Book of Days Tales

Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English (sometimes also called Chinese Memorial Day, Ancestors’ Day, the Clear Brightness Festival, or the Pure Brightness Festival), is a traditional Chinese festival observed by ethnic Chinese in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It falls on the first day of the fifth solar term (also called Qingming) of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15^th day after the March equinox, which could be 4^th 5^th or 6^th April in a given year. During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make ritual offerings to their ancestors. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes, and the burning of incense.

The tradition of eating qingtuan at Qingming Festival evolved from the ancient Chinese Cold Food Day (one or two days before Qingming Festival). As the name suggests, observers were not supposed to heat or cook any food during the festival. Therefore, food such as qingtuan that could be prepared in advance and consumed without heating became associated with the Cold Food Festival. Later, the Cold Food Festival evolved into the Qingming Festival, and qingtuan eaten on the Cold Food Festival became an essential food for the Qingming Festival in eastern and southern China. Making qingtuan is fiddly, so these days most people in China buy them from street vendors or convenience stores.  Here is the general idea if you are interested. 

Preparation

The main ingredients of traditional qingtuan are glutinous rice flour, Chinese mugwort or barley grass, and red or black bean paste. The general steps for making qingtuan are: The mugwort is first crushed and squeezed out to make the green juice. Then, this juice is mixed with the glutinous rice flour while still hot and kneaded into dough. The dough is then divided and rolled into disks. The bean paste is shaped into balls and the dough is wrapped around them.  They are then steamed. The green coloring for the dough can also be vegetable juice (such as spinach), sage, grass, or loofah leaf juice. In Linhai City, Zhejiang Province fillings come in two styles: salty and sweet. The salty ones are dried tofu, diced bamboo shoots, diced pork, pickles, etc., while the sweet ones are mostly bean paste. In order to distinguish between the two styles, the salty ones are usually wrapped in a dumpling shape, and the sweet ones are round