Happy Duan Wu Jie!
Duan Wu Jie is the Chinese Dumpling Festival, and it falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Lunar calendar, i.e. today. As every child here knows, long ago, in ancient China, 340-278 B.C, there was a minister called Chi Yuan. Chi Yuan was a patriotic and righteous man. He advised the head of Chu state to make peace treaties with neighbouring states so they can meet the threat of ambitious Qin state. The head of Chu preferred sweet sayings and flattery and was so displeased with Chi Yuan's advice he ordered his exile. Chi Yuan was depresssed and ended his unhappiness by jumping to his death in a river. The common folk, feeling rather sorry for the poor fellow, threw rice dumplings into the river so that the fishes would feed on the dumplings rather than his body. Chi Yuan was right of course, the head of Qin conquered all the six states and proclaimed himself the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Two thousand over years later, people are still eating dumplings in commemoration of Chi Yuan.
Chinese dumplings are called zhong ji (Mandarin), chang (Hokkien) and zhong (Cantonese), depending on the dialect groups. I am Cantonese, so I'll stick with zhong. Zhongs are parcels of glutinous rice encasing sweet or savoury fillings, and then wrapped in bamboo leaves and boiled for about 2 hours till cooked. Yuk Zhong has savoury fillings of pork, beans, mushroom, dried scallop, oyster and shrimps. Sweet Zhong is made up wholly of sweetened glutinous rice or with fillings of red bean paste. A third type is a savoury sweet Nonya filling of ground pork, spices and sugared melon strips. The one pictured here was a Nonya Zhong, made by a friend of a friend of my mother. It was very delicious. The rice was peppery to cut through the starchiness, the pork's spicy sweetness was well balanced, and she had added some chestnuts which is more commonly found in the Yuk Zhong. She even coloured the rice blue with the juice of the Bunga Telang flower, but the effect was quite smudged and blurry, so I did not take a picture.
When we were children, my mother and Chan-Che would spend at least 3 days making zhong- separating the regular rice from the glutinous rice, marinading the pork in a five-spice mixture, cleaning the bamboo leaves, picking out the hard outer skin of the chestnuts, soaking the beans and dried seafood, frying the rice, wrapping everything up snugly in the traditional pyramid shape, stoking the charcoal stove, filling up huge vats of water and boiling bunches of zhong for hours. What a to-do. In those days families were very large, and it would not be economical to eat out or buy commercial zhong of the same quality so most people made their own. Nowadays, families are smaller, and most women work, so there is less of the need or desire to make zhong. Like many traditions, the art of making zhong is slowly and inevitably being lost. Just the other day, there was news that the dried goods wholesalers were lamenting that the demand for zhong ingredients is at an all-time low. People are just not making their own zhongs anymore. I have never made zhong in my life either. So enjoy it while we can. Zhong on.
