Time of the Dragon

Although there are still some days to go before the Dragon Boat Festival, people's enthusiasm for dragon boat racing and eating zongzi has already started to rise. However, around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival, the weather is both damp and hot. As glutinous rice is sticky and harder to digest, is everyone suitable to eat zongzi? We have invited Deputy Chief Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Physician Gao Sande from the Department of Preventive TCM at the Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University to teach us how to prepare zongzi that suits our constitution. People with weaker spleen and stomach should not overeat zongzi. Gao Sande explains that the term “Dragon Boat” was first seen in the “Customs and Traditions” by Zhou Chu of the Western Jin Dynasty, which records: “On the midsummer Dragon Boat Festival, ducks are cooked and triangular zongzi made.” Here, “duck’s horn millet” refers to zongzi, indicating that the custom of eating zongzi during the Dragon Boat Festival has a long history. Over 1,700 years later, as material life has become increasingly abundant, zongzi fillings have become more diverse and innovative. Glutinous rice is the main ingredient of zongzi, and in the "Compendium of Materia…