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Qingming Festival
Families sweep the ancestral graves, offer food there, and eat green rice dumplings.
What is eaten for Qingming Festival
At Qingming Chinese families visit the graves of their ancestors, clean them, and set out food, tea and wine before sharing a meal. The day absorbed an older festival when no fires were lit, so many of its foods are eaten cold. Around Shanghai the sweet of the season is qingtuan, a soft green dumpling coloured with mugwort or barley grass and filled with red bean paste. In Fujian and Taiwan families roll fresh spring pancakes round vegetables and meat. Northern homes fry twisted dough called sanzi.
The dishes
Also part of it, and being written: Popiah (Fresh spring rolls made at home in Fujian and Taiwan.), Sanzi (Fried twisted dough, a cold food for the day.).
Written by the Thali desk with AI assistance. Background: "Qingming Festival" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Qingtuan: 猫猫的日记本, CC BY-SA 3.0, source