Gray cabbage, also known as gray gray cabbage, scientific name quinoa, alias wild gray cabbage, gray head grass, etc., annual herb, like to grow in fields, wasteland, grassland, riverside wetlands and roadsides, next to houses and weeds, very adaptable.
The flowers of gray cabbage are extremely small, and even if they bloom, they are often not cared about. The blooming florets have 5 green flowers that are lobed and protruding stamens without bright petals; the unopened buds are clustered like green globules.
Gray cabbage is common in wastelands and river banks, and flourishes in summer and autumn, with smooth leaves, slightly different from most other quinoas; gray-green quinoa is common in cities, and can grow in the cracks of the bricks and walls, with a slight yellow and reddish brown color on the plant.
Speaking of gray vegetables, there is such a story recorded in ancient books. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the sage Confucius traveled around the world, he was either injured by jealousy, or dissatisfied with the king's exhaustion of military force, or disdainful of being in the company of power officials, which turned between Chen Cai and The two countries. Hearing that King Chu Zhao had sent emissaries to greet Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius was entrusted with a heavy responsibility, and the Chu state was strong and prosperous, and the neighboring Chen Cai was inevitably threatened. For this reason, the doctors of Chen Cai and Cai gathered together to conspire. But confucius was after all famous, and no one refused to bear the notoriety of killing the world's great sages, so the two countries sent troops to besiege Confucius and his disciples in the countryside, not to kill, but to wait for Confucius to starve to death.
When the dry food ran out, Confucius led his disciples to pick wild vegetables for food on the spot. The wild vegetables called "quinoa" (i.e., gray cabbage) are boiled into a soup, and even half a grain of corn cannot be seen, and even this wild vegetable must be cherished and shared. This wild vegetable can only be eaten by poor and lowly people, the taste is weak, it is difficult to swallow, the disciples inevitably complain loudly, or secretly weep, but Confucius gladly drank the wild vegetable soup, preaching: In the past, Emperor Yao lived in a simple thatched hut, ate coarse grains, and drank the wild vegetable soup made of this quinoa (gray cabbage), was it not a prosperous world that everyone envied at that time? After saying that, Confucius generously preached and recited songs, and although he was poor, the strings were endless.
The story of Confucius, in the Han Feizi Wuyin, records: "The king of Yao is also the world, Maozi is not the king, the rafter is not cut, the food of the rice is not chopped, and the soup of the quinoa is not cut." "Confucius wanted to take the ancient sages as a banner and not lose his integrity. Later generations compiled legendary interpretations. As for the Chu king's soldiers to relieve Confucius, this is an afterthought. Confucius's sweet soup of quinoa (gray vegetables) was also regarded by later scholars as a symbol of poverty but keeping the festival. When the Eastern Jin Dynasty pastoral poet Tao Yuanming lived in seclusion, his clothes were not covered, his food was not hungry, and he was leisurely and self-satisfied, but there was a verse cloud: "We do not cover our elbows, and the quinoa soup is often lacking." ”
The so-called quinoa, that is, gray cabbage. In fact, it is a class of plants, which are collectively referred to as quinoa by people today, and can be divided into different species, which are common weeds and eaten by poor people. Compared with the lowliness of quinoa, exquisite meat and grain are called anointed sorghum, and the ancients used "quinoa" and "anointed sorghum" as a pair of antonyms, referring to poverty and wealth, respectively.
In the spring, the young leaves of gray cabbage are edible, and in autumn, the originally tender quinoa can grow to nearly one person tall and become a large tuft of unkempt weeds. Legend has it that at this time, dry and solid branches were selected, which can be made into crutches. Li Dongyang, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, once wrote a poem "Yong Quinoa": "Quinoa can still be steamed, and Quinoa can also be boiled." Next year, I am lucky and strong, and I will watch the autumn rain with a cane. "From the spring eclipse of leaves to the autumn to the picking of branches and stems as a staff, quinoa for people, mostly used in the meaning of the cane in the poem."
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, Shantao, one of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest", originally lived in seclusion in the mountains and forests and did not ask about customary affairs, but was impressed by Sima Shi's thirst for sages- Sima Shi compared Shantao to Jiang Ziya, entrusted him with the heavy responsibility of a high-ranking official, and even gave Him a "Quinoa Staff" when he learned that Shantao's old mother was old. At that time, the staff was regarded as a daily necessity for the parents when the children fulfilled their filial piety. Sima Shi's move was to serve Shantao's mother as his own birth mother, and it is no wonder that Shantao served him with a dead heart.
Ming Dynasty medicine Saint Li Shizhen said that quinoa is also known as "red heart gray weed", because the stem has a purple red color, also known as "rouge" and "crane top grass". In ancient times, alchemists quarried and refined, mashed and boiled into powder, or burned into ash powder, which could be used to refine minerals such as sulfur and alum, and used to refine mercury and arsenic. As for the folk, quinoa is commonly known as "gray cabbage" or "gray gray cabbage". Xia Weiying said in the "Notes on the Interpretation of Botanical Names" that quinoa contains alkali, and burned into ash can be used to wash clothes, so the folk call it "gray polyester vegetable", which is later referred to as "gray vegetable". In the Ming Dynasty's "Wild Recipes", quinoa is called "gray strip": "Gray strips are reused in gray strips, and they are collected and resigned." The wildlings were full of quinoa, and the fierce age made this a delicacy. "It can be seen that in ancient times, in the year of famine, quinoa was eaten, and few people asked for it on weekdays.
When I was young, my brother and I and my friends often picked gray vegetables to eat. Every time I pick gray vegetables, I will sing such a song: "Gray gray vegetables, wrapped dumplings, take them to the street for wine to eat." Listening to the song, I always thought about using gray cabbage to let my grandmother wrap dumplings once to eat. In the spring, the seedlings of gray cabbage are often deliberately picked, mixed in the small basket of wild vegetables, but every time when washing vegetables, they are abandoned by adults, so the gray cabbage dumplings, I have never tasted it. Later, I stumbled upon the leaves of the gray cabbage with some gray-white powder, and suddenly felt like the scale powder on the wings of a moth, after which I no longer clinged to the taste of gray cabbage, and over time, I finally regarded it as an ordinary weed.
China's mountain wild vegetables are rich in resources, diverse and widely distributed. It is reported that there are more than 30 families and more than 100 kinds of wild vegetables that are often eaten, and gray ash vegetables are also one of them, they are natural green foods, with unique flavors and high nutritional value. In many places, there are wild vegetables on the market, becoming hotels, restaurants, restaurants, farmhouses and other places of cuisine, becoming the first choice for the people's catering, and has obtained better economic benefits.