As we live in the U.S., a very diverse country, people would know about the very traditional food from other countries. Dim Sum was famous knowing for Chinese food, Pho is Vietnamese food, Sushi is Japanese food, and Taco would be Mexican food. Even we lived in this diverse country, not many people know about the traditional Chinese food, Zong zi. Zong zi made from sausage, peanuts, beans, pork, and egg in the middle, surrounded by glutinous rice, and wrapped by bamboo leaves, tied with strings. It is very delicious food, Chinese usually eat Zong zi during May 5th (Chinese calendar, there are difference between the Chinese calendar and the calendar we daily use, that’s why we have two birthday, one on the Chinese calendar and the other one would be the day on the calendar we use.) It was a story about this delicious Zong zi, we called that day Dragon Boat Festival. This story was about a well educated poet, Qu Yuan, who worked for the Chu Empire (Chu is a country) during 340 A.D. as a governor, but blame for threaten the Empire by the evil governor who envied about Qu Yuan’s intelligence, the Empire fired him, and he still wanted to help his country, tried to convince the Empire don’t make agreement with Qin Empire (Qin is a country), because he noticed that Qin Empire was not really want to make peace with Chu Empire, he wanted to take over the country, but Chu Empire did not listen to Qu Yuan, and Qin Empire did take over Chu’s country after Chu Empire sent Qu Yuan out the country. Qu Yuan felt so painful because he lost his country, he could not help to safe the country, and he jump into a river (mi luo jiang is the name of the river). Every other family knows about the story, they cry cry cry for Qu Yuan, and they did not want the fishes to eat Qu Yuan’s body, he wanted to protect Qu Yuan’s body, they put rice in the river, the fishes would eat the rice instead of Qu Yuan’s body. And they rowed boats out to the river tried to find Qu Yuan. Later on, people came up with the Zong zi. Now, every year, then Dragon Boat Festival comes, people would go out row boats and eat Zong zi, so we won’t forget about Qu Yuan.
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ReplyDeleteI find it quite interesting is that zong zi is like my traditional Vietnamese "banh tet". "Banh tet" is also made from rice, pork, eggs, beans,peanuts, and wrapped by bamboo leaves. We only eat it on Vietnamese New Year though. As far as i know, zong zi is exacly the same, but I dont know if we have a story behind it or not. I think I might have to try it to see if it tastes the same.I think the only different is that our "banh tet" is much bigger than zong gi. Also, we can eat it out from the bamboo leaves or cut it and fry it.
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