Four farm snacks
Written/Sun Hongwen
Autumn is a season of colorful flowers; autumn is the season of harvest; autumn is the most hearty season for people to eat on the plate. Whenever cabbage, green onions, large radish , and mustard lumps are harvested in autumn, I, who have lived in the city for a long time, will naturally think of the four essential snacks on the farm dinner table in autumn.
spicy
After autumn, after picking up the mustard lumps in the field and transporting them home, when preparing to pickle mustard pickles, first select the large and moderate lumps, wash the remaining egg-sized or small potato-like ones, cut them into triangular pieces with a knife and put them on the pot. After taking them out of the pot, place them in a basin, then apply the cut large carrot shreds on top, cover the pot and put them on, cover the pot and stuff them. The spicy scent is made. Stir in the basin for half a day or a day, and you can eat spicy food. When eating, it has the spicy flavor of radish and the spicy flavor of mustard lumps. When the two spicy flavors are mixed together, the spicy flavor is quite sufficient. A bite of spicy flavor is like eating a little mustard oil and mustard noodles, but this spicy feeling is instantly lost, not like eating chili peppers, which makes people so spicy that they grin and stay in their mouths for a long time.
hours. After autumn every year, my mother uses small mustard lumps to make spicy, and it tastes very good. Although it is delicious, it can only be eaten after autumn every year. If you don’t have enough food, you have to wait for the next autumn. After leaving my hometown for decades, I didn’t pickle mustard and pickled vegetables in the city, so I wouldn’t have any lumps and I wouldn’t be talking about spicy food. Last fall, I didn’t go to the south for winter. Although I didn’t pickle mustard pickles at home, I also asked my wife to go to the farmers’ market to buy back a few mustard lumps, clean them up, cut them into pieces, and make them spicy. I made my own spicy food because I found a feeling of eating spicy food for a while. After eating it, I felt like I was back in my childhood and back in my hometown. I seemed to see the shadow of my deceased mother making spicy food in the old house. I also seemed to see the scene of my mother smiling when I was eating spicy food.
small tofu
After autumn, when I clean up the mustard lumps and prepare to pickle pickles, I cut the fine roots and the whiskers on the edges of the roots first. A pile of lumps is enough to pickle a large jar of pickles, and the cut roots and whiskers are also indispensable. But the farmer is very good at living and is reluctant to throw it away, so he put it away. When there is no vegetables to eat in winter and spring, it also comes in handy. The scattered plots must be soaked in water, then fry (blanch) in boiling water, chop them up and eat them with small tofu. Tofu, first crush the soybeans on the mill and put a little oil into the pan. After pouring the cubes into the pan, add water and stew them. Then mix the bean noodles with a spatula while burning the fire. When the pot is opened, it can be served and eaten.
When it comes to small tofu, people in rural areas know it, and they still know it after entering the city. It can be seen that small tofu is an indispensable meal when farmers lack vegetables.
matte powder
matte powder, also called macao tofu, the color is different from white big tofu, it is green like mung beans.
When I was a child, my family bought it at the place where I was selling wool noodles. Since I bought it, I have eaten it. Although it only once, I remember how delicious it is.
said that the flour is delicious, which may be the reason why I ate it for the first time, or it may be because life was difficult at that time and there was nothing to eat - at that time, what could swallow and fill my stomach was delicious. At that time, although I had eaten flour, I didn’t know how the flour was made, and I didn’t ask how it was made or what it was made. Anyway, I just ate it.
grows up, or to be more precise, when I get older, I only know when I see the flour again that the flour is the powder residue left after filtering when making mung bean vermicelli. This is the same as the tofu residue produced after filtering the juice of soybean tofu, but the tofu residue is dry, and the powder residue is thin and thick, a bit like a batter.To eat flour, first put oil and seasonings in the pot and fry the pot, then add a little vegetable leaves, then pour the flour into the pot (stirring constantly), and you can eat it when the flour is bubbling.
hasn't eaten hai powder for more than 60 years since I was a child. Fortunately, I saw plate-shaped frozen cubes with large curtains and thick leek leaves at the farmers' market last year. When I first met, I didn’t know what it was, but after asking, I found out that it was a wool powder. I heard it was fur flour, so I bought one to try if it tasted like a meal. After I got home and frozen the flour, I cooked the flour in a fried spoon. I first tasted it in a small mouthful and tasted it one by one. The flour was still of an hour-old taste, so I decided to buy a few more pieces to keep. The next day, I went to the seller's stall and bought two more yuan. The stall owner said to me: Buy a few more yuan. If you can't make the Chinese New Year, you won't make mung bean powder . If you don't make mung bean powder, you will lose your hair powder. After hearing this, I believed it and bought 8 yuan and put it in the freezer so that I could eat one whenever I wanted.
The stall owner is right, I bought the hair powder and disappeared within a few days, and I never saw the stall owner selling the hair powder again. The stall owner’s hair flour is sold out and there is no more on the market, but I still have hair flour, so I want to eat it or craving it, so I can make a piece of it.
celery lumps
Still when I was young, after the crops in the fields were harvested every autumn, my family started to dig celery lumps.
At that time, my family had celery every year, selling celery seedlings, planting celery, picking celery, and selling celery at the market. I sold celery from the summer solstice and autumn, and when I was in autumn, I sold out all the stems and leaves above the roots, the rest were celery lumps on and under the soil. This lump must not be discarded. Cut it out and wash it, put it on the pot and cook it with the roots, sprinkle salt in a pot, and then it becomes pickled vegetables for winter. If the lumps are cooked, the heat is lighter, the crispy and the head bite is suitable for young people and people with good teeth. If the heat is bigger, the lumps are rotten, the softer, and the suitable for people with bad teeth. Whether it is big or small, it is crisp or soft, it depends on the family's preferences. If you have elderly people, children, and young people at home, you can cook two pots, both soft and hard, and you will get the right place for both young and old.
After autumn, the family pickled celery lumps at home, and the whole family ate a plate every meal. One year in early winter, my second aunt came to my house and served a plate of celery and pickles while eating. My second aunt ate one piece and it felt delicious. When she left, she took some lumps and went home to eat it. She said that when the celery lumps were raised again next year, don’t pickle them all and leave some for her.
Four farm snacks, different seasons, and different ways to eat them. In the past, no matter how many families were in the countryside, every family had the same food. This was common, but some of the food was exclusive to my family’s salted celery lumps, because my family planted celery in the village.
Author profile:
The net name Monkey Brother , real name Sun Hongwen. After graduating from university, I have been engaged in editing and editing work in the news media. The articles of "Xinhua News Agency" and " People's Daily " have been published and published. After retirement, he lived in the south for a long time, and was close to the mountains and rivers. He continued to write more than 100 prose works, published in newspapers, magazines and micro-issues such as Liaoning Workers' Daily, Chaoyang Daily, Yandu Morning News, Liaoxi Literature, Shuangta News, China Countryside, Writer's New Horizons, Today's Writer, Chinese Literature and other newspapers, magazines and micro-issues. He is currently a member of Liaoning Writers Association and has written the essay collection "Life is like colorful sunshine". The first certified member of Chinese rural writers, "Contracted Writer of "Today's Writer".
Today's Writer" WeChat official account ID: jinrizuojia001
