Video: Touring Shanghai's zongzi haven

Take a look behind the scenes at how the best Shanghai zongzi are made -- and then bought by the thousand. (Video by Jin Ge.)

Every year around the Dragon Boat Festival, the same foodie debate erupts: where are the best zongzi made? Although some swear by the Jiaxing-made snacks, true Shanghai foodies head to Zhujiajiao, the home of apo zong (阿婆粽).

Not a brand of zongzi, apo zong are named after their makers, apo or grandmothers who live in the area.

Shi Ying (in the video above), the 55-year-old apo behind one of Zhujiajiao’s best-known apo zong vendors Xiaotian Apo Zong (263 Bei Da Jie, Zhujiajiao 朱家角镇北大街263号), explains that the most important feature of her rice dumplings is the straw. Yes, straw.

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Since Zhujiajiao is surrounded by farms, the apos have freshly harvested rice and straw at their disposal.

“Shanghai [downtown] residents love the aroma of the straw in the zongzi -- it’s very fragrant,” Shi explains.

The straw-bound zongzi in Zhujiajiao, also differ from those produced in downtown Shanghai in another way: they're pillow, not pyramid-shaped, making them much larger.

Although some swear by the Jiaxing-made snacks, true Shanghai foodies head to Zhujiajiao, the home of apo zong (阿婆粽).

Apo zong’s technique is passed down from one generation to another, and Shi is the third member of her family to run the Xiaotian Apo Zong stall, joining her two aunts.

“We use our teeth to secure the straw [while making the zongzi],” says Shi. “The reason why older apos retire is because their teeth can no longer bite [properly] to secure the straw. If that happens, [she] can not make zongzi anymore, or can only make them very slowly.”

Before every Dragon Boat Festival, the apo zong street is always packed with zongzi hunters from downtown Shanghai, stuffing their bags with as many pillow-shaped dumplings as possible. Some buyers have been known to get more than 1,000 zongzi at a time, and the more successful apo zong shops like Xiaotian say that they sell up to 30,000 dumplings a day, for about RMB 5 each.

With its fame and popularity, apo zong has gone beyond a grassroots specialty and turned into a its own industry. Although it started with only one apo zong shop, Zhujiajiao has now devoted a whole street, Bei Da Jie, to promoting apo zong with more than 25 shops.

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Most shops have more than one apo making zongzi, with often a full team of them working to meet demand over the holiday.

In Xiaotian Apo Zong, the apos say they can make 1,800 to 2,000 zongzi a day, putting together a traditional pork one in a mere 15 seconds, or even less time for the smaller triangle dumplings.

The success of apo zong is directly related to the tourism development of Zhujiajiao, which the city began to push in 1998.