordered the Taiping army to learn how to make green dumplings to protect themselves from the enemy. The custom of eating green dumplings was then spread.

Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia - Green Dumplings