Black rice
Eating black rice on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month is a folk custom in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. One of the folklore legends is that in order to feed his mother who was imprisoned in hell, Maud Lian, a disciple of Sakyamuni, found a way to pound rice with black rice leaves and dye it with juice, then cooked it into black rice and sent it to the hungry ghosts. The hungry ghosts did not dare to eat the black rice. The mother finally had enough to eat, and people in Jiangnan ate black rice every year to commemorate Mulian, their filial son. According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", the leaves of Wuyaofanfan belong to Lauraceae. They are mild in nature, slightly bitter in taste, and fragrant. They can be used as medicine to regulate the vitality of the spleen and stomach, and to open the Shaoyin and Kidney meridian. Black rice is a kind of purple-black glutinous rice. It is made by collecting the leaves of the wild plant Black rice tree and boiling it in soup. The glutinous rice is soaked in the soup for half a day, then taken out and steamed in a wooden steamer. It has a fragrant and delicious taste, which increases people's appetite. Moreover, people believe that eating black rice on the day of Beginning of Summer can dispel wind, detoxify and prevent mosquito bites. Black rice can be made into sweet and salty according to everyone's preference. For sweet, you can add sugar, raisins, red dates, nuts, etc.; for salty, you can add peas, bacon, diced bamboo shoots, etc.
Staple food
Home cooking
