After the winter solstice, the weather is cold and the temperature is low. The microorganisms outdoors are not active. The pickled food is not easy to deteriorate and is suitable for preservation. This is the best time to stuff the sausage. Therefore, there is a folk custom of "pickling the sausage in the winter wind and storing it to survive the winter." Sausage is a must-have New Year's product for almost every household in our hometown, because every New Year's Eve dinner table has a dish "fried sausage with snow peas" that is indispensable. It means "long (chang) for a long time" in the coming year.
I called my aunt and wanted to ask her to make some sausages for me. I heard my aunt’s slightly nasal voice on the phone, and I realized that my aunt had a cold and was feeling uncomfortable. I didn't tell her about making sausage. Put down the phone and think about doing it yourself.
The butcher shop owner downstairs heard my intention. He readily agreed to help me prepare the ingredients for making sausage. Ten pounds of front leg pork, a bottle of Xiamen sorghum wine , half a pound of sugar, two ounces of fine salt, a pack of casings , and help me cut the pork. After I took it home, I put all the ingredients in a basin, marinated it for two hours, and then started filling the sausage.
Lifting the lid of the pot for marinating meat, the aroma of sorghum wine instantly filled the small kitchen. The fermentation of sugar made the aroma of the wine even more intoxicating. I moved a small chair and sat down, and carefully put one end of the casing on the mouth of the mineral water (there is no oil leakage , the boss lady taught me to cut one end of the mineral water bottle to replace the oil leakage). Because I had never done this before, my fingers were very clumsy, and I couldn't put the casing on several times. "Move gently." I ordered myself, and my mind recalled my grandma's procedure for making sausage. I really put the casing on, tied it with a thin rope, put the meat slices in, inserted the chopsticks, and the meat slices slid into the casing...
When I was a child, when we lived in the countryside, because my grandma was an expert at raising pigs, we would raise several fat pigs weighing three to four hundred kilograms and sell them at the end of every year. Near the end of the year, my father would sell pigs to pig-killing professionals in the town. When he sold the first pig, he would keep dozens of kilograms of the best pork to make sausage. The winter was very cold at that time, and filling dozens of kilograms of pork to make sausage was enough to keep my grandma sitting on a small bench for a whole day. My grandma’s hands were red from the cold... and I also smelled the smell of wine for a whole day. In about a day, the corridor at home was filled with wind sausages. Dozens of kilograms of wind sausages were hung on two or three long bamboo poles. It was very spectacular, as if to tell us that the New Year is coming.
In addition to fried snow peas, another way to eat sausage in our family is to grill it in a charcoal oven. On New Year's Eve, , my father would move the small charcoal stove outside the house, set up a small iron wire, and slowly bake the sausage on it until the oil droplets "sizzle". The charcoal grilling makes the sausage taste more crispy and charming. Take one and take a bite. The skin is crispy and the meat is tender. The delicate meat aroma directly wakes up the stomach. I can't get tired of eating several of them. I have to say that my father, who seems to live a simple life, is actually a gourmet.
Grilled sausage has been around since the Song Dynasty. It is said that Su Dongpo came to Jiangsu and went out to admire the moon one night and was attracted by a fire in the distance. He walked over and saw a white-haired old man squatting next to a fire, baking in a bamboo tube. He was very curious and asked the old man what he was baking. The old man smiled and said nothing. After it was cooked, he split the bamboo tube open with a hatchet, and a very rich aroma of barbecue came to his face. Su Dongpo suddenly realized that the old man was grilling sausages. Later, in order to pass down this delicacy and to better preserve it, a butcher filled the meat into pig intestines and then placed it under the eaves to dry, which became today's New Year delicacy.
Looking at the sausages hanging on the small balcony, under the sun, the thin casings are full of fermented beads, the red and white color has the texture of agate, and the faint aroma of wine reveals a strong flavor of the year. The bulging wind sausage symbolizes abundance and contentment, which goes well with my hometown, which is known as the "land of plenty". Although times are changing and New Year's customs are also quietly changing, Fengchang has transcended the erosion of time and contains the long-lasting attachment to family. To this day, it is still the unchanging Spring Festival standard for hometown people.
Liang Zi is a senior yoga teacher and a quasi-female writer who is good at writing prose and poetry.His prose and poetry have been published in newspapers such as "Jinjiang Economic News" and "Jinpu News". He is diligent in writing and has quick thinking. He has published more than 70 works so far. The poems he wrote were broadcast on Zhangpu Radio Station's "Reading Poems for You" festival. Because of his essay "The Taste of the New Year", he was invited to the Zhangpu County People's Broadcasting Station to chat with the host about "The Taste of the New Year". She is jokingly known as "the person who teaches yoga the best among women who write articles, and the person who writes the best articles among teachers who teach yoga."
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