The author visited the Summer Palace with his mother in 1952 The Summer Palace
Before I was eighteen years old, I lived with my parents and ate the food cooked by my mother. There are three common dishes in my family: kimchi, braised pork, and tempeh, all homemade by my mother.
My mother runs two pickle jars all year round. One is glass, and you can see the varieties of vegetables soaked in it: white radish sticks, carrot sticks, light green cowpeas, bright red peppers, bright yellow ginger sprouts, deep purple The cabbage... The other one is made of earthenware, from which you can pick out lettuce, cabbage heads , and radish skin... Although my mother is quite indulgent towards my naughty me, she is not very strict in general and tolerates me when I am naughty. She closed the door at home and acted like a Sun Wukong, but she never allowed me to get close to her two pickle jars. The lids of the two kimchi jars are protected by half a circle of water. My mother is willing to let me eat all the contents inside, but she is filling in the ingredients and taking out the soaked dishes from the inside. Such operations During the process, I must stay away.
Later I learned that the kimchi jar must not be stained with any oil, nor should it be splashed with raw water. She filled in the ingredients and took out the finished product with a pair of long chopsticks. She usually dried them and wrapped them in pure bean bags for storage. , after taking it out, scald it with boiling water and wipe it with white wine. She performs related operations as if she is performing a ritual, which is quite sacred. Once when my mother inspected the kimchi jar, she exclaimed: Oh, it’s turning white! So I had to throw away the entire jar of kimchi. It was not a pity to make kimchi, but it was a pity that the pickling juice was constantly added to the original one after long use. My mother reconfigured the pickling juice and how to control the proportion of salt and white wine, which reflected her super high However, new pickles always need to be soaked in juice to reach a certain degree of maturity, so that they can be just right and crispy and delicious. Even if the marinade is not raw and spoiled, it will not taste good if it is too old, so my mother will replace the marinade with new juice several times a year. It’s really a good thing in the kimchi altar, and everyone is working hard! In addition to fresh kimchi, my family often has diced stir-fried kimchi on the dining table. The most commonly used kimchi is definitely cowpea.
Mother also has a quite large casserole, which is specially used for making braised pork. The earliest origin of the marinade in the pot is said to have been there shortly after my family moved from Chongqing to Beijing. I often put the casserole on the kitchen stove and simmered it. Once there was a slight boiling sound, I would turn off the heat in time. While eating the braised pork, new juice will be added to the casserole. The new juice is the broth stewed in another pot, with various condiments. In this way, overall, the marinade in the pot will always remain the same. The irreplaceable magic of age. Of course, the braised pork in the pot will be updated from time to time. The braised meat is made from iron-roasted marinated water and is sliced into slices. The meat is brightly colored and has never been imported. It is already mouth-watering. What kind of meat are used to marinate it? Pork and beef do not contain any fat, they are purely lean meat, and only three other ingredients are used: pig heart, pork liver, beef tongue .
My mother also makes tempeh all year round. Dried tempeh is black, and I always have oil-fried black tempeh on my dining table all year round. Particularly worth mentioning is water tempeh . Tempeh is usually made in the summer. My mother will cover the cooked fresh soybeans with a large bean bag cloth in a large thin bamboo basket and let it ferment. After a day or two, if you lift a corner of the bean bag cloth and look at it, you will see that it is not good. You may be surprised: Oh, mold has grown on it, can this thing be eaten? If you can't control the proportion, you really can't eat it, but the mother can always take out the cracked watercress that produces mucus at the right time, and add salt, crushed peppercorns, ginger shavings, and sesame-sized chili shavings. It is made into a food with a slurry state, which is water tempeh. My mother will put the finished product into a clay pot, pour out a bowl at each meal, put a spoon in it, and when eating, you can scoop it out and eat it directly, or you can mix it Eat with rice, noodles, or spread on steamed buns. The appearance of tempeh has many sesame-sized chili crumbs on the apricot-yellow watercress, which is very cute, and the smell it emits is fragrant and appetizing.
The three kinds of daily dishes made by mother are the agglomeration of family affection.In 1951, my father joined a land reform team that went to Hunan for half a year. For the first meal after returning home, he asked his mother to bring out a large plate of kimchi. My mother asked: Don’t there also be kimchi in Hunan? The father replied: Of course, it is also delicious, but I want to eat your brew today, and I want to eat a big plate! Mother asked: So what you miss is just kimchi! Father said: Yes! After saying that they looked at each other and smiled. My sister was admitted to university in Harbin. When she came home during the summer vacation, her mother wanted to cook a fish for her. My sister said: No! I just want the third child in our family! Sure enough, there was a plate of kimchi, a plate of braised pork, and a small bowl of water and tempeh. Even the staple food was omitted. After eating it, she praised it three times: It was so good! It smells so good! So beautiful!
Mother is hospitable. When relatives and friends come, they always leave food. Some relatives and friends will say: "Don't bother me, let's go out to a restaurant, I'll treat you!" My mother always responds with one sentence: "Who said that?" This sentence is most vividly expressed in Sichuan dialect , has a very rich meaning, including the following meanings: Since you come to my house, of course I will entertain you; what delicious food can there be in the restaurant? Don’t fight with me, just wait for my delicious food! Later, to some guests, she said this sentence in Mandarin pronunciation, which was also very convincing. All relatives and friends who have enjoyed my mother’s cooking at my house will come to the same conclusion: it is indeed more delicious than the ones in restaurants, and it is unique!
My father has two children from the same hometown, both with the surname Chen. One uncle Chen is a papermaking expert, and the other is an automobile engine expert. Together they have moved from the old society to the new society, caring for and encouraging each other. About every two months, on Sunday, the two uncles Chen would come to my house to have a happy gathering with my father. After the three of them chatted, they played the leaf card together. It was a long-shaped local card that exuded a strong smell of tung oil. There were rough red and green dots on the card. I don’t know what it was. They always had fun playing and arguing like children about what the rules of the card game were. While they were playing cards, my mother was busy in the kitchen. Often one stove was not enough, so another small stove had to be built to work both ways. So I understood that my mother’s cooking skills were also the tape that kept friendships together.
The two Uncle Chens often arrive early in the morning. My family will have two meals that day. One meal is after ten o'clock. They are all Chengdu snacks made by my mother. My father and the two Uncle Chens first eat a large plate of the couple's dishes made by my mother. Waste slices (often written as couple's lung slices , but in fact there is no lung in the ingredients), drink Hongxing Erguotou wine, and a plate with the wine, which is often cold cabbage heart, surrounded by crescent-shaped pine flower egg petals. The wine is almost gone, and the staple food is served, first a small bowl of Long Chaoshou per person, then Zhong dumplings , Dandan noodles , and finally Lai glutinous rice balls , and maybe a Yeerba per person. The second meal will not be served until six or seven o'clock in the evening - although they are full before noon, by then the two Uncle Chens often cannot help but declare: I am hungry! They asked the third child of my family by name so they could start drinking. They drank boiled rice wine for the evening meal. After my mother cuts the braised pork, she always arranges it on the plate carefully. She cuts the slices of meat, pork heart, pork liver, and beef tongue into appropriate sizes and arranges them in patterns. Then she will hear an Uncle Chen speaking loudly: "Why do it have to be like that in a restaurant?" "Die lotus!" But my mother stubbornly arranged the dishes on the table like embroidery, and warned: "Just try it! There are so many delicious things in the back!" I remember that the delicious food in the back was really overwhelming. Appetizers include chopped chicken and fried peanuts, and hot dishes include sweet potato base meat (rice noodle meat), mapo tofu, douban mandarin fish, tiger skin pepper, camphor tea duck, Qing Dynasty Stir-fried pea shoots... The soup will include the shrimp ball and chicken skin soup mentioned in " Dream of Red Mansions ", and finally there will be a sweet dish, such as shredded yam or eight-treasure steamed rice. Although most of them are Sichuan-style home-cooked dishes, the table is full of dazzling dishes, and it is true that after a delicious meal, there is an endless aftertaste.
My parents are both Sichuanese and naturally have a long-term craving for spicy food. Our brothers and sisters have also been accustomed to eating spicy food since we were young.Someone once asked me: Your mother knows how to make homemade meat floss and jam. Would you secretly eat such delicious food? In retrospect, because my mother is really good at cooking, that kind of finished product does not have a strong temptation for me. However, my mother will make spicy oil every once in a while, and pour the boiling soybean oil into the boiling soybean oil. The minced chili peppers and peppercorns were mixed with a little salt and sugar, and the resulting oily chili peppers were extremely fragrant and refreshing. After she put the finished product into a small earthenware pot with a lid, the temperature dropped to slightly hot. Yes, I will open the lid of the jar. There is a gap in the jar lid, and the handle of the matching pottery spoon inserted will stick out. I will take out a spoonful of spicy oil at a very fast speed, put it in my mouth, and use my tongue to Stirring, ah, the pleasure is indescribable! I used to be such a spicy boy!
However, perhaps due to living in Beijing for a long time and the physical changes with age, by the end of the last century, whenever the restaurant waiter asked: "Are there any taboos?" I would reply: "No spicy food." Or : "It can only be mildly spicy." Nowadays, the younger generation, regardless of east, west, north or south, seems to love spicy food so much that once there was no dish or restaurant without spicy food. Northeastern ladies will love Maoxuewang and boiled fish. Girls from Jiangsu and Zhejiang will be fascinated by Bashu grilled fish and spicy hot pot. If they go to Gui Street in Dongzhimen, Beijing, they will smell the smell of spicy crayfish all over the street.
An aunt once sighed to me: "You, you, you, see how you will be able to eat after you leave home!" The reality was not as bad as she imagined. I left my parents at the age of eighteen and lived alone. Life soon got used to the public cafeteria. Of course, I will occasionally think about my mother’s cooking skills. What appears most frequently in dreams is a dish and a soup. The dish is Sha Pork , which is made of pure fatty pork, cut into slices, then cut open, embedded in sweet bean paste, steamed, fat but not greasy, salty and sweet, really a super delicacy. The soup is Sauerkraut and Bean Soup . Peel the broad beans (called Hu Dou in Sichuan) and divide them into thin slices. Add them to the pre-cooked sauerkraut soup. Only take the leaves of the sauerkraut and tear them into small pieces. The soup is boiled pork bones. Wait for the soup. It is milky in color, and the watercress is just cooked but not boiled. Scoop out a bowl, smell it first, then taste it on the tip of your tongue, then scoop it up with a spoon and taste it carefully. Alas, this soup can only be found in heaven, how many times can you enjoy it on earth? !
My father was at a certain level in New China, that is, administrative level 12, with a salary of more than 120. This treatment lasted until his death in 1978. My brothers and sisters became independent one after another. Before 1960, my family usually only had three people to eat, and we lived a prosperous life. My father likes to eat Western food. He worked for a long time at the General Administration of Customs and the Department of Trade on the south side of East Chang'an Street. After work, he crossed the street to Wangfujing. At that time, there were three Western restaurants in Dong'an Market: Heping Restaurant and Hefeng Restaurant. , Qishilin Restaurant, my father is a regular customer and took me there several times, but my mother has never been there once. She has always adhered to one belief throughout her life: the dishes in any restaurant cannot compare with the cooking at home. She shared the joys and sorrows with her father throughout her life and never left him. Since his father loved to eat Western food, she also tried to cook Western food for him at home. I remember that she sometimes made Western-style mashed potatoes, pickled cucumbers , and pickled beets for her father. The cooked borscht impressed my father, saying it was better than the one in a Western restaurant! I also realized that my mother’s cooking skills were also an extension of her love with my father.
After 1960, my father was transferred to Zhangjiakou to teach at the People's Liberation Army Foreign Languages College. At that time, Zhangjiakou was a bitter cold place, and there were supply difficulties. Most families felt that it was difficult for a clever woman to make a living without rice, but my mother was very optimistic about living there with her father. I would go from Beijing to Zhangjiakou to visit them during the winter and summer vacations, and I was surprised to find that my mother still had the opportunity to show off her cooking skills. The supply of the army was better than that of the local area, and sometimes they were given hairtails. Those hairtails were very thin, and there was not much left after the heads and tails were chopped off. The neighbors on the left and right chopped off the heads of the fish and threw them away. My mother dissuaded them and set an example by setting an example for them. The head and tail of the fish were cooked into a crispy and rich meal. After sharing it with the neighbors to taste, the housewives in each house followed suit and all praised it! At that time, my father had a special supply of soybeans, and my mother made tempeh and served it with multigrain vegetable porridge. It tasted very good. She also gave some to neighbors, and everyone was very happy.Because my parents and three brothers all lived in Ningbo in the 1930s, my mother would make Ningbo glutinous rice balls. If someone could provide her with wheat seedlings, she could also make Qingtuan dumplings. Needless to say, Very tasty.
My mother passed on some of her cooking skills to her sister-in-law, brother-in-law and my wife Xiaoge. At the end of the last century, Mr. Gao, who later became a Chinese-French playwright and painter, was a frequent visitor to my residence in Andingmen. The borscht cooked by Xiao Ge made him sigh three times: "Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful!" That was his mantra, and he would always give this compliment to the people, works, and things he admired. He was working in foreign affairs at that time and often went abroad. He was no stranger to Western food and had the right to evaluate it. He asked Xiaoge: From which foreigner did he learn it? Xiaoge told the truth: The child’s grandmother taught him.
In 1986 Liu Xinwu and his mother Wang Yongtao were together.
After my father passed away, my mother took turns living in the homes of my two brothers, one sister and me. Of course we will never let her cook for the younger generations again, but she is often very skilled and still has to show off her skills from time to time. But the grandchildren, such as my son, after eating the dishes she cooked, will ask me privately: "You always say The food cooked by grandma is so delicious, why can’t I eat it normally?” My brother and I both knew that it was because my mother was old and her vision, smell, and taste had declined, and it was difficult for her to cook. We accurately grasp the ingredients, heat, and saltiness, but we will never comment on our elderly mother's cooking skills. What we eat is the grace of upbringing and the deep affection of family.
In traditional Chinese culture , family culture is an important part, and home-cooked meals are an extremely important item in family culture. It’s not that I deliberately want to elevate the value of my mother’s cooking skills. I really feel that it is an ordinary and sacred cultural existence that integrates family, friendship, love, and even neighborhood, local and national feelings.
I returned to my parents’ home in a dream last night. I told my mother: There is a new book published and royalties have arrived. I will invite my two elders to eat roast duck at Bianyifang! Then the mother's smiling face appeared in front of her again, and she clearly heard the familiar response: Who said that!
Written on June 5, 2022 while the community was under lockdown and staying at home
Author: Liu Xinwu
Editor: Xie Juan
