Qingming Fruit

Qingming Fruit

　　Qingming Fruit

　　　　In Songyang folklore, eating green fruit during Qingming Festival can ward off evil and toxins. This fruit is made by mashing fresh tender mugwort into a paste, mixing it with glutinous rice flour to form the outer layer, then stuffing it with fillings such as shredded bamboo shoots, vermicelli, tofu, pickled vegetables, or sweet fillings like red beans and sesame powder. It is shaped into an oval or dumpling form, with leaves such as indocalamus or pomelo attached to both sides, and then steamed. It has a vibrant green color, a refreshing taste with a hint of mugwort aroma, offering a unique flavor.

　　Qingming Fruit is a food made around the Qingming Festival, said to be used in ancestral worship. The period around Qingming is the ideal season for picking Qingming grass. The soft pale pink dough is kneaded by hand, giving off a faint fragrant aroma.

　　There are two methods for making Qingming Fruit: sweet and savory. For the sweet version, Qingming grass is mixed with an appropriate amount of glutinous rice flour and wheat flour, along with sugar water, to form a dough that is shaped into pastries or flattened into wrappers. These are then filled with ingredients such as sesame, osmanthus sugar, and red bean paste, pressed into molds, and steamed. For the savory version, the filling includes diced cured pork, diced winter bamboo shoots, diced mushrooms, diced red chili peppers, dried tofu, pickled vegetables, and sprouts, and is shaped like a dumpling.