After living in a foreign country for a long time, I can't forget my relatives in my hometown, and I can't forget the food in my hometown. The gazebo snow dates comfort my wandering soul.
When I was a child, despite the poor living conditions, every New Year's Day, my parents would buy two pounds of snow dates, take out a few for me to relieve my hunger, and hide the rest for hospitality. Countless days and nights, the shape is like a date, the color is like snow, sweet as honey, the bite is crisp, and the snow dates that melt in the mouth let the child's heart wander in the sky of dreams. Enjoying the snow dates has become a lingering long-cherished wish.
Snow dates are a traditional specialty of the hometown and have a history of more than 1,200 years. During the reign of Emperor Wude of Tang Gao, the world was in chaos. A foreigner named Li Chuanjin, to avoid the scourge of war, defected to his relatives in the pavilion. He saw that the glutinous rice produced here was red in color, thin in shape, sticky in texture, sticky and smooth in taste, and was the superior raw material for making snow dates, so he taught his relatives the method of making snow dates. Ten, ten hundred, spread all over the banks of the Pavilion River, from generation to generation. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, many people in the pavilion knew this craft. At this time, the snow date workshop sprung up like a rain, and the pavilion snow date was already famous. One winter, the young Cixi, who lived in southern Anhui with her father Hui Zheng, contracted typhoid fever and coughed for a long time. Her father accidentally learned that the pavilion snow jujube has the effect of suppressing cough and phlegm, so he entrusted someone to buy it, and Cixi actually recovered from illness after eating it. Later, Cixi, who was the empress dowager, still remembered the pavilion snow jujube and asked for local tribute. As a result, the pavilion snow jujube is known as the "imperial snow jujube".
In the 1980s, it was difficult to sell grain. The farmer had grain in his warehouse and had no money in his hands. The processing of snow dates is an important industry in rural areas to convert grain into banknotes. Every year, after the autumn harvest, the farmhouses around the pavilion take advantage of the sunny weather to make snow dates. Under the blue sky and white clouds, every household is busy drying snow date blanks, and the large sunbathing plaques are covered with one inch long, snow white jade snow date blanks, which has become a unique scenery.
My family also made snow dates. That year, there was a bumper harvest of glutinous rice, and my parents decided to process it into snow dates to sell. In his hometown, his cousin-in-law was a master at making snow dates, and his mother invited him to come. In addition, there are several neighbors to help. The process of making snow dates is complex and there are many processes, which is both technical and manual work. My mother had long since crushed glutinous rice into glutinous rice. Glutinous rice is like a pearl, and the grains are full. The glutinous rice is soaked, rinsed and drained; the flour is rolled, mixed with accessories, and powder. Mixing excipients are very important, some mysteries, is the magic weapon of good or bad quality. Then the steamer basket is put on and the firewood is burned. Rice flour is steamed and matured into rice dumplings, put into a bowl, stirred with a stick, stirred until viscous and tough, then rolled into strips, cut into blanks, dried blanks. This is not a finished product, to make a snow date, you have to put the dried billet into the warm oil to "over-oil", and then heat the warm oil to make it puffed. Wait until the outside is as thin as paper and the inside is like a melon, then add the pulp and add sugar. The pulp is a fine malt syrup; sugar, is a high-quality cotton white sugar. It is dyed with pulp, and then a "coat" is given to the snow dates with cotton sugar and refined glutinous rice flour. After such an operation, it becomes a tender, sweet and crispy snow date on the outside.
At that time, I was still a hairy boy in middle school, full of momentum. I came home from school, took the mixing stick, and replaced my cousin-in-law for a while. The first try, relaxed and comfortable. I waved my arms and legs, threw my arms away and did a lot. After dozens of combinations, the more viscous the rice dumplings were stirred, the heavier they were stirred, and before long, they were tired and sweaty, and their waists were sore and their hands were sore. After this incident, I understood that snow dates are delicious and not easy to make. My family only made the snow dates that time. My mother sold most of the date blanks, and a very small part of them stayed at home to eat. Because there is no direct sales channel at home, it takes a lot of twists and turns to sell, and even the payment is not recovered until the spring of the following year. This may be the reason why parents no longer make snow dates.
With the continuous expansion of the scale of the snow date industry, the relevant local departments have introduced a series of support policies and established the "Snow Date Company", which is responsible for the sales of snow dates in the form of companies and farmers. In this way, snow dates are sold to the north and south of the river, other provinces and ports, into thousands of households, and become a delicacy on the tip of the tongue. The good times continued into the millennium, and as new foods flourished, snow dates, like many traditional foods, were in decline. Today, there is only one house called Tuanluan House, with a small number of farmers, who are still adhering to this traditional industry.
Growing up, living in a foreign country for a long time, no longer worrying about eating, tasting all kinds of delicious dishes, and also eating foreign snow dates, but can not eat the taste of pavilion snow dates. Some people have said that the spleen and stomach have a memory function. This statement was confirmed in the Chinese medicine literature "Su Qing Xuan Ming Five Qi" more than 2,000 years ago, the original text is: "Spleen Tibetan Meaning". It seems that the smell of my hometown has branded me.
Leaving his hometown for a long time, homesick, often unable to sleep at night. Not long ago, a friend brought a few boxes of pavilion snow dates, and I couldn't wait to unpack it, taste it, relive the delicious nostalgia in my memory on the tip of my tongue, and sip the fragrance of the years with my taste buds.
That night, I did not dream of returning to my hometown; that night, I slept soundly.
Author: Duan Peiming