端午快乐！

Today is  端午节 (Duan Wu Festival) or otherwise known as Dragon Boat Festival.  So the Chinese celebrate this festival by eating dumplings. 

I still prefer the traditional dumplings, or Bak Chang, which include ingredients like fatty pork, water chestnut, chinese mushroom, and sometimes with bean paste and dried shrimp, all hidden underneath glutinous rice and wrapped with bamboo leaves. I like Nonya dumplings too, which are more mashed up lean meat and mushroom and taste sweeter than savoury Bak Chang. In fact, I love anything glutinous rice.  

When I was a kid in primary school, I really look forward to having Bak Chang, especially in my Grandma's house. There were usually mountains of bunches of dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied with strings, all gifted by relatives and friends. What Grandma did was hanging all the bunches of dumplings on sturdy bamboo poles (where we hang laundry)  just below the ceiling of her huge kitchen of her attap house.  The aroma of the Bak Chang was so addictive, and even more so, when we heat them up.  We could be having Bak Chang for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

These days I can only eat one or two Bak Changs a day.  Then, when I was a little ravenous kid, I love Bak Chang so much that I could eat about 6-7 Bak Changs a day!  Even my Grandma was shocked. The horror.

端午快乐！