Source: PLA News WeChat·Chinese military number
That pot of Artemisia
■Lu Zhengbao
That time I went back to my hometown in Hunan, I dug a small piece of vegetable soil from my mother's vegetable garden, wrapped it in old newspapers, and brought it back to Xinjiang Bole. Because the older generation said that if there is a phenomenon of not adapting to the local environment in other places, I will take some of the land from my hometown and it will be alleviated.
Open the old newspaper and suddenly found that there was wormwood on the vegetable soil, small, so small that if you were not careful, you would be ignored by your eyes.
This sudden discovery brought me a strong sense of relief, and seemed to add a "partner". I quickly made a flower pot, poured the soil brought into the flower pot, mixed it with the original soil in the flower pot, and then planted the wormwood.
This kind of artemisia in my hometown likes to grow on the edge of the farmland, pull it on it and put it in front of my nose to smell it, it has a fragrance of medicine. People in my hometown like this smell. Every Qingming Festival, it is the time when the wormwood is wearing new clothes to show its new appearance. Housewives will carry a small bamboo basket outside the house to pick thewormwood.
There are some specialties in picking artemisiae. First of all, we must carefully identify "pseudo-artifacts". "Pseudo-artifactile grass" often grows like a fake. If someone picks it as a wormwood and eats it home, it will be poisoned by mistake. Of course, this cannot stop people from picking artemisia, just be more careful. So, let alone children often raise their hands to the adults and keep asking, "Is this artemisia?", even the new wife who married from a foreign country often regards the identification of artemisia as a big homework.
The wormwood is growing gradually. When I was a child, my mother taught me to identify artemisiae: the stems of artemisiae are purple-red, the back of the leaves are white, while the back of the leaves of "pseudo-arthriae" are not white. If you look closely at this tree in my flower pot, it is indeed a real artemisia. good! Next year, I can use it to spend the Qingming Festival in my hometown.
During the Qingming Festival, people in their hometown always pick wormwood and go home to make "wormwood cakes". It is called "the iconic food of the farm festival" together with the Dragon Boat Festival rice dumplings, the Mid-Autumn Festival glutinous rice cakes and fermented rice glutinous rice cakes" and is called "Xiaoxiang Sijun" by some Hunan fellow villagers.
Use glutinous rice to make "artemisia baba". First, push the glutinous rice into glutinous rice slurry, then wash and chop the wormwood, mix it into the glutinous rice slurry and mix it evenly. Usually, some white sugar will be added to increase the sweet taste. Then rub it into a cake shape with your hands, put it in a large pot and steam it for fifteen minutes before it is released. The refreshing aroma of artemisia when you uncover the lid will suddenly "activate" your appetite. I remember my mother told me before her death that "artemisia baba" is not only delicious, but also has the effects of removing heart fire, lowering blood lipids, and calming the mind.
Bole This wormwood in the house was brought from his hometown in Hunan in April. Unexpectedly, it was so missed by a slanting wind and rain that it was "missed and broken legs", and I felt sad and helpless. But unexpectedly, after a while, it actually grew a lot of new branches from the broken place. Before the storm, it was still "superior" but after the storm, it was lush and lush.
For more than 20 years, I have traveled from the frontier to the sea and traveled south and north. But as soon as I retired from the army, I resettled to Xinjiang in another place. For some time, I felt a very strong sense of foreign land, and I always thought about "it is hard to leave my hometown." Unexpectedly, this small wormwood grew in the flower pot without any scruples from her hometown to a foreign land, and developed its survival concept of being at ease. Open the window, pinch a few wormwood leaves from the flower pot, rub it and put it under your nose to smell it, it seems that the fragrance of Bole soil is also fused to the original fragrance.
On the way home from the unit, there was a kind of flower planted on both sides of the sidewalk, which was so adorable. Some people call it " Cockscomb ", while others think it is "higher and higher". It is said that this flower seed was brought by a cadre aid to Xinjiang. Sowing on Bole's land, it grows very well. There is no risk of being unacceptable to the local environment, nor can I see any "face" of loving hometown. This suddenly made me have an idea. I would plant the pot of wormwood into Bole's soil, so that it can grow into a bunch, a piece, and a landscape in the south of the Yangtze River.
(The original text was published in the "Long March Supplement" July 20, 2018; the picture is from the Internet.)
(Produced by the People's Liberation Army Daily WeChat·China Military Number)
