A large round sticky rice cake topped with sesame and red dates steams in a bamboo steamer as a hand cuts away a wedge with a cleaver, and a plate holds browned rice-flour cakes and strips of rice cake.
Snacks of rice
Introduction
Cakes and snacks made from rice and rice flour.
Rice snacks are snacks made from rice and rice flour that are not eaten as staples, and the Song books Dong Jing Meng Hua Lu and Meng Liang Lu both record sticky rice cakes. The Zhou li has an official for the bamboo-basket offerings who supplies cakes of rice and meal, which shows that cakes of rice flour were made early. They may be steamed or boiled, sweet or savoury. Strands made from rice flour belong to Rice Noodles, festival foods such as zongzi and tangyuan take the festival as their main class, and those eaten as sweet soups belong to Sweet Soups.