Treats for your inner dragon

Tasty rice dumplings with local variations in fillings have been a tradition of China's Dragon Boat Festival for centuries, the China Daily team reports.

You don't have to live in China long to know that the country's most popular foods usually have a good story behind them. That's particularly true of festival foods such as zongzi, the pyramid-shaped steamed glutinous rice packages in bamboo or reed leaves that have been associated with the Dragon Boat Festival for more than a millennium.

History and lore describe Qu Yuan variously as a poet, a patriot and an imperial adviser who lived during the turbulent Warring States Period (475-221 BC). When a rival kingdom occupied his home, the kingdom of Chu, Qu is said to have thrown himself into a river.