Bamboo Tree and Bak Chang

My mother grow a bamboo tree in garden, but she never call that as bamboo tree, she call that as "chang heok", 粽叶, which used to wrap bak chang, 粽子.... I'm not sure whether this "chang heok" is the same food that panda love a lot....

That bamboo located beside my banana and longan tree, it is 3 years old now, given by my uncle in Kangar...
It consider as easy growth plant, it growth a bit slow at my garden as the soil is bit hard for tree... But now... seem like she find a breakthrough way... from soil, banana, longan and daun inai...

My mother and i spend some time for prunning, to reduce "density" of leaf in garden, but main purpose to get the "chang heok", 粽叶 for chinese dumplings season...

If you plan to keep, you may keep it this way, to avoid the leaf become curly, which will make the wrapping process more difficult...

Before use, you need to clean... plain water will be fine to get a leaf free from dust and fur...

My mother start the wrapping process, today she didn't do bak chang, but red bean. Which is more suitable to wrap with green leaf...

Here with layout of production area, my mother design these ergonomic layout since i'm a kid...

End of wrapping process, now the waiting for boiling process...

Close up view...

Different between green and dry leaf, this the gear mom use to boil...

Finish good.... Mother will do outgoing touch up before shipment... hehe...

Bamboo shoot 竹笋 is another product of bamboo tree... It is a new bamboo culms that come out of the ground... Bamboo shoot is material for mother on some delicious oriental dishes...

This is a bigger one, it can be eat before it turn to woody... one way to verify whether that shoot turn to woody is use your leg to kick it... it will break at the right location where woody starting...

After removing sterm and cleaning process, mom just leave it in water for few days.... hehe...

Bamboo is also usefull to build up any thing.... during my secondary school, harvesting bamboo is an important activities before our camping, we use that to build our headquater, camp and fencing... And now, mom use that to pick mango fruit from tree, and building rack to support her vine or climbing plant like Long Bean and Morning Gory.

As summary... Bamboo tree is very usefull and fully utilized by people, especially for my mom during this dumpling season... Happy Dumpling Day for all!!! hehe....