the dragon boat festival, also known as tuen-ng jeet (端午節) in cantonese circles, roughly translates to "double five festival". i don't know what that really means but it sounds like a celebration of your terrible poker hand.
and i don't know what it has to do with dragon boat racing, but either way, there's still some great foodstuffs that goes along with this festival (as it is for every single chinese festival ever). (i just looked it up and the double fives has something to do with a dead poet).
this godforsaken year, tuen-ng jeet fell in mid-june, which means it's rice-wrapping time! gotta love tsoong (or zong zi in hoity-toity pinyin spelling) because they're convenient packets of glutinous rice and a variety of soong (餸 or rice accompaniments) and freeze super awesomely.
they're great mini-meals for days when you're too lazy or drunk to cook something.
momma chow is an expert tsoong (粽) wrapper, with over 30 years of experience. see for yourself!
[left: momma chow's display of refined tsoong-wrapping technique. right: my display of refined tsoong-mucking.]
it takes her less than 90 seconds to put one together and tie it up; that's the same amount of time a barista at second cup coffee shops is supposed to be able to make a latte (btw, if you as a barista and can't make a latte in under 90 seconds, you are bad at life).
momma chow usually puts glutinous rice with mung beans, fatty pork, chinese sausage and salted egg yolks in hers. but sometimes you can get it in good asian supermarkets like t&t, where slave grandmas fill them with roast duck, chinese mushrooms, roast pork, and/or all sorts of other goodies.
i'm hungry now.
Is there a t&t in montreal? I must eat one now.
ReplyDeletenot yet... the closest one is in ottawa but the loblaws conglomerate owns t&t now so you never know...
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Chinese grape leaves. I hope it doesn't take 29 more years for your Tsoong-wrapping skills to catch up to Momma Chow. I'll have to find a Chinese market here in SoCal (shouldn't be too hard) and try some of these li'l guys
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