Sweet potatoes and potatoes continue the grain shortage
Jiang Baobing
Late autumn and early winter, before the seasons could change, many roasted sweet potato stalls appeared in the streets and alleys of the small town. Hawking sounds come one after another, and the cold streets seem to be rendered colorfully, and every corner seems to be filled with the sweet smell of roasted sweet potatoes. Every time I pass by a stall with roasted sweet potatoes, I can never resist the temptation. Following the fragrance, I bought one, couldn't wait to tear off one piece, and took a bite warmly. The warmth and sweetness reached my heart along the tip of my tongue, slowly evoking my memories of my childhood.
Autumn, harvest season. Every afternoon after school, my friends and I will go to the fields, which is a must-visit every day. Either use a rake to hold leaves or grass and burn them as firewood in winter; or mow grass to feed rabbits or pigs; or do regain harvesting, or dig them again in the harvested sweet potato field, pick up sweet potatoes to feed pigs, or search for a few peanuts that have escaped the net in the peanut field, or pick up cotton peaches, etc. Anyway, you must go out every day, and you will get something when you go out, and you will never come back empty.
is so fashionable and small, and I don’t know the worries of adults. It is a very happy thing to be able to wander in the vast fields with my friends. And the one who enjoys the most is braised sweet potatoes in the wild. Three or five friends have been working hard for a while, and their stomachs have started to roar. There is nothing good to eat when they get home. They do it themselves and have enough food and clothing. The most common thing we do is braised sweet potatoes.
The job of braised sweet potatoes seems simple, but there are some tricks. A few people will divide the job first. If you look for firewood, I will pick up the rubble; if you build towers here and dig sweet potatoes there; if you use a sickle to dig out the stove, Li Si will carry firewood in a basket, and everyone will get started together, and no one will be idle. When picking firewood, you must first find softer ones, such as bar skin, wheat straw, etc., and then continue with other ones, such as leaves, peanut seedlings, bar straw, cotton straw, etc. Anyway, there is firewood in the field, which is easy to burn; if you pick rubble, you should find sandy dry rubble, which has good thermal conductivity and burn quickly; of course, the most important thing is to dig the stove and build tower.
The first step is to find a sloped land with a ridge ditch. This is like choosing an address to build a house, digging a small round hole with a flat bottom on the top as a stove, and digging a door on the slope to burn firewood. Then lay the "foundation", that is, build the first layer. This layer of roughness needs to be used. If there is no slope, you should build the door flat and find three long and large pieces of rubble, one on the left and right, press one on top, and try it with your hands. Just feel that it is reliable, and then build it up layer by layer.
The stove can be large or small. If the stove can be large, the tower must be thick. You can also put a few more sweet potatoes, depending on the number of people. Because the tower is conical and it will easily collapse if you accidentally, this is also a technical job. There is always a master of towers among a group of friends, and this master is often our leader, otherwise it would be very awesome.
There are also some tips here: First, the bottom floor is larger than the top floor, so that the tower is built will be strong; second, when building, try to make each piece of the bumps "bite" each other (just as staggered when building brick walls in a house to avoid "straight seams"). The higher you reach the upper level, the more you need to be extra careful, otherwise all your previous efforts will be wasted. When closing the mouth for the last time, one hand is often required to be careful in the tower to complete it.
After building the tower, you should pick up some small rubble to block the rubble cracks to prevent the flame from rushing too hard, which is not conducive to burning the rubble red. After building the tower, it was ignited and burning the soil. There were strict operating requirements here. The most important thing is to keep the firewood evenly and not to be blocked, otherwise the tower may be destroyed.
Burning tower usually takes about half an hour to burn. When you find that the tower has changed from black to red, it means that it is time to put sweet potatoes into the tower. First cease the fire, then find a big piece of trash to block the door and use soil to tighten it. Then gently poke a small hole from the top of the tower, put the picked sweet potatoes in one by one, put two or three sweet potatoes, poke a few pieces of soil trash, then put two or three pieces of sweet potatoes, and poke a few pieces of soil trash.After putting on the sweet potato, it was time to smash the tower and seal the soil. With an order, three or five partners used their hands to pull the soil next to it onto the tower, covered it with a thick layer, and then stepped on it with one foot and one foot to be finished. After
for about a quarter of an hour, as the friends said, "Oh, the stove is on", everyone pulled the soil away with all their might, and suddenly, a sweet fragrance intoxicated everyone. We drooled, swapped the hot sweet potato with our left and right hands, blew the ash on our skin, and sent it directly into our mouths. I ate sweet potatoes while talking and laughing, and started the winning conference meal. The scene and the taste are unforgettable for life.
Sweet potatoes reproduce quickly, are strong, drought-resistant, have strong vitality, and do not require fertilization. No matter how barren land is, they can bear fruit. Its tender leaves and buds can be eaten as vegetables, vines can be used as pig feed, and the fruited sweet potatoes can be roasted, steamed, and dry. Even old vines underground can be used as cattle feed. In the eyes of farmers, sweet potatoes are full of treasures!
In that hungry era, sweet potatoes and potatoes became life-saving staple foods. Whenever it was time to eat, my mother would cook a large basin of potatoes, and the whole family would gather together and eat them with pickles. And potatoes were the main dish of that era. In my memory, my mother cooked dishes in different ways, fried potato shredded potato , fried potato chips , cold-mixed potato shredded potato , fried potato bars...
In that era of material poverty, various potato dishes embellished the dining table at home, enriching our monotonous life. When I was hungry in the middle of the night, my mother would turn out the potatoes buried in the ashes beforehand for us to eat. The hot stove ash is just for simmering potatoes. Remove the skin and the aroma of potatoes comes out. Sometimes, we will cut the potatoes into slices and put them on the stove and roast them. Baked potato slices are another flavor.
Later, living conditions gradually improved, and potatoes have completed their mission to satisfy hunger, but people's lives are still inseparable from potatoes. Potatoes are still a must-have dish for every family, especially in winter, each family will store some potatoes as vegetables for wintering.
Although sweet potatoes and potatoes are not good-looking and simple, they have undertaken such an important mission in the years of suffering. Although it is ordinary, it has left a heavy kindness in my life. I have been in the city for many years, and I still have a lingering complex of nostalgia for sweet potatoes and potatoes.
misses sweet potatoes and potatoes, and misses the years when sweet potatoes and potatoes are with me, because it not only allows me to spend the years of hunger, but also makes me deeply understand gratitude.
Author profile: Jiang Baobing, whose courtesy name is Jianmei, his nickname is Jianmei Tower Master, and his master of Qingfeng Hall. Member of the Chinese Prose Society , member of the Dezhou Writers Association Plenary Committee, member of the Dezhou Calligraphers Association; Director of the Yucheng Writers Association, and editorial board member of the "Yucheng Literature".
's work "Reading Lu Xun at Night" won the second prize in the National Reading Essay Competition "Walking with the Republic and Good Books Accompany Me" and "Looking at Social Changes from Diet Changes" won the first prize in the National Day Essay Competition for the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China. "The Green Sycamore Tree" won the third prize in practicing the core socialist values of Excellent Literary and Art Works. "Growing up with the Great Motherland" won the first prize in the " Welfare Lottery Cup I and New China" award-winning essay competition. "Nostalgia for the Old Way of the Yellow River" won the Prose Group Excellence Award in the 4th China Xiajin Mulberry Fruit Poetry (Prose) Competition. "Ask Xibaipo" won the " Yan'an Cup" China's Most Beautiful Travel Notes Award.
Blog Jianmei Tower owner http://blog.sina.com.cn/jianmeilouzhu
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