The fireworks in garlic mortar
Yang Feng
"Garlic mortar, it's long! Is life? You have to be careful to live for a long time..." This is what my grandma said 30 years ago. In the corner of the stove in my hometown, the stone mortar is rough and clumsy. The surface of the mortar is oily. The garlic hammer is made of chrysanthemum. This is different from ordinary stone garlic hammers. The bottom of the garlic hammer has cracked, and the color inside the crack is the same as the outside. Now it seems that the mortar is exactly the same as the garlic hammer. The old garlic mortar sat upright silently, guarding the cold stove ash on the stovetop, but chewing a trace of poverty in his heart, half a wisp of smoke from the cooking stove and the fireworks that he could not forget for a long time.
In 1990, my parents and grandparents separated from their families "gloriously", saying that they were "glorious", because they had basically no family background, and they only had a few tiled houses built with earth, a kang, a wooden bed, a wheat cabinet that could be used for wheat, and a stove made of mud. The pot was a new pot, and then an old garlic mortar. In my mother's words, if there is no decent property, this old garlic mortar is considered to be historic. The old garlic mortar is different from other properties, because the only garlic mortar in all families is given by my grandmother.
Grandma's yard is a simple courtyard with a main house, including Nanxia and Beixia. Nanxia is a kitchen with a stove with earthen kang. It is kept for late autumn and early winter to live in the spring of the next year. The main house is only in summer and in autumn, because only the floor of the main house is marble. In summer, you don't need a cool mat. You can sleep by laying a coarse cloth sheet. It is very cool. Because of going to school, most of my childhood was living with my grandma.
In winter mornings, I often get choked by the spicy taste of my grandma drying the chili peppers on the stove. Grandma knew that I liked to eat oil and splashed chili, so she put a lot of dried peppers in the small cave in the stove, took out more than a dozen and started pounding it with a garlic mortar. Grandma was not tall, wrapped in a headscarf, hunched over, covering the mortar with one hand, and skillfully pounding the dried peppers in the mortar with the other hand, for fear that the peppers would pop out. After pounding for a while, a pinch of fine salt was put into the mortar, just like the old Chinese medicine doctor in the pharmacy who used medicine pestle and powder, and was fully focused. The garlic hammer and mortar were sang together, "bang bang bang", with a strong sense of rhythm, neither fast nor slow. After a while, the dried peppers became pepper noodles. Grandma would drop two drops of sesame oil and vinegar into the garlic mortar, then cut some minced garlic and put them in, saying that it would prevent the pepper batter when pouring oil. Then, pour the hot oil along the edge of the mortar into the garlic mortar, and immediately the garlic mortar mortar burrows. With a sizzling sound, white smoke rose up along the edge of the mortar, followed by a strong aroma of oil and spicy food spread throughout the room, so that I choked and cried, and my eyes kept sneezing, and my grandma laughed. Strangely, I have never heard of grandma coughing because of the oil-splashing hot pot, nor have I ever seen grandma sneeze or cry. I just saw the pepper powder stained on the palm of my hand when I covered the mortar with my hand, grandma would sweep it into the mortar with a small bamboo.
Noon in summer, nothing can be compared with a bowl of cold noodles. Grandma's dough can be mixed for at least 2 hours. The surface of the dough is smooth, and even the surroundings of the basin are clean. Grind the cooked noodles in cold water and then dry them. Garlic is the soul of cold noodles. Prepare the garlic mortar and mash the chopped green peppers and red pepper grains together with the garlic cloves and roasted sesame seeds. When you hear the rhythmic sound of "bang bang bang bang" sound again, the assembly call for the dry rice will sound. I have a big appetite. I use a big sea bowl, and use a bowl of noodles, put some chopped green onions on top, then dig two spoons of mashed minced garlic and chili on top, then pour some cooked hot oil, and a bowl of fragrant oil poured on the cold noodles. Often at this time, in addition to hearing the sound of swallowing and sucking the face, there is another sound that is more pleasant, that is, the sound of using a spoon to pick minced garlic bit by bit in the mortar, echoing in the mortar of the mortar for a long time. The fragrance seems to have been engraved in the mortar for a long time and cannot be dissipated.
Nowadays, although I have not been separated by "gloriously", when I moved to a new house, my mother-in-law also gave me a set of garlic mortars. The surface of the mortar is very smooth and the shape is relatively beautiful. The mortar is deep, with a waist and base. The garlic hammer is also new, as if it was pulled out by a skilled craftsman from the mortar, and it is also "bang bang" and it is always crisp and sound when used. However, I have never made oil-splashed hotpot in the garlic mortar again...
The garlic mortar is not just what my mother said, "The garlic mortar is inherited from the ancestors", and the grandma said, "The garlic mortar is long! Is life long? You have to make careful calculations to live for a long time..." The mortar is more full of the ups and downs of life for generations, and witnesses the poverty and hardship of their lives. But what I want to say is that no matter whether it looks rough or clumsy or smooth and exquisite on the outside, it is quiet inside, chewing a trace of poverty, half a wisp of smoke from cooking stoves and the fireworks that cannot be forgotten for a long time; its heart is solid, adhering to the warmth of life and the beautiful expectations for the future.
Yang Feng, pen name Ruichuan, and nicknamed Wei Xuange, is the owner of Wei Xuange. His ancestral home is Ruicheng, Shanxi, and now lives in Haiyang, Yantai. Vice Chairman of Haiyang Writers Association, Vice Chairman of Haiyang Hard Pen Calligraphy Association, Member of Yantai Writers Association, and Member of Yantai Prose Society. He began to create and publish his works in 2003. His poem "A Leaf of Maple Love" won the Newcomer Award in the Poetry Group of the National Literary Works Grand Prix held by Hubei Publishing House in 2003; in May 2019, he won the Excellent Award and "The Most Beautiful Poet" of the Third National "New Literary Poetry" Grand Prix; his works are mainly modern poetry , prose and new style poetry. His works have been created including: representative prose works "So Soup Noodles", poems "The Trilogy of "Flowing"", "The Sea in the Morning Light", "Fallen Peanuts", "Youth, Fence, Autumn Fence Flowers", etc.
Editor: Liu Xueguang
11-point number Yantai essay
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