Old taste, new experience
◎Jiang Shaojie
More than 40 years ago, one Sunday morning, my parents led my sisters to mow grass in the river berth a few miles away, and arranged for me to pick up the sand in the new wheat at home.
These wheat grains have been washed repeatedly by my mother with the willow lily many times. I jumped up again and again, shaking the round iron rod of the well to press the water continuously, and my mother washed it over and over again in the big iron basin. She kept turning the hedge, and the wheat grains floated up and the mud and sand sank. Change another basin of water, turn the hedge, the wheat grains float up, the mud and sand sink... The water finally cleared. My mother spread the wheat grains on the bamboo mat raised high in the yard and started drying.
I am thinking about my homework and the many creatures in the yard. I only picked up sand and stones before they returned home. I didn’t expect that after my mother came home, she asked hurriedly: Have you picked up the sand? I replied casually: I’ve finished picking up. My mother carried half a bag of wheat grains and rushed to the mill. That night, my mother made the new steamed buns with a very dirty teeth. I didn’t want to chew them, and it was even harder to swallow.
That night, I, who was usually a little rebellious, sincerely accepted my mother's criticism and seriously reflected on my own mistakes. That day, I truly understood the meaning of labor - I could pick out all the sand and stones seriously, and the whole family should have happily tasted the steamed buns made by Xinmai. My slackness and lies have caused the precious new wheat flour to become worse than the old ones. The family faced them with a frown, and I felt ashamed that I had never felt before.
Nowadays, the flour I bought from the supermarket no longer has the feeling of tooth. In recent years, I can’t get a grain of sand when I wash rice, and I can’t get a grain of sand when I wash beans. This huge contrast often reminds me of stories from my childhood. What force has helped women get rid of the heavy labor of washing wheat and picking up sand and stones? Is it the power of modern technology that reform and opening up and global popularization? Forty years ago, we needed to endure the scorching of the sun and harvest and thresh wheat in sweat. Nowadays, a combine harvester completes the entire process from harvesting to threshing in just a moment. The power of social progress and technological development is so grand and wonderful, which is far beyond my imagination.
When I was a child, I often had no food at home after school and couldn't even find a cold slice. I was hungry and tears were shedding while burning the fire: one was hunger, and the other was grievance - my classmates often had meals as soon as they got home, and their mothers didn't work or got off work early. "Drink some oil cake?" My mother's words always made me overjoyed and burst into tears and laughed. My favorite thing is to eat the oil cakes drizzled by my mother. She makes oil cakes quickly and well. She stirred the noodles in the small basin with cold water and told her sister to go to the yard to pull a tender green onion. Just put chopped green onion and salt in the batter and pour a little oil into the hot pan. In just a few minutes, a uniform and beautiful hot oil cake will be prepared and the aroma will be overflowing.
Mom can make pasta and loves to make it. "Make a cowpea soup today?" "Make a mixed noodles soup?" "Make a wincino noodle soup?" She always asked us tirelessly. I am excited when my mother makes the dustpan soup. I always beg my mother to make it more - it tastes the most fragrant, and I am most obsessed with it: the hot oil brings the scallion to the cute black circle, the pure white noodles are refreshing and smooth, and I hold it and drink bowl after bowl happily.
I still remember the fried meat at the "Dongfanghong" hotel in Laofushan County. I only remember its fragrant and crispy taste, and its golden, crispy and attractive appearance. The chef of that restaurant is from our village, and the adults call him "Jiang Dongfang". My memory of Jiang Dongfang wearing chef's clothes is always associated with the tempting plate of fried meat. It seems that only he can make such delicious and beautiful fried meat, and it seems that only the "Dongfanghong" hotel located in the county can produce such delicious dishes. In my beautiful memory of my hometown, there are always those two pieces of browned fried meat and the white-robed chef who has only seen two or three sides in a hurry. They are stationed vividly in the depths of my memory, as if they are telling me a certain distant but real wealth and happiness to me from afar.
was attracted by that warm call. After getting married, I was keen on making the fried meat in my memory.With the help of various seasonings and persistent improvements, I actually made it to a certain level - my relatives praised the fried pork I made. I often try to make the oil cakes that my mother drizzles, but they are often uneven in thickness. I tried to make the dustpan soup that my mother made, but I couldn't roll out the even noodles as much as my mother. The noodles I curled up were always long and short.
What are the good things about fried meat, oil-dripping cakes and dusting cinnamon soup? They all contain refreshing oils. When I was a child, oil was scarce for me - fat white meat and fragrant peanuts were rare, and our family could eat it a few times a year. Their refined substance, oil, is even more precious. At that time, my homemade fried food was only the same - the fried peanuts on the table were served when the guests came.
Nowadays, I haven't made fried pork for many years - I understand that it contains too high oil, which is not conducive to health. I basically stopped making oil-dripping cakes. When I was greedy, I used an electric pancake pancake to make a flour pancake that didn’t add oil. The dusty cinnamon soup has been replaced by noodles made of clams and kidney beans. The taste and nutrition of this noodles are much stronger than the noodle soup. The noodles do not need to be rolled out. Just buy the finished product at your doorstep. The machine-pressed noodles are both hard and even.
When I was eleven years old, I went to visit my aunt's house in Dalian with my eldest father at the door. It was one day in the first month of 1980. It was a storm and the passenger ship came later than originally planned. The dusk in Yantai Port is dark and the cold wind is biting. In the steaming passenger station restaurant, the glasses of my father were covered in water mist and asked me with a smile: "What do you want to eat?" "I don't eat... I have something to eat." I subconsciously touched my bag and took out a piece of cold dry food prepared by my mother for me. I was embarrassed: I didn't have a penny in my pocket.
A bowl of noodles with braised cabbage and seafood were quickly placed in front of me, and two blue circles were drawn along the edge of the big sea bowl. The small cabbage pieces look bright and cute. They are surrounded by a circle of seductive transparent gooey. A red shrimp and a red sprig lie beside the bowl. The heat sways above the noodles, emitting a strong and fresh fragrance - a unique smell of the restaurant. This is the bowl of braised noodles that I remember the most, and it is also the most delicious bowl of braised noodles I have eaten. I savored its beauty carefully and shouted in my heart: Strange, why can't my mother make such delicious noodles? My dad did something similar to it - when my guests came to my house, my dad often came to be the chef. After returning to my hometown from Dalian, I reminded my father several times to return the noodles money from my father - I secretly remembered the price of it. The bowl of steaming noodles has been fragrant in the depths of my memory. What will never be paid back is the generous kindness of the kind father.
Looking back, the braised noodles that night had more seafood than the noodles made by my mother, and more thickening of pepper, large ingredients and starch. At that time, supplies were scarce and parents had low income. My mother only put on green onions and occasionally garlic when cooking. After planting ginger and peppercorns in my yard, my mother added ginger and peppercorns when cooking, which happened after the reform and opening up. Because of these two kinds of seasonings, we immediately felt that our lives became colorful.
"This shrimp head sauce is made from the head and tail of a big prawn, so high-end!" Grandpa, who was a little particular about food, praised the fresh shrimp head sauce with a rosy and white in front of him, as if the most delicious thing in the world was placed in front of him. I was also quickly intoxicated by the delicious food my mother made with shrimp head sauce, even if it was just a little onion and ginger and cooked. One day, my father excitedly brought home a bottle of shrimp oil. "Shrimp oil" seems to be related to shrimp. The most ordinary ingredients immediately become delicious with the help of shrimp oil.
Back then, there were no greenhouses to grow vegetables, and every household did not have a refrigerator. I think the best dish in winter was stewed with green radish in shrimp paste. Since the arrival of shrimp oil, there have been more delicious food in winter.
Purple-eyed beans are still blooming tirelessly on the wall, so my mother picked up the small, tender beans to marinate them. The freshly picked peppers, cucumbers, etc. in the yard are all good ingredients for my mother. She carefully washed them, dried them, and sprinkled them with salt.In the middle of winter, when frost flowers bloom all over the glass and snowflakes turn white, my favorite thing is to dig pickles from the jar in the yard: the peppers, celery, cucumbers, and eyebrow beans are all shining with red or green light, which is in sharp contrast with the bleak winter. It seems that the colorful autumn has not gone far away, and the green spring is right in front of you! Soak the pickles and pour some shrimp oil. The deliciousness of this dish is better than stewed with radish in shrimp paste. The whole family sat around the kang table, eating slices of pickles with peppery flavor. The happiness in their hearts suddenly rose, and they felt that the spring breeze of reform and opening up had blown to our home, and a new world of renewal in everything is coming...
The new world is indeed here. The warm spring breeze of reform and opening up, peaceful development, scientific development, scientific and technological innovation, green development, and "food safety China" have enabled China to take off again and again. Over the past decade, the country has more standardized food safety management, and food is more conducive to the health of the people. The delicious dishes on the daily dining table of ordinary people are more abundant than the New Year’s Eve dinner before.
In my spare time, I read the prose recording the lives of people more than 80 years ago, and found that hunger once appeared frequently in the writings of Chinese and foreign writers like a devil who could not be driven away. The pain that hunger brought to our ancestors was shocking. The era of peace with abundant food and clothing is hard-won, and I have the honor to catch up. What is even more fortunate is that over the past ten years, the Party has led the people of the whole country to unite and work hard, and the battle against poverty has made a decisive breakthrough: more than 60 million poor people have been lifted out of poverty steadily. 1.4 billion Chinese people have no worries about food and clothing, enjoy rich and delicious food together, and feel the harmony and happiness of the great motherland's peace and stability...
Editor: Liu Xueguang
Author profile
Jiang Shaojie , member of Shandong Writers Association, member of Shandong Prose Society, director of Yantai Prose Society, deputy editor-in-chief of "Yantai Prose Micro-Journal", member of Yantai Writers Association, director of Zhifu District Writers Association, and signed writer of the supplement "Qilu Evening News•Qingwei"
Yidian No. Yantai Prose
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