Why eat Qingming fruit at Qingming

Chingming fruit, also known as green dumplings, "Qingming Po" (Jiangxi), "Qingming Bun", "Qingming Artemisia Po", etc., is one of the Han Chinese specialties in southern and east-central China

Chingming fruit is also known as green dumplings, "Qingming Po" (Jiangxi), "Qingming Bun", and "Qingming Artemisia Po". /p>

There is a custom to eat green dumplings during the Qingming Festival. Green dumplings have different names in different parts of the world. Shanghai, Ningbo called Qingduan, Suzhou called Qingduanzi, Hangzhou called Qingduanzi or Qingming Dumplings, Nanjing called Qingming Dumplings or Spring Dumplings, Wenzhou called Qingming Biscuits, Jinhua called Qingming Fruit (crescent-shaped called Qingming Dumplings).

Why eat Qingming fruit on Qingming Festival? Dietary customs of Qingming Festival

The green dumplings are made from a wild plant called "Pulp Wheatgrass" which is pounded and squeezed to make juice, then this juice is mixed with dried water-milled pure glutinous rice flour, and the dumplings are then made. The filling of the dumplings is made of fine sweetened bean paste, and a small piece of sweetened lard is added to the filling. Once the dumplings are ready, they are steamed in a cage, and when they come out of the cage, the cooked vegetable oil is brushed evenly over the surface of the dumplings with a brush, and the job is done.

The green dumplings are as green as jade, glutinous and soft, fragrant, sweet but not greasy to eat, fat but not fat. Green dumplings or people in the southern part of the people used to worship ancestors must be food, because of this, green dumplings in the southern part of the folk food custom is particularly important.

Why eat green dumplings at Qingming? This custom can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty more than two thousand years ago. According to the "Zhou Li" records, there was "in the middle of spring to the wood to follow the fire ban in the country," the regulations, so the people turned off the cooking, "cold food for three days". In the cold food period, that is, one or two days before Weiming, but also specific for the "cold day festival".

Anciently, the traditional food for the Cold Food Festival is glutinous rice cheese, wheat cheese, almond cheese Yang, these foods can be made beforehand, for the Cold Food Festival to feed the hungry, without having to raise the fire for cooking. Now, some of the green dumplings are using green wormwood, some of the grass juice and glutinous rice flour and then pounded with bean paste as a filling and become, passed down for more than a hundred years, is still an old face. People use it to sweep the graves of their ancestors, but more should taste the new, the green dumplings as a sacrificial function is increasingly diluted.

Why eat Qingming fruit Qingming Festival Qingming Festival dietary customs

The legend of Qingming Festival:

Legend one year Qingming Festival, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Li Xiu Sheng powerful general Chen Taiping was pursued by the Qing soldiers, a farmer nearby plowing field came forward to help, Chen Taiping disguised as a farmer look like, plowing the land with himself. Not having captured Chen Taiping, the Qing soldiers did not let up, so they set up additional guards in the village, and every person leaving the village was inspected to prevent them from bringing food to Chen Taiping.

After returning home, the farmer was pondering what to bring to Chen Taiping, when he stepped out of the door, 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 was immediately on the mind, and quickly picked some mugwort home to wash and boil squeeze juice, kneaded into the glutinous rice flour, made a rice ball. Then he put the green dumplings in the green grass, and mixed them with the sentries at the entrance of the village.

Chen Taiping ate the green dumplings and found them fragrant, sticky and not sticky. After dark, he bypassed the Qing sentries and returned safely to his base camp. Later, Li Xiu Cheng 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.

There is also a legend about eating green dumplings at Qingming.

The Legend of Green Dumplings II:

About the custom of eating green dumplings at Qingming Festival, the Chinese Folk Literature Collection (《中國民文学集成集成》) has been published. s custom, "Chinese folklore integration of Zhejiang Province, Taizhou region, Jiaojiang City, story volume" recorded in such a legend.

Once upon a time there was a young man named Jinlan. His father died, relying on his mother to spin and weave at home. Jinlan grew up arrogant and lazy, but also scolded his mother. But the imperial court ordered that he should be executed for deserting the fields, so he had to go to his family's ancestral fields to work.

Why Eat Qingming Fruit on Qingming Festival Food and Drink Customs of Qingming Festival

Jinlan overheard the scene of a mother goat breastfeeding her cubs in the field, and came to his senses, determined to repay his mother's nurturing kindness. He took the initiative to welcome his mother when she came with a bamboo basket to deliver food. The mother mistakenly thought that she was late in delivering the food and would be scolded by her son, so she could not think of anything else to do and threw herself into the pond. Jinlan immediately jumped into the pond, but only touched a plank. He took the plank home and enshrined it in front of the hall. It is said that this is how the tablet came to be.

In honor of his mother, he picked back the weed Mianqing, which grows where she keeps her rice basket, and made it into bitter cakes. The story goes on to say that it was a day when the young man came to his senses, so he called it Ching Ming. Every year, he would bring the bitter cakes to the roadside near the watering hole to pay homage. Later generations called it visiting the grave.

Because food like cakes and cakes were also called "?" in ancient times. Later, Qingming graves to eat green? became a custom and has been passed down to this day.

Eating green dumplings four focus

Why eat Qingming fruit Qingming Festival Qingming Festival dietary customs

1, must be heated first after eating. Because the glutinous rice in the green dumplings is easy to rebirth after cooling, very unfavorable to digestion, and the nutritional structure of which will be destroyed.

2, it is best to eat with bamboo shoots or marjoram, these foods together can speed up the digestion of the green dumplings and the absorption of nutrients.

3, absolutely do not eat and fat meat mix, glutinous rice such difficult to digest food if mixed with fat will increase the burden on the stomach and intestines, very easy to cause indigestion.

4, it is best to eat some food that helps digestion, such as hawthorn. Because these foods can reduce the digestive burden of the gastrointestinal tract to digest glutinous rice food such as dough, which is conducive to the absorption of the dough in the body