The other day I was handed a little leaf wrapped parcel by a friend of mine, saying: “here, you’ll like this…. “
And me (not owning a
verbal filter sometimes…..) saying, hmmm, thanks, but eh its evening, why are you handing
me breakfast?
(I was referring to Nasi Lemak a
dish wrapped in pandang leaves and mainly taken for breakfast in Malaysia)
My friend laughed and
said “noooooooo its not that… its something else completely…it’s a very
traditional Chinese dish…”
“Its something called BakChang” and
she proceeded to tell me the story of Qu Yuan a
famous poet during the Chu Dynasty as legend goes (according to various sources
on the interweb and of course my friend who gave me one of these)
The Bak Chang is a
traditional Chinese rice dumpling usually available around the time of Dragon
Boat Festival.
Like many Chinese festivals and their associated foodie
traditions, there is also a legend surrounding the origin of this yummy food.
The story goes that Qu
Yuan tried to warn the King and his fellow countrymen of the expansion of the
neighbouring Qin kingdom, with little success.
When the capital of the
Chu kingdom fell to a Qin general, the patriotic Qu Yuan was supposedly so
overcome with grief that he drowned himself in the Miluo River. The Chu people
threw packets of rice (the Bak Chang ) in to the river to keep
the fish from feeding on the poet’s body. (i have also heard a version where it was meant for feeding him in the afterlife..)
Bak Zhang or Zhongzi as
they are known today, are made with glutinous rice with a variety of filling,
then wrapped in bamboo leaves, bound and tied together in a bundle and consumed
once a year on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.
Although I was out by the
exact day I was still in on the exact week, and went to try this last night…
As you can see it looks
kinda lush, and that it was…
Bring on next year
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