Zigui Sticky Rice Dumplings 秭归粽子
Zigui Sticky Rice Dumplings is featured among the local specialties of Hubei.
Zigui Sticky Rice Dumplings (秭归粽子) are the leaf-wrapped parcels of glutinous rice that families in Zigui County (秭归县), Yichang (宜昌), Hubei, make for the Dragon Boat Festival (端午节). Zigui is the home town of the poet Qu Yuan (屈原), and its common version is the plain 'clear-water' zongzi (清水粽): white glutinous rice and a red date wrapped into a ridged, three-cornered shape.
How it is made
In a 2023 Xinhua report from Maoping town (茅坪镇), 75-year-old Xu Keying (许克英) showed a group of young people the method: she rolled a zongzi leaf into a cone, spooned glutinous rice and red dates in from one end, and tied the parcel tight with coloured cotton thread. She recalled going up the hills with her parents as a child to gather the leaves. Guangming Online names the wrapping as ruo bamboo leaves (箬叶). Xu also noted that people now try new fillings such as egg yolk, red bean paste and rock sugar to suit children and older eaters.
Where it comes from
In Zigui the parcel is read as a portrait of Qu Yuan. A local saying, quoted by People's Daily, runs 'it has ridges and corners, a heart and a liver' (有棱有角，有心有肝): the white rice stands for his integrity, the red date for his loyal heart and the sharp corners for his unbending character. A Zigui legend holds that divine fish carried Qu Yuan home, and that crowds on the riverbank threw zongzi into the water to reward them. Residents still throw zongzi into the river in his memory, to feed the fish and guard his spirit.
How it is eaten
Zigui keeps three Dragon Boat days: the 5th, 15th and 25th of the fifth lunar month. Xu Keying compares eating zongzi then to northerners eating dumplings at the lunar New Year. Before the festival, breakfast stalls on the streets of Maoping lay out zongzi tied with five-coloured thread. People's Daily adds that cakes called ba ba (粑粑) were once eaten more often than zongzi at the festival. A newer local speciality is the navel-orange zongzi (脐橙粽): the Qugu (屈姑) company, which began planning it in 2016, soaks the rice in juice from Zigui navel oranges and mixes it with orange jam.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
Image credits & notes (1)
- Reference photo of a similar dish · 同类菜品参考照片A similar preparation is pictured; the local version may differ. 同类菜品参考照片，当地做法可能不同。Photo: Stevenliuyi · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited. Thumbnails may show a cropped view.
