RAUB: The dumpling festival is around the corner which see early orders made to purchase the traditional rice dumplings.

Despite the current economic slowdown making business difficult across the board, orders have been unaffected—and are in fact trending upward, according to local sellers here.

Speaking to Sin Chew Daily, Lam, a pastry hawker at Taman Emas here, said she began receiving orders as early as April.

With limited help, she had to turn down several orders to avoid failing on delivery.

She said orders came not only from local customers but also from as far as Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, ranging from a hundred pieces to just a few.

“Because I put in good ingredients without cutting corners, my dumplings are bigger than what you find in the market.

“My customers keep coming back year after year,” she said.

Lam previously ran a noodle stall for many years before undergoing heart surgery, after which her health declined and she closed the business.

She later switched to selling pastries at a friend’s encouragement.

Lam said she wraps the dumplings with the help of her husband, producing up to 300 pieces a day in three batches of cooking.

She therefore has to work across three days before the festival, turning out a maximum of 1,200 pieces—and thankfully, her customers are willing to work around that schedule.

“During the Qingming Festival period, I also made dumpling. Because Qingming spans a longer period, I made more than 1,500 pieces then,’’ she said.

The prices of ingredients such as mung beans, dried mushrooms, egg yolks and dried shrimps have not changed much, while pork prices have edged slightly lower. She will therefore maintain the price at RM8 per piece.

“The only exception is if a customer requests chestnuts, which are expensive—in that case I would charge a little more,” she said.

Tam Siew Wah, from Sempalit, who has been making dumplings for over 40 years, said she mainly produces alkaline dumplings (kee chang) to meet a portion of her customers’ demand.

She said all her orders come from regulars.

As alkaline dumplings are smaller in size, she can produce several thousand pieces.

“As for savoury meat dumplings, the main fillings are pork, salted egg and dried shrimps. Chestnuts are only added upon customer request.”

She said chestnuts are expensive, now ranging from RM80 to RM100 per kilogram, compared to around RM50 to RM60 five years ago.

“For bamboo leaves, I buy from the grocery shop—the quality of those sold online is poor and not suitable for use.”

At 78, Tam only makes dumplings for sale during the Qingming and Dragon Boat festivals.

Also known as chang in Hokkien or zong zi in Mandarin, rice dumplings are a staple for dumpling festival, also known as Dragon Boat festival.

The festival is celebrated to commemorate the poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself more than 2,000 years ago to protest corrupt practices in China.

After his death, people threw dumplings in a gesture to stop fish from feeding on his remains.

In Malaysia, one of the festival’s highlights is savoring the dumplings with family and friends.

Celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the festival falls on June 19 this year.

The dumplings are made of glutinous rice stuffed with a variety of ingredients such as salted egg yolk, mushroom, pork, dried shrimp and others.