Top 5 delicacies for Dragon Boat Festival

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Top 5 delicacies for Dragon Boat Festival

2016-06-08 09:07:31

Zongzi

Zongzi are to the Dragon Boat Festival what eggs are to Easter or roses to Valentine's Day.

The first bamboo-wrapped sticky rice dumplings were probably made with plain rice, but these dumplings soon developed into regional specialties. The main ingredient is glutinous rice, which holds its shape after cooking and keeps well in the summer heat. Millet, whole wheat grains, barley, red beans, mung beans or peanuts are also mixed into the rice to make it tastier.

In South China, glutinous rice is also soaked in an alkaline solution that turns the grains yellow, and the process creates a chewy texture. These are jianshui zongzi, which are always eaten dipped into old-fashioned granulated sugar.

Apart from that, the folks in the southern coastal provinces prefer their rice dumplings savory rather than sweet, and the salted dumplings are filled with beans, pork and mushrooms.


Eggs with Garlic

In the rural areas in Central China's Henan province and East China's Zhejiang province, people eat eggs with garlic on Dragon Boat Festival. Eggs are steamed with garlic and then shared with families as breakfast. Eating eggs with garlic is believed to promote health.




Eel

The custom of eating eel on Dragon Boat Festival day prevails in central China's Wuhan region. Eels are probably eaten simply because they are in season during the festival, fatty and tender, and rich in nutrition.



Salted Duck Eggs

The salted duck eggs have a soft briny smell, a very liquid egg white and a firm-textured, orange-red round yolk that looks like the crab cream. Tradition has it that it is good to eat salted duck eggs during the Dragon Boat Festival as the burning summer is coming. The salted duck eggs are nutrient-rich and have some effect on the treatment of heat stroke.


Realgar Wine

There is an old saying: 'Drinking realgar wine drives diseases and evils away!' Realgar wine, or xionghuangjiu, is a Chinese alcoholic drink consisting of fermented cereals and powdered realgar.

In ancient times, people believed that realgar was an antidote for all poisons, and effective for killing insects and driving away evil spirits. So everyone would drink some realgar wine during the Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwu.

In the popular fairy tale of the Lady White Snake, a 1,000-year-old reptile takes on human form and falls in love with a poor but good-looking herbalist. She marries him and helps him develop his practice into a successful venture. But instigated by an unbendingly righteous monk, he forces her to drink realgar wine on Duanwu and she reverts to her original form, thus scaring him to death.

Despite his ingratitude, she goes on to offend the deities by stealing a magic herb to save him and ends up being captured and imprisoned under a pagoda on the banks of West Lake after giving birth to his child.