In January 2018, the weather was extremely cold after a heavy snowfall, which was a good time to process vermicelli. According to the agreement in November last year, I drove to the home of Zhang Li, a poor household in a county in Weibei, which was responsible for the assistance, and visited the vermicelli processing. The village completely changed after the heavy snow, so I drove past it. When I came back, I met Zhang Li. He took me to the vermicelli workshop and walked away silently.
Zhang Li was born with disability, hemiplegia , has some intelligence defects, can understand some simple words but can't speak them. He lives with his mother Feng Yun, and one family was rated as a poor household. He could only help his younger brother Zhang Long do some miscellaneous work within his ability in the vermicelli processing farm. He heard from the village secretary that he was very enthusiastic and often helped other people in the village to work, although he couldn't help much. When visiting in early November, I happened to meet Zhang Li and her mother Feng Yun outside the workshop to help their younger brother pick the sweet potatoes to be processed. Picking and cleaning sweet potatoes is the first step in making sweet potato starch. Processing vermicelli is divided into two major processes: making starch and hanging vermicelli. The sweet potatoes made from starch are different from the sweet potatoes we usually eat.
uses another sweet potato with a large silk. Although the appearance is ugly and the size is different, the powder yield is higher. The sweet potatoes were crushed, slurried and filtered with well water, and then flowed into the pool surrounded by colored cloth . In the middle of the night, Zhang Long wanted to get up and release the upper layer of the water in the pool. After dawn, he and his hired guy packed the wet starch in a bag and hung it on the rafters to dry it like tofu buns . The starch is hung into snow-white "powder" rounded above and below, and then exposed to the sun and cut into pieces to set aside. Guanzhong people call starch "powder face", mainly two types of sweet potatoes and potatoes.
The sun is rising, the weather is getting warmer, the snow on the roof and the icy sliver on the eaves begin to melt, and drop down. At the stall where the water boils, the aunt is busy shoveling carbon from the car outside, then lifting it in with a bamboo cage and stirring it with water for later use. While talking, the eldest brother's wife came in with a mask. An old man died in the village. The custom of Guanzhong is "There is a red incident, and the funeral matter is coming." The eldest brother wanted to take the initiative to help, so his wife had to drag her body to take the time to take the initiative. I heard from the aunt that there are two steps in hanging powder. The powder hanging on the shelf should be "baked" overnight in the room with cloth. Then in the early morning of the next day, taking out the "freezing" hardness while the weather is cold, and the vermicelli sticks stick together will loosen. Then use well water to rinse off the ice in the pool, and finally hang it to dry. Zhang Long said that there are many processes for processing vermicelli, and the hard money earned from getting up early and sweating. After noon after
, I said goodbye and went home and bought two bags of vermicelli for my family. Zhang Long said that this vermicelli is sold entirely by friends who do grain and oil business in Xi'an and friends who have tasted it from the surrounding area. There is currently no brand or packaging. Moreover, the existing local workshops can only rely on the right time, place and people. They process about 200,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes, and can make about 50,000 kilograms of them. At present, they can only operate at a low cost.
In winter, farmers who can’t live can’t live by relying on their hard-working hands, traditional craftsmanship and honest and simple quality concepts, low-cost operation, bring delicious food to the world and the villagers’ working opportunities at their doorsteps, which makes me sincerely admire and move.
The vermicelli workshop in winter is undoubtedly the most beautiful scenery in the countryside.
In November 2017, Zhang Long’s vermicelli processed soil workshop, his mother and disabled brother Zhang Lili helped select sweet potatoes. Complete the first step in vermicelli processing and make starch.
The aunt "releases the powder" and the sister-in-law "retrieves the powder". In the end, the sister-in-law "receives the powder", each performs her own duties and is in an orderly manner.
Zhang Long stared at the leaking powder pot during the exercise to ensure that the powder was evenly produced and did not dare to be careless at all.
Zhang Long invited the vermicelli to make the handheld. He kept staring at the flow rate with his eyes, feeling the toughness, and fine-tuning the proportion of surface to water according to the situation.
My sister-in-law took out the cool vermicelli from the water tank, drained the water on the surface of the vermicelli, and prepared to hang the powder.
simple picks keep stirring, allowing the starch flow before the leaking pot to be smooth and tough.
Zhang Long and Brother Zhang moved the kneaded noodles from the mixer to the basin to prepare for the leakage of powder.
Brother Zhang and Zhang Long are knotting.
Simple vermicelli workshop, everything is simple and practical, and behind the work is real gains. Everyone's face was filled with smiles.
large pot is connected to a small water tank. The elder brother moved the vermicelli from the second large pot to the water tank to further "jelli", and the elder sister-in-law hangs the powder to drain.
Zhang Long introduced the process and key points of hanging vermicelli.
Which is the time to boil water, the aunts and sisters are chatting and joking.
Have lunch and taste the delicious vermicelli you made yourself.
Poor household Feng Suyun and disabled son Zhang Lili
The vermicelli hanged in the house for a night. In the early morning of the next day, the "freezing" hardness was taken out while the weather was cold, and the vermicelli that stuck to each other would loosen. These are all the "tricks" of hanging vermicelli.
Fuping's Sweet potato vermicelli is very famous. In winter, farmers who cannot rest can rely on their hard-working hands, rely on the traditional craftsmanship of local workshops and the honest and simple quality concept, operate at low cost, bringing delicious food to the world and bringing opportunities to the villagers to work at their doorstep. Vermicelli Workshop, this is also the story of a poor household recorded by a poverty alleviation cadre.
—— Zhang Weiming (member of Shaanxi Human Geographic Photographers Association. He participated in Shaanxi Human Geographic Photography Training Class. During his tenure as a poverty alleviation campaign in Fuping from 2016 to 2018, he took pictures of poverty alleviation and wrote records of poverty alleviation. The text and pictures complement each other, and the records are more vivid and detailed.)
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