Red sorghum in my hometown
Text | Muxi
A few days ago, my brother from my hometown brought a bag of red sorghum noodles ground with stone mills, and they also brought some sticky corn together. He knew these were my favorite food.
red sorghum noodles are a bit gray, and they are made into porridge, cakes, , and noodles are delicious. The golden sticky corn doesn't have to wait until it's cooked, and the whole room is filled with fragrance.
The red sorghum in my hometown, year after year, I don’t know how many years have passed, I only know that the area in the east of the village has existed when I was a child.
That is the place that the production captain regards as a treasure. I don’t know why, in that era when I was not rich, all the land in the village was not as fertile as here. Every autumn, the red sorghum is like torches in the warm sun, raising their heads upward, plump and upright, which is the hope of our whole village. When it is thorough, the production team leader will lead everyone to pick up the sickle and harvest.
After the autumn harvest, the weather becomes colder. Women will grind sorghum and corn into noodles and cook a pot of porridge. The whole family will drink it happily, and they will feel that the weather is no longer so cold.
In the hands of skilled villagers, sorghum is of wide range of uses. Sorghum stalk can be used to weave mats on the kang, weave straw hats, and many items used in daily life. The elderly in the village passed on this craft to the next generation. A craft factory was established in the village to specially edit some crafts and export them abroad. The eldest daughter-in-law of the second aunt's family is beautiful and skillful. She actually weaves paintings with sorghum stalks, which are lifelike and are deeply favored by foreign businessmen. Under her leadership, people are competing for innovative designs, with good works emerging one after another, orders continue to flow, and the villagers' lives are getting better and better.
Red sorghum can also make wine. The old man in the village said that after the autumn harvest, the production team leader would invite wine brewers to make wine. Calculate the day, when the date comes, open the jar, and the mellow fragrance can be smelled in all villages. Every time this comes, the greedy wine in the village will wait early. When the captain opens the seal of the wine jar and pours the fragrant wine into the bowl, it is a time that is really happier than the New Year.
The elderly in the village still remember the story of the Fourth Grandpa. As long as he gets drunk, he will do one thing, go home and sleep with a bundle of sorghum, and keep muttering, "Good stuff, good stuff!" After a while, he snored like thunder.
The men in the village love to drink sorghum wine from their hometown. After heavy labor, drinking a few sips to relieve fatigue is also the best hope.
It’s another autumn, and I couldn’t help but miss my hometown, so I drove back to my hometown.
Far away, the red sorghum waved to me in the autumn sun, and the fiery red ears exuded full enthusiasm.
Nowadays, my hometown has undergone earth-shaking changes. Every household has built new houses. It turns out that those dirt roads have also been built into cement roads, and every family has a car. During the autumn harvest season, sticky corn, sweet potato, taro and red sorghum lined up and rushed into the house. What are the villagers looking forward to all year round? Isn’t it just looking for a good harvest year?
The red sorghum in my hometown, no matter how many years have passed, it is the best hope and sweetest expectation of the villagers.
original text was published on October 31, 2022 " Yantai Evening News "
