The Dragon Boat Festival is coming. These four kinds of leaves can make zongzi. The third one is best used, but it is often ignored.

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The Dragon Boat Festival is about a week away. Dragon Boat Festival is not only a traditional festival in China, but also a festival eagerly awaited by many foodies. Because the Dragon Boat Festival is coming, it means that there are delicious zongzi to eat. Every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, netizens will cause a "saliva war" because of sweet and salty zongzi. Northerners love to eat sweet zongzi and southerners love to eat bacon zongzi, each occupying half of the zongzi.

In fact, there is not only a great difference in taste between the north and the south, but also different choices between northerners and southerners in the leaves of zongzi, so we can often see zongzi wrapped in different leaves. Today, let's talk about four kinds of leaves that can wrap zongzi.

The first kind of leaf: Phyllostachys pubescens leaves

Ruo bamboo is a common shrub in the south of the Yangtze River in China. Its leaves are long and wide and flexible, so it is very suitable for wrapping zongzi. Both Shanghainese and Guangzhou people prefer to use Ruo bamboo to make zongzi, especially some rather fastidious old Shanghainese, who only use Ruo leaves collected from Huangshan in Anhui Province every year, not anywhere else. Because this kind of Ruo leaf is unbreakable for a long time and contains the fragrance of bamboo, it is used to wrap meat zongzi, so it is very popular.

As the main use of Ruo leaf is to wrap zongzi, so the folk also call it "zongba leaf". In the past, people used to collect wild Ruo leaves, but later, with the increase in demand for zongye leaves, some nimble farmers also began to plant Ruo bamboo, specializing in supplying big cities.

The second kind of leaf: Reed leaf

Northerners often use Reed leaves to wrap zongzi, mainly local materials, convenient. Ruo bamboo in the north is relatively rare, on the contrary, Reed is common, the leaf of Reed is narrower than Ruo bamboo, it is more difficult to wrap, but the advantage is that the length is long enough. Since the Ming Dynasty, people have had the custom of wrapping rice dumplings with Reed leaves. In the ancient medical book "Wang Jie Yao Jie", Reed leaves are highly praised, believing that they can "clear the lungs and quench thirst and clear the water." And dumplings cooked with Reed leaves are soft, waxy and fragrant, so old Beijingers like to wrap rice dumplings with Reed leaves. The most famous Reed leaf producing area in the north is Baiyangdian in the North China Plain with excellent quality.

The third kind of leaf: corn husk

The corn husk refers to the layer after layer of skin on the outside of the corn cob, which can be said to be the most convenient and best to use. Because corncobs are planted in almost every household in rural areas, it is too convenient to get materials, and they are also easy to buy in cities. Unpeeled corncobs are sold in any vegetable market. Buy it back and keep the skin. It's a good thing to pack zongzi. The flexibility of corn husk should be the best in zongye, and it has a faint smell of corn when cooked, and it can dye glutinous rice into light yellow, which is very beautiful.

The corn husk has its own sweet taste, which is especially suitable for making sweet rice dumplings. Sichuan people like to use it to wrap rice dumplings, which is locally known as "Bao Guba" and has a delicate taste.

The fourth kind of leaf: Lotus leaf

As the ancient poem says, "the lotus leaves are green in the sky, and the lotus flowers are extremely bright red in the sun." the biggest advantage of the lotus leaf is that the leaves are big enough to pack as many rice dumplings as you want. The lotus leaf has been a good material for food since ancient times. For example, "crocodile chicken" is made after being wrapped in the lotus leaf. The lotus leaf is full of fragrance, but also has the effect of clearing the heart and reducing fire. Now this season is the season for the rapid growth of lotus leaves, so it is quite good to wrap zongzi.

Readers, have you ever wrapped zongzi in these leaves? Especially the third one, which is often overlooked, is coming to the Dragon Boat Festival. Those who are interested can try it.

Text / report, picture / network

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