Jhong tse

I will probably make some factual errors below - I'm remembering the best that I can.

This was just before dragon boat festival (last week) so of course there were lots of jhong tse. These are traditional rice dumplings that I may have written about before. The story behind this holiday involves a patriotic man who was ignored by his king. In despair at seeing his country go down the tubes, he threw himself into a river. In his memory, on this day people have races in dragon boats, which I guess are symbolically racing to rescue him. They also eat these steamed dumplings, which have sticky rice wrapped in a bamboo leaf. Symbolically, I think they are for the fish to eat instead of the man. There are two types of jhong tse in Taiwan, Northern and southern style, the difference being that in the northern the rice is fried first whereas in the southern it is not. Inside the dumplings you will usually find some pork, and some combination of peanuts, shitake mushroom, egg, chestnut, and maybe something else. I find them pretty delicious - note the best ones are usually someone's homemade recipe made by grandma's hands, though these were very good as well.