Zong zi

In a previous blog entry we had a picture of zong zi. These are the tetrahedrons of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves with a filling inside. In the West they are sometimes called rice dumplings.

Inside can be all kinds of ingredients like meat, cooked peanuts, water chestnut, black mushrooms, hard boiled egg sections, ... When they are steamed,, the rice cooks and the favor from the inside ingredients migrates to the rice but stays within the bamboo leave wrapping. They use to be only available on DuanWuJie(Dragon Boat Festival), but nowadays,  anytime of the year you want them, you can find them.

They are easy to reheat in a rice maker, the bamboo wrapping is kind of like the original Tupperware container.

 They are a little messy to unravel, usual there is a string holding the bamboo leaves together.

 Once unwrapped you can cut the tetrahedron of rice to see what's inside. In these that I got from the Carrefour supermarket has pork, peanuts, water chestnuts, and black mushrooms.

Rice was cultivated in China about 10,000 BC and the Bronze Age only began about 3,000 BC. So without pots and pans, how did they cook rice? So at 10,000 BC they had pottery, but no metal.  Certainly the zongzi is one way but another way is to use the bamboo tubes. Raw rice and water are added to the tube and the tube is cooked over the fire. Sometimes it is still done this way, but mostly for tourists by aboriginal people.