February 12, 2010
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Wrappers
This morning, I ate a chinese dish called 粽子 or 糭子. It's a traditional dish made of glutinous rice with various fillings. Tied with a string, they are wrapped typically in bamboo leaves. Very similar, in a way, to tamales. Starch plus protein rich fillings make for a yummy snack or meal.
What I like most about both is that the wrapping is biodegradable. It's really interesting how so much money is spent on packaging -- and how much of that packaging makes up for large volumes of landfill. You can literally throw away the wrapper on the street, and the wrapper will degrade the leaves along with whatever other debris is around.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could make all our wrappers this way, instead of near permanent plastics?
Comments (4)
I love zhong zi... especially the ones my mom makes. and yes, multi-functional (adds flavor & packaging) biodegradable wrappers are fantastic
I lovE Jong ! Especially with lots of hotsauce
And they serve Tamil dishes on banana leaves, I think, traditionally.
I think that you should write about coconuts. They sell for 99 cents at the chinese supermarket, $1.50 at whole foods, and yet I pay $4.50 for one at least 3x a week because of the difficulty it entails to open a coconut.
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