A: Ah, I was going to make zongzi for this year’s Dragon Boat Festival, but I think I’m going to have to shelve those plans, because of the pandemic.
B: Yeah, if you want to buy the ingredients and the bamboo leaves, you’ll need to go to a traditional wet market and risk the crowds. We should probably just do as we’ve been told and stay home.
A: We have a bit of leftover rice in the fridge, and some dishes we didn’t finish from the last couple of days. Do we need to cook anything new today?
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Liberty Times 照片:自由時報記者周敏鴻
B: Look, we also have a few eggs. Why don’t we make some egg fried rice?
A: 唉,今年端午節本來想包粽子,因為疫情的關係只好放棄。
B: 對呀,要買各種餡料和粽葉,還得去傳統市場,群聚的風險太大了,我們還是乖乖待在家比較好。
A: 冰箱裡有一些剩飯,還有這兩天吃剩的菜,我們今天還要煮新的菜嗎?
B: 你看,這裡還有幾顆蛋,我們來做蛋炒飯好了!
Rice is an essential ingredient in Taiwanese cuisine. Many foods are made of rice, adding more variety to our cooking, such as rice cake, or “gui.” Wagui is made by steaming rice flour batter in a bowl. The term “gui” refers to a type of food made from rice, while “wa” refers to a bowl. The pronunciation of “gui” in Taiwanese Hokkien is similar to the word for “nobility” in Chinese, so it is common for people to prepare various types of gui, including wagui, as offerings to the gods or ancestors,. 米是台灣重要的主食,用米製成的食品十分多元,豐富我們的飲食,如米做成的「粿」。粿的意思是米做成的糕點,碗粿是將在來米漿倒入碗中蒸熟,因而得名。粿因為音同「貴」,因此碗粿等粿食常用作供品祭拜神明和祖先。 nobility (n.) 高貴,高尚;貴族 offering (n.) 供品 While Taiwan may not be
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