It turns out there is a flower called Qingming Flower

For many people in the southern region, eating Qingming flower dumplings or baba is the best way to celebrate Qingming Festival. If you don't taste the slightly bitter fragrance of Qingming flowers, it means you have wasted this Qingming Festival on your tongue.

Image source see watermark

So the question is, what kind of exotic flowers are the Qingming flowers used to make delicious dumplings?

In fact, there is more than one plant called Qingming flower. The plant used to make Qingming flower dumplings is called Artemisia serrata, but the real Qingming flower is not edible.

There is a flower called Qingming flower

In southern my country, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, there grows a tall, sturdy evergreen vine. From early spring to midsummer, clusters of flowers bloom on the green vines. The large flowers are shaped like white trumpets, with five delicate petals that are flawless white. When in full bloom, they are even more fragrant.

Perhaps because it blooms around the time of Qingming Festival, this beautiful flower has been given the romantic name of Qingming Flower (Beaumontia grandiflora).

Qingming flowers in full bloom, see watermark for the source of the picture

Qingming flower is a plant of the genus Qingming flower in the Apocynaceae family. The follicles it produces are shaped like cannonball warheads with pointed cones, so they are also known as the mighty nickname cannonball fruit.

As one of the most beautiful vines in the world, Qingming flowers have been introduced to many places around the world, exuding fragrance in countless courtyards, gardens and residents' walls.

However, don't think about eating it, because Qingming flowers have never contributed to our Qingming Festival delicacies. They come from the oleander family, which is full of poisons. The stems, leaves and flowers are full of poisonous juices. People can only appreciate the flowers and smell the fragrance but never eat them.

Qingming flowers and cannon fruit, see watermark for the source of the picture

Unlike the high-end climbing Qingming flower, the other kind of "Qingming flower" we need to know is quite ordinary and low-key.

Edible Qingming flowers

In the fields of most parts of our country, there are clusters of simple-looking annual chrysanthemum plants.

They wither and bloom once a year, usually less than a foot tall, with dense white hairs on their thin stems and leaves, which gleam with a soft silver-gray luster in the sun. According to legend, our ancestors named this weed Pseudognaphalium affine because its newly born leaves are shaped like mouse ears and its tiny yellow inflorescences resemble golden high-quality wine yeast.

The unremarkable Artemisia serrata. See the watermark for the source of the image.

The southern Artemisia selengensis sprouts in late winter and early spring. Its stems and leaves are most tender during the Qingming Festival. At this time, they are a natural and delicious wild vegetable.

Since ancient times, people have known how to pick wormwood in spring, chop it into fine powder or squeeze out the green juice and mix it with rice flour to make seasonal food for March 3rd and Cold Food Festival. The "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji" written in the Southern Dynasties of ancient my country records a March 3rd delicacy called "Longsheqi", which is made of rice flour mixed with honey and wormwood juice.

With the passage of time and the changes in customs, the unique spring scent from Gnaphalium has gradually become a Qingming memory that is passed down from generation to generation.

Despite their unremarkable appearance, they have earned the reputation of "Qingming flowers" and "Qingming vegetables", and have become an important ingredient in making Qingming Festival dumplings and baba.

Nowadays, people still carefully pick Artemisia selengensis around the Qingming Festival, steam and chop it, and mix it with snow-white glutinous rice flour, or steam the colorful Qingming flower dumplings, or fry the fragrant and soft Qingming flower cakes.

Dear Tadpole friends, after reading about the culinary legend of the "Qingming Flower" called Gnaphalium, are you already salivating?

END

Tadpole Musical Notation original article, please indicate the source when reprinting

Editor/Heart and Paper