Are Qingming fruit and Qingtuan the same? Qingtuan has different names in different places.

Are Qingming fruit and Qingtuan the same? Qingming fruit and Qingtuan are both traditional foods eaten during the Qingming Festival! Because they look similar, many people compare them. Some people are confused, are Qingming fruit and Qingtuan the same food?

Is Qingming fruit the same as Qingtuan?

no the same. Most Qingming fruits are dumpling-shaped. Qingming fruit gets its name because its main ingredient, wild wormwood, grows most vigorously during the Qingming season and is easiest to harvest. As the name suggests, Qingtuan looks like a green dumpling. The fillings inside Qingming fruit are mostly dried spices, dried bamboo shoots, etc., and are salty. The fillings of Qingtuan include red bean paste, etc., which are mostly sweet. There is a custom of eating Qingtuan during the Qingming Festival. Qingtuan is called differently in different places. In Shanghai and Ningbo, it is called Qingtuan, in Suzhou it is called Qingtuanzi, in Hangzhou it is called Qingtuanzi or Qingmingtuanzi, in Nanjing it is called Qingmingtuan or Chuntuan, in Wenzhou it is called Qingmingbinger, and in Jinhua it is called Qingmingguo (the crescent-shaped ones are called Qingmingjiao).

The difference between Qingming fruit and Qingtuan

1. Green Rice Balls

During the Qingming Festival, people in the Jiangnan area have the custom of eating green dumplings. Green dumplings are made by crushing a wild plant called "wheatgrass" and squeezing out the juice. The juice is then mixed with dried water-ground pure glutinous rice flour to make the dumplings. The filling of the dumpling is made of delicate sugar bean paste, and a small piece of sugar lard is added when wrapping the filling. After the dough is made, steam it in a steamer. When it is out of the steamer, use a brush to evenly brush the surface of the dumplings with vegetable oil. That's it.

2. Qingming Fruit

Qingming fruit, as an important food custom of Qingming Festival, is inextricably linked to the festival itself. Qingming fruit was originally a food custom of the Cold Food Festival. Later, due to the development of Qingming Festival and Cold Food Festival, it was given the name Qingming Festival.

How to make Qingming fruit

First, grind mugwort (a kind of wild grass), rice, and glutinous rice into powder and make the skin. The white rice flour plus the green color of the mugwort immediately turns into emerald green. Then, fill it with red bean paste and steam it in a pot. After being steamed, the Qingming fruit becomes a emerald green pie-like thing with a round bamboo leaf underneath (we use pine needles at home, which is more fragrant and healthier). The small snack has a fresh fragrance and looks more like a piece of exquisite jade. It tastes even more fragrant and smooth in the mouth. Qingming fruit is a seasonal delicacy in the south, with different names, eating methods and ingredients. In southern Jiangxi, Qingming fruit is called Aimi fruit. It also uses mugwort but less glutinous rice flour. When making the cake, put some japonica rice flour or flour, and add some chili and salt. The Aimi fruit out of the oven is harder than that made entirely of glutinous rice flour, and has a salty and spicy taste. In other places in the south of the Yangtze River, Qingming fruit does not contain mugwort. Instead, mustard or vegetable juice is added to wet rice noodles. The wet rice noodles are also green in color, but lack the fragrance of mugwort.