Chinatown Mystery #7
By Dyske April 28th, 2009
Can you identify any of these things? These are commonly sold by older Chinese ladies on the street. The one on the left looks like fried tofu. I have no idea what the rest of them are. I would guess that the thing that’s wrapped in a leaf is some sort of mixed rice. They look good, but I’m a bit scared to buy them since I don’t know what they are, and since these Chinese ladies usually don’t speak any English.
Another curious thing is that every time I try to take photos of these things, the ladies tell me not to. I’m not sure what they are worried about. I’m not trying to take photos of them; just their products. After all, I could just buy them and take the photos at home. They can’t stop me at home.
Frank Luo says:
April 29th, 2009 at 12:07 amYes, the yellow things on the left are fried tofu. They are puffy and have a lot of nooks and crannies in the middle that can pick up and hold sauces or soups, and they are very popular in lightweight soups with mung bean thread. When used in this way they are usually cut in half diagonally to expose the puffy insides to the soup.
The things wrapped in leaves are called 粽子 Zongzi or just 粽 Zong. They have no official English name that I know of, but oddly enough, I know what they’re called in Japanese — during my time in Japan, I happened upon a roadside stand on the way from Fukuoka to Kumamoto that sold these things, and the proprietors called them Chimaki. He had all kinds of these things but I was told that the Japanese version is usually made with mochi, pounded glutinous rice cake — rather than actual rice in grain form.
The Chinese version is made of glutinous rice and various fillings, wrapped in leaves and then tied. They are then steamed, and either eaten straight away or reheated later. The leaves seem to be fairly effective at preserving the contents for a couple of days, and these things can keep in the refrigerator for weeks.
They come in both sweet and savory varieties. For sweet, red bean paste, lotus seed or lotus seed paste, or mung bean paste are very popular fillings, and you would often dip the rice ball in sugar at the table. For savory, pork, peanuts, Chinese sausages, dried shrimp, and salted egg yolks are the most popular fillings. Savory Zongzi are often dipped in soy sauce at the table.
Chestnut is a popular filling in both sweet and savory Zong.
I think the stuff in the bag to the far right are peanuts, which are often added to Zong. The white stuff in the middle looks like firm tofu, but I can’t be sure.
Dyske says:
April 29th, 2009 at 12:14 amIt’s making me hungry. I should pick up one of those Zongzi next time I’m down in Chinatown.
Frank Luo says:
April 29th, 2009 at 12:20 amThere is a store on Doyers Street that specializes in these things. Presumably they speak some amount of English, since, unlike someone who just sets stuff out on the street, the logistics of running a food establishment entails dealing with authorities. You can get hot ones straight out of the steamer there.
If you bought them off the street you would be best advised to take them home and heat them before eating them — cold Zong usually taste terrible.
Dyske says:
April 29th, 2009 at 12:22 amThat’s making me even hungrier. I guess it’s too late now to go down to Doyers Street.
Frank Luo says:
April 29th, 2009 at 12:59 amLooking at the photos from “A Journey Through Chinatown” I think I remembered wrong — the Zong place is on Pell, around the corner from Doyers. I was thinking Doyers because I always end up walking that way — turn from Bowery/Chatham Square onto Doyers, then onto Pell.
Sorry — my bad.
The Zong place has a huge Chinese character 粽 painted on their window. Can’t miss it.
from Hawaii by way of Pasadena, CA says:
April 29th, 2009 at 10:08 pmI grew up in Hawaii with the mochi rice wrapped in leaves being called either “Mochi Pouch”- obviously putting a Japanese name to a Chinese dish. Or it was also called a “Beggar’s Pouch”- assumingly because it uses tiny bits of the leftover meats from the day before and I was taught this is what families would give the beggar monks passing thru; whether this is true or not, I have no way of knowing.
pmmonkey says:
April 30th, 2009 at 12:05 pmJust a little additional info here.
Zongzi is also called rice dumpling in English. The leaves used to wrap the glutinous rice are usually bamboo leaves, though some different variations of zongzi uses some other different leaves.
Frank Luo says:
April 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pmI did come across that term when I started googling Zongzi, but I think it’s misleading.
Side story — when I was a kid I was introduced to Vietnamese lunchmeat. It’s made from mashed meat and spices wrapped in bamboo leaves and then steamed. The restaurant billed these things as 越南粽子 “Vietnamese Zongzi” which I thought silly because they were just… Spiced meat with nothing whatsoever to connect them to Zongzi other than the leaf wrapping. I guess the Chinese just called anything wrapped in leaves and steamed Zongzi.
I think the term “rice dumplings” came from the same kind of thinking in someone who just called anything that has stuffing in starch “dumplings” because there is no real equivalent in their own cuisine or language.
Just the same, if you see “rice dumpling” on the menu in a Chinese restaurant, it may be referring to Zongzi.
Amy says:
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:50 pmThe yellow puffs are actually referred to as “stinky tofu,” although I’ve always thought they smelled fine, one of my favs growing up.
The 4th bag of round thingies don’t look like peanuts to me, they look more like gingko nuts. Talk about stink. Gingko trees grow wild in parts of Central Park (yes, in NYC) and my dad used to take me & my sibs out to go pick them. All over the grounds are mushed (stepped on) gingko fruits releasing a sulfuric, gassy smell in the air. Also, if you touch the berries with your bare hands, the acid on it can burn you, so always wear gloves. The nuts are inside the fruit, so it’s really not a nut but a pit, a shelled pit which you would then crack with a nutcracker to get to the soft, beanie part that is used in soups. My father is/was Soup King, so he went out of his way to get his ingredients and being Chinese, he didn’t like to pay for anything, not when he could get it for free a subway ride away.
I think just about every culture has some wrapped pouch foods like the Zong. My grandmother had a “zong marathon” during certain times of the year. Thinking about it makes me miss her (she passed ages ago), esp. when my kids now love it so much and I have to wait until my mother comes to visit before I get any. But I think “rice dumpling” or simply “dumpling” is a poor description of Zongs – they look more like “rice samosas in leafy wrap.”
If you go to Dim Sum, there’s actually another wrapped leafy pouch dish, “Lor-Mi-Gai” (translated, ‘sticky rice chicken’). You usually get two pouches per plate and there’s ground chicken in it. Zongs have some yellow beans (lentils?) but these dim sum chicken pouches are pure sticky rice. Actually I think maybe the rice in Zongs are different too. Both are sticky, but maybe the dim sum one is sweeter-? I can’t be sure.
OK, the white logs (second bag) are tough. They look like firm tofu, but I’m more accustomed to seeing them as small squares rather than logs. Maybe the vendor is Fukinese? They have strange versions of traditional Chinese foods, at least that’s what my mother tells me…
Dyske says:
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 pmHi Amy,
Great comment. I love your stories surrounding the food items. Thank you for sharing them.
Frank Luo says:
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:55 pmIt is possible that this is stinky tofu — stinky tofu is most often served deep-fried, in which case they would look somewhat similar to ordinary fried tofu, though darker in color. But if you don’t smell anything chances are it’s just fried tofu.
Stinky tofu is 臭豆腐, and fried tofu 油豆腐. Fried tofu is just a square of tofu fried to a golden yellow color, while stinky tofu is allowed to ferment, like cheese, for a period of time before being cooked and served.
There are different versions of stinky tofu in different provinces, but it is generally said that the original stinky tofu was accidentally invented by a Beijing would-be tofu merchant whose inventory of tofu went bad and molded in the clay pots they were kept in, and who tried to eat it himself anyway by scraping the mold off and deep frying the tofu to make it safe to eat, discovering in the process that the fermentation made the flavor much more interesting.
I’ve had stinky tofu deep-fried, steamed, stewed, and stir-fried. When not deep-fried, the color of stinky tofu runs from off-white to green, blue to purple and black, giving rise to their euphemistic name: 青方, literally “blue squares/cubes”, a designation ostensibly given by some squeamish Chinese scholar who preferred not to say the word “stink” when referring to food.
Also, the zongzi place on Pell apparently is gone — I walked by it today and there is now a flower shop where I remember the shop to be located at. No matter — many restaurants sell it hot, though what they will be called on the menu in English is anyone’s guess. Sometimes it’s just called “sticky rice.”
Using that nifty RK Chin site, this Shanghai place:
http://www.nychinatown.org/storefronts/mott/100mott.html
…on the block north of Canal, makes a decent savory Zong.
Dyske says:
May 4th, 2009 at 12:01 amPerfect. I’ll check out the Shanghai place next time I’m down there.
Frank Luo says:
May 4th, 2009 at 11:40 amCurious about the differences between the Lor Mai Gai (I think the “Lor” s probably supposed to be “Ngor” — that nasal sound that doesn’t exist in Mandarin but is preserved in southern Chinese dialects) and the Zongzi I remember, I went looking around a bit.
I remember when I was a kid, when we made Zongzi, my mother would put what she called 碱粉 Jianfen, literally “basic powder” (basic in the sense of pH, not simplicity), into the rice. I never knew why.
WIth a bit of research, I found out that the addition of bases encourages gelatinization of starches, and also leaches more of the flavonoids and other compounds from the leaves into the rice, lending the rice a translucent, yellow-tinged appearance, a bit more pronounced leaf flavor, and a more gooey, rice cake-like mouth feel.
Here is a photo (and recipe… Though it is in Chinese) of Zongzi with basic powder added:
http://www.1797.com.cn/content/2008-6/content_164427260.html
You can see that it looks very different from simply boiled rice or even rice cooked in leaves, being more translucent and tinged with yellow.
As a side note, the basic powder I remember from my childhood was a greenish powder, completely different from the pure white powder that I buy in Chinatown for use in my cooking. Research indicates that the greenish stuff is made from washing plant ashes in water to extract the base salts, while the white stuff is undoubtedly produced by chemical means. Another point of curiosity satisfied.
Amy says:
May 5th, 2009 at 7:20 pmThe Zong or Zongzi (I’m Cantonese) that is more gelatinous yellow also has a red wood (?) piece in the center, which adds color (and what else I have no idea). This Zong has nothing but rice in it, no meat, no bean and my mom used to call these “soap water” zongs. Again, I have no idea why, but we ate them with maple syrup (or Aunt Jemima syrup). My grandmother didn’t make too many of these for eating, because I think they were the kind used for Buddhist rituals or ancestral worship.
The rice in the regular Zong with the meat & yellow bean is white. Not sure what kind of rice it is, if it’s “Lor Mai” (‘mai’ meaning rice) like in the Lor Mai Gai or some other rice, but I will ask my mom and post back when I get the answer. 🙂
Frank Luo says:
May 6th, 2009 at 12:50 amZong from different parts of China differ greatly. The varieties are endless. But the yellow ones are a sub-style that seems to be found in many places.
I have never had the one with the red stuff and nothing else in the middle though so I’m also very curious to know what that is.
The name “Soap water” actually brings up an interesting point. Before soap as we know it was used widely in China, people used various things as cleansers, and one of these was lye a.k.a. caustic soda a.k.a. sodium hydroxide, or other basic compounds. As anyone who’s seen Fight Club or who had a decent chemistry course in school can tell you, lye is the stuff that soap is made from, but it also works as a cleanser in and of itself. The Cantonese term for soap 番枧 fan ngan literally “foreign lye” or “foreign soap” probably because lye or other bases were used as cleansers before soap (I don’t speak Cantonese but I ask friends about terms I don’t recognize from Mandarin, and this was one of them).
What the Cantonese call 枧水 or “lye water/soap water” is really a factory-mixed preparation containing a mixture of sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide, and water. Chemically equivalent in terms of effects on the acidity, it would gelatinize starch and change the color just like powdered bases. The formula differs from manufacturer to manufacturer both in ingredients and strength.
While I don’t use the stuff for my Zong, which I rarely make anyway because it really is a huge pain in the butt, I did buy some base powder because it is listed as an ingredient in pulled noodles, which I wish to experiment with. The only base powders I can find in New York Chinatown, however, is sold as a white powder in plastic bags under the wonderfully appetizing and grammatically correct name of “eatable alkali.”
I am not sure what it does exactly to encourage the formation of gluten, but it is listed as an ingredient in all the pulled noodle, in fact most homemade Chinese noodle recipes I have found, along with a Chinese folk saying, something to the effect of “the salt makes the bones, and the base makes the tendons” where it comes to making noodles, which would imply that salt gives flour dough more bite while bases give it more stretch. I will experiment with it when I have a couple of free day with which to attempt hand-pulled noodles at home.
Besides, I figured that if I can’t get the pulled noodles right, I could always clean my drains with it.
lizzie says:
May 7th, 2009 at 6:05 pmI lived in China for a spell and if that were Cho Dofu (stinky tofu) it would be obvious. That looks like yummy little fried tofu squares. As an American, I can say that Cho Dofu is completely original, like nothing else, ever.
There is a story that accompanies the rice wrapped in Bamboo leaves. Here’s an exerpt from http://www.newsgd.com/culture/culturenews/200706190002.htm
The Dragon Boat Festival today (June 19) will see housewives are wrapping glutinous rice with bamboo or reed leaves, which are, according to tradition, thrown into rivers to spare from the fish’s mouths the body of a patriotic poet who drowned more than 2,000 years ago.
The poet, Qu Yuan, lived in the state of Chu during the Warring States period (475 B.C. to 221 B.C.). He drowned himself in the Miluo River in today’s Hunan Province in 278 B.C., on fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hoping his death could awaken the king to revitalize the kingdom.
The date has since been remembered as the Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwu Festival, on which local fishermen row dragon boats along the Miluo river to search for Qu Yuan and scatter glutinous rice dumplings in the water to prevent the fish from eating his body.
joy says:
May 9th, 2009 at 11:38 amThe green ones named zhongzi have stories.
BC 278 May 5th a great poet named Qu Yuan in China suicided by drowning in a river.
Of course at that time there is no combined China. There are 7 powerfull countries （魏Wei、赵Zhao、韩Han、齐Qi、楚Chu、秦Qin、燕Yan）and several small countries in China.
And this poet belongs to Chu country. He is the little brother of the king in Chu country at that time.
Anyway he suicided. The civilians love him very much and very sad about his death.
They think the fish will eat the poet’s body. To keep the fish away from the poet’s body, they wrap the rice with leaves and throw them into the river hoping fish will eat rice instead of the poet’s body.
Thereafter, Chinese eat Zongzi every May 5th to remeber this poet.
At that time, civilians also rows boating in the river searching for the poet’s body.
Thererafter, Chinese make May 5th “dragon boat festival” and will run a dragon boat game in that day.
ftfly says:
May 12th, 2009 at 8:36 amaccording to what i know
the first one is something made of flour, and fried, nto real tofu.
and btw, stinky tofu is not this kind of color.
second is some dried tofu, normall should already cooked and have taste , could cook that in broth
third one you already know. but usually, would cook into in deep water, not steam, steam is more for reheat that
that small things in bags, sorry, i could not see clearly enough by my eyes on that pics. so, no command
Roxzane says:
October 24th, 2009 at 5:25 am^^ The things on the right that are wrapped in a leaf are like sticky rice wraps, and I think that they are covered in banana leaf. I LOVE THEM~ They taste sooo good!! (Especially like different kinds)