Top 10 Dragon Boat Festival food
The Dragon Boat Festival or Duanwu Festival took root in ancient China over 2000 years ago, and now reminds people of a number of folk traditions and myths. Perhaps the best part of all traditions is the Dragon Boat Festival foods, as they are not only delicious and somewhat legendary but also considered as the regimen foods especially for this season - the 5th lunar month in Chinese calendar, which is also named the Bad Month for poisonous insects and snakes begin to infest, and the hot weather is likely to bring various diseases. Additionally, these traditional Chinese foods and snacks are highly recommended for your China food tours.
#1 Zongzi
Zongzi surely first comes to mind when most Chinese think of the Dragon Boat Festival. The festival's traditional snack is made of glutinous rice wrapped by bamboo or reed leaves usually in the shape of ox horns. Glutinous rice is rich in minerals and vitamins. Zongzi can be more nutritious when added with meat, dates, peanuts, salted duck eggs and other ingredients. With lotus seeds or Vigna radiata, Zongzi is tasty and a remedy for fatigue in summer day.
Read more on how to make Zongzi
#2 Salted duck eggs
A traditional Chinese food, 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 has some effect on the treatment of heat stroke.
#3 Realgar wine
People in ancient China drank realgar wine at the Dragon Boat Festival for the protection from diseases and tend off evil. In nowadays it is not longer for people to drink realgar wine (realgar wine is highly toxic when being heated, therefore, consult the experts before drink it), but take it as an external medicine to cure wound caused by mosquito bites. >> Know more about Chinese wine
#4 Eel
The Dragon Boat Festival is not only the right time for zongzi, but also the time of the year for the most tender and nutritious eels, hence the proverb "eating eel is even better than eating ginseng during Dragon Boat Festival".
Due to its soft and smooth texture, eel has always been one of the most popular healthy Chinese foods, especially for children and the elderly. Warm in nature and sweet in taste, eel has the ability to nourish the body and blood, fix the deficiency, warm the yang and benefit the spleen, strengthen the essence and stop the bleeding.
#5 glutinous rice cake
The Dragon Boat Festival is a grand festival for the Korean people of Yanbian, Jilin Province. The most representative food on this day is the fragrant glutinous rice cake. It is made from mugwort and glutinous rice, placed in a large wooden trough cut from a single log and beaten with a long-handled wooden whip. This food adds to the fun festive atmosphere.
#6 Moxa leaf steam bun
Many places celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival with Moxa leaf steamed bun, which is made of rice flour or flour fermentation together with moxa. wormwood contains a variety of volatile oils with an aromatic smell that can repel insects and sterilization. This is why in ancient times, whether for food or use, moxa was essential to get rid of diseases and drive away the plague during the Dragon Boat Festival.
#7 Eggs steamed with tea
In the Nanchang city of Jiangxi Province, tea and salted eggs are boiled and eaten on the Dragon Boat Festival. The eggs are chicken eggs, duck eggs and goose eggs. The eggshells are painted red and hung around the necks of small children in colourful net bags, meaning that the children are blessed with good fortune and safety.
#8 Deep fried glutinous rice ball
In Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, every family eat deep fried glutinous rice ball on the Dragon Boat Festival. It is made of flour, rice flour or sweet potato flour and other ingredients into a thick paste, and then fried into a large piece in a frying pan.
According to legend, in ancient times, the area around southern Fujian experienced the rainy season before the Dragon Boat Festival, with continuous rains. Folk say that the sky had a hole. And after people ate the deep fried glutinous rice ball, the rain stopped, and "the sky was mended”. This is how the custom came about.
#9 Mung bean cake
Wuhan, Nanjing, Wuhu, Xi'an and other places will certainly eat mung bean cake on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival. The word "gao (cake)" and "high" have the same sound, which means "being successful in one's career". when eating “gao” and zongzi together, it means “go on to the top ranked universities", which is a good wish for students who are preparing for their studies.
#10 Egg with garlic
On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival in rural areas of Henan, Zhejiang and other provinces, housewives get up extra early to cook garlic eggs prepared in advance for the family breakfast. In some places, a few pieces of mugwort leaves are also put into the boiling garlic and eggs. Having garlic, eggs, branded oil bun for breakfast is said to avoid the "five poisons", and good for health.
Moreover, Gansu people eat Mianshanzi made of wheat flour on the Dragon Boat Festival date. And there are also traditions to eat “five yellow (eel, yellow fish, cucumber, salted egg yolk and staghorn wine)”, “five red (red amaranth, lobster, duck egg in red oil, roast duck and eel)”, and “five white (water bamboo, white chopped chicken, white tofu, white cut pork, white garlic)” on the date.
Keep reading: