I know all the truth, but what's the difference between zongzi and glutinous rice balls?

Dragon Boat Festival can not drink realgar wine, can not row a dragon boat, can not hang Artemisia argyi on the door, but as a Chinese must eat a few zongzi.

At the strong request of my son, I bought rice dumplings, glutinous rice and red dates. After a try, I finally ended the battle in the form of "lazy zongzi" with glutinous rice and glutinous rice on the steamer. One conclusion: it takes skill to make zongzi.

Across the country, there are a wide variety of leaves for wrapping zongzi. Previous articles on fruit shells have been introduced in detail-- useful Reed leaves, banana leaves, oak leaves, and leaves. It seems that all kinds of broad leaves can be used as the outer packaging of zongzi.

Quickly paddle left and right to see which zongzi of different shapes are collected in Jiaxing zongzi museum. Photo: cat's diary / wiki commons

But when it comes to the classic image of zongzi, it naturally has to be zongye. It's just that what kind of leaves are these zongye? do they exist only to allow glutinous rice to replace Dr. qu Yuan and feed the fish and shrimp people?

Ruo bamboo is not a big Reed.

Many years ago, I always thought that the people who wrapped zongzi were Reed leaves (although they were really wrapped with reeds), but the Reed leaves seen on the Loess Plateau were thin and thin, which was obviously different from the broad zongzi leaves sold on the market. I once thought it was only the result of fertilizer applied by farmers' uncles.

Whole pots of rice dumplings. Picture: lanbu / wiki commons

It was later learned that the typical leaves of rice dumplings are not Reed leaves, but bamboo leaves. To be exact, it is the general name for the leaves of a large number of plants of the genus Gramineae. In this family with 22 species and 6 varieties, there are some species with broad leaves, such as Phyllostachys pubescens and Phyllostachys pubescens. The leaves of these plants can carry glutinous rice, red dates, bean paste, fresh meat, salted egg yolk and ham, and eventually become familiar with zongzi, thus opening up a new battlefield for the struggle between sweet and salty. Another example of the dispute between sweet and salty: how do you eat litchi? )

The leaves of Ruo bamboo. Picture: Thesurvived99 / wiki commons

Ruo bamboo plants do not have as tall bamboo poles as Phyllostachys pubescens and Golden Bamboo. They usually grow into low bushes. No wonder some friends confuse them with reeds. Of course, these plants are bamboo after all, and the biggest difference between them and reeds is that Reed flowers float year after year in Reed marshes, but flowers can hardly be seen in Ruo bamboo bushes. Members of the bamboo family only blossom once in their lives, and Ruo bamboo will follow this law of life.

The taste of tea in zongzi packaging

If you say the taste of rice dumplings, in fact, there is no significant difference from the rice cakes in the steamer, but the fragrance provided by zongye is unique, and it is this smell that makes zongzi have its own special charm.

What's the taste of zongzi? In fact, good scientists have been tinkering with this matter for a long time. Just like roses have the smell of roses and oranges have the taste of oranges, these zongye really have a special taste.

Now, can you smell the fragrance of zongzi across the screen? Picture: Siweihuang1028 / wiki commons

The aroma of zongye is based on two chemicals, leaf alcohol and leaf aldehyde, which give fresh plant aroma to zongye, which are often found in fresh vegetables.

In addition to these two fragrances, there is also hexanal. This smell usually appears on freshly mowed lawns, and if diluted properly, there will be a sense of freshness. In fact, the smell is related to plants eaten by pests (Pieris rapae larvae) that attract carnivorous predators (wasps). Human beings unexpectedly have a feeling for this smell, casually make up for it, and they will feel that the picture is too beautiful.

All right, stop digging into the cause, the smell of grass is always comfortable. Picture: pixabay.com

Fortunately, the aroma components in zongye are much more than that, and 2-ethyl furan is also one of the sources of aroma. This is a scorched-scented chemical that is also found in coffee, tomatoes and mint. It is the existence of this scorched fragrance that makes the flavor of zongzi fuller.

Generally speaking, the aroma of zongye is similar to that of green tea and grass. If you develop an ecological style of zongye tea, the fragrance of zongye strengthens the flavor of the tea, which may be a new opportunity. As the Chinese nation living in the bamboo sea, the aroma of bamboo has always been the favorite of the Chinese people, not to mention that in Xishuangbanna, rice wine has recently been stored in live bamboo knots, allowing the aroma components of bamboo to be mixed with the wine. It's also a new way to play.

Ecological packaging pioneer

We often ignore the essential attribute of this layer of zongye-it is the outer packaging of glutinous rice dumplings.

Today, we are familiar with all kinds of food packaging, plastic bags and plastic lunch boxes have become the main force of today's food packaging. Although it has been widely criticized in aspects such as white pollution, there is no doubt that food packaging greatly improves the preservation time of food and promotes the circulation of food. At this point, zongye is the ancestor of food packaging, and packing zongzi is the beginning of the food packaging industry.

In the hands of "skilled workers", the efficiency of packing zongzi can be very high. Photo: Caterpillar / wiki commons

The choice of zongzi leaves is not accidental. In addition to the fragrance mentioned above, zongzi leaves also contain a lot of flavonoids. At the same time, Ruo bamboo polysaccharides play a good role in inhibiting harmful bacteria.

Of course, Ruo bamboo is not an isolated case, other commonly used zongzi "packaging" can more or less find some reasons for being selected. Mistletoe leaves contain a lot of tannins, a lot of flavonoids in lotus leaves, and Amomum villosum contains a lot of bacteriostatic substances unique to Zingiberaceae.

Lotus leaf zongzi is obviously more likely to have a larger volume. Picture: Jason Lam

The bacteriostatic and fresh-keeping function of bamboo products has been paid attention to since ancient times. As we all know, the litchi eaten by Yang Guifei depends on the delivery boy, but few people know that the container of litchi is actually a huge bamboo tube. Put the freshly picked litchi in a fresh bamboo tube and seal the opening, which becomes a good preservation and transport container. only with such packaging and speed up the whip can you have the opportunity to send the undiscolored litchi to the imperial concubine.

Fresh-keeping methods change human taste

Today, when we look at zongzi, it is difficult to clearly define whether we choose zongzi as food, or whether our taste has been changed by zongzi-because in many cases, our taste buds are shaped by food.

Hops-the source of beer bitterness. Picture: pixabay.com

In the 9th century, the Covey Monastery winery in Westphalia, Germany, had widely used hops; in 1516, the Duke of Bavaria, William IV, enacted legislation on the four major raw materials for beer, and hops was one of them; and later, in order to meet the demand for long-distance transport of beer, the British colonists further increased the use of hops, resulting in the emergence of heavy-tasting beers like IPA in India.

Nowadays, there are many kinds of beer, but the bitterness of hops must be taken for granted. Picture: Quinn Dombrowski

As for staple food, fermentation is a common measure to ensure food safety.

In the middle and south of Guangxi, local villagers will bring a can of porridge to the ground during the busy farming season. If unfamiliar friends taste it, they will feel that the porridge has gone bad-it is really sour porridge. Coincidentally, during my trip to Tanzania, East Africa, I filled a large bowl of "oatmeal". As a result, I almost sprayed it in the first bite, and the taste of the porridge was comparable to that of aged vinegar.

Fermented sour porridge is a popular food in Africa. Picture: kalekyehealth.com

However, both fellow villagers in Guangxi and African friends are happy to accept sour porridge-this is probably the domestication of food to human beings.

Many foods have a legendary source, and zongzi is one of them. Maybe it comes from facts, or it doesn't matter-what matters is that our creation and compromise on food preservation and transportation has successfully domesticated our stomachs.

This article is the 169th article in the fourth year of the species calendar, from the author of the species calendar @ Shi Jun.

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Gramineae Reed