The Blog

This past Wednesday, June 16 was Dragonboat Festival Day (端午节 “duānwǔjié“). Yes, this is an actual holiday.

According to tradition, you watch dragonboat (端午 “duānwǔ”) races and eat zòngzi (粽子—sweet rice dumplings). Without going into too much history, the festival basically celebrates Qu Yuan, a famous scholar and poet who drowned himself in a river. According to legend, people rushed to the river and used their boats to find him, but were unsuccessful. The zongzi were thrown into the river, though I’ve heard and read different reasons as to why this was the case. Some say it was a sacrificial offering, others say it was to feed Qu (in the event that he was, you know, alive), and still others say it was to feed the fish so that they wouldn’t eat his body. I even heard they were used to feed a dragon deep beneath the river’s surface. Just one of many things I’m unclear of on this holiday.

So how did I celebrate? Well, having given up on dragonboating—I tried out practicing with a real team in Beijing and had muscle spasms in my arms, back and shoulders for nearly a week afterward!—I decided to take the easier route and attend a zongzi cooking class on Wednesday morning. I learned not only how to prepare the treats, but also the history of the festival.

I bet you’re just dying to hear how one makes a zongzi. Turns out, it’s not as difficult as you might think, provided you have bamboo leaves.

Ingredients

One bowl of uncooked rice, set in a bowl of water.

Dates and assorted berries.

Bamboo leaves.

Also: bamboo string (not pictured here, but you will see it in later pictures). This usually comes with the leaves.

Directions

1. Take 2 bamboo leaves and place one on top of the other. Then, form an ice cream cone shape with the cone forming in the middle of the leaves.

The ice cream cone shape.

Note: Make sure there isn’t a hole at the bottom of your cone. Otherwise the rice will fall out. There will be a hole when you initially make the cone, but you can pull the outer leave over the inner leave’s hole to make it disappear.

2. Take a single date and place it at the bottom of the cone. Then take a small pile of rice and put it in the cone. But don’t fill it all at once. Do it in increments, alternating between rice, dates and berries. Keep doing this until you have filled the cone all the way to the top.

A filled cone.

3. Fold the outer flap over the top of the cone first, then the inner flap, so that they form an “x” shape over the cone. Then take a bamboo string and tie it around the cone to secure the flaps. You don’t want any rice being able to fall out.

Sealed shut.

Keep making cones and filling them until you’ve run out of bamboo leaves.

6. Take your sealed cones and boil them.

Ready to boil.

7. After boiling for about 20 minutes, the zongzi are ready to eat! Unwrap the leaves and eat the rice inside, kind of like how you would eat a burrito. For extra flavor, put some sugar on the side of your plate and dip the zongzi in it. The rice will have become so sticky from boiling that it will easily pick up the sugar cubes.

Ready to open!

The insides. Dip in sugar for extra flavor.

Good luck finding those bamboo leaves. And 端午节快乐 (“Duānwǔ jié kuàilè“—Happy Dragonboat Festival Day)!