Sauté rice sugar boiling water with sugar melon

□ Liu Xinwu

My childhood was spent in the south bank of Chongqing, in the winter of 2019, I went to visit the residence of my childhood, although the overall change in Chongqing is huge, but the sea lion road on the lion mountain on the south bank where my family once lived may be the reason for waiting for the overall transformation, for a while it still generally maintains an old appearance, some dilapidated empty houses, covered by climbing plants, it looks very emotional. I found a location that may have been seventy years ago, and the memories of my childhood came to mind.

In early 1950, my family spent their last Spring Festival in Chongqing. Sea Lion Road is a mountain path, and there are few hawkers wandering around, so it was difficult for me to eat snacks sold by the cargo man at that time. But that year's Spring Festival, outside the fence of my home came the sound of "fried rice candy boiling water", I heard the sound rushed out of the fence door, my mother then, my mother bought me a bowl, in fact, the food ingredients are really simple, that is, first grab a handful of fried rice in the bowl, and then scoop a small spoon of white sugar, and then rush to the boiling white water, I do not use the spoon, just hold the bowl and purr and enjoy, it is really a spring festival food that will never be forgotten.

After the liberation of Chongqing, my father Liu Tianyan was absorbed as a member of the group that received the Chongqing Customs, and immediately announced that Beijing had established the New China Customs General Administration, and he was appointed deputy director of the People's Customs Statistics Department. When I was a teenager, I spent the Spring Festival in that place. I remember that at that time, outside the west entrance of Qianliang Hutong, there was always a stall selling snacks, and most of the pocket money given to me by my mother was spent in that place, and the snacks on the stall were deeply remembered: half-empty peanut rice, hawthorn rolls, apricots, sour date noodles, persimmon cakes, lollipops, sugar gourds, and the appearance of no sugar paper was pearlescent little people crisp... But the first time I asked if there was any fried rice candy boiling water, the stall owner could not understand, after explaining, he smiled, took out the fried rice balls and said: "There is this, you take it home and brew boiling water." "I was very disappointed.

But that stall, during the Spring Festival, will add a number of delicious snacks that I have not seen in Chongqing, the most eye-catching and taste buds is kanto sugar, that is, maltose, maltose will be made into various shapes, strips and cylindrical are the most common, the most touching to me is the sugar melon. During the Spring Festival, the sugar melons on the stalls will be arranged into high and low sides of the extension, some white flowers, some yellow candy, small sugar melons, only apricots, garlic so big, and then there are tea cups, oranges and melons as big as melons, and even a big pumpkin, placed at the highest place, as if it did not disappear until after the Lantern Festival, the adult told me that it was estimated that it was not sold, but finally became syrup. Syrup, that is, maltose melted into a thick pulp, put in a large clay bowl, covered with a glass plate, the stall owner prepared a lot of straw cut into two inches long, sold the cheapest, just give the stall owner 100 yuan (equivalent to a penny after the currency value is changed), he will push the glass plate away, use the straw, turn in the syrup of the clay bowl, take it out, and form a sugar ball on the straw. Hey, during those years of Spring Festival, I and the children in the hutong, almost every day to go to the stall, with 100 yuan small paper money for a ball of syrup, received the hand, can't wait to use the tip of the tongue to lick, the world is delicious, this first!

Sugar is thin, but it can not meet the joy of the festival, so it is infinitely yearning for sugar melon, the price of sugar melon is high, you need parents to come forward. I remember the second Spring Festival in Beijing, my mother not only bought me a melon-sized sugar melon, but also bought me a carp lantern, I was in the courtyard, holding a candlelit carp lamp in my left hand, holding a large sugar melon in my right hand, paraded triumphantly, which aroused the envious eyes of some of my peers.

According to the old customs, maltose is the most suitable for eating on the twenty-third day of the waxing moon, on that day the family wants to sacrifice the stove, send the stove king to the heavens to report to the heavens, hoping that the stove king will "say good things in heaven", ask him to say good things, ask him not to do it, the ancients are really cunning, simply eat maltose for him, stick his teeth and tongue, so that he will not report the bad things in the family to the Jade Emperor, in fact, good things and good deeds can not be reached. My mother told me the origin of this custom, and I couldn't help but laugh after saying it, I am a child of the new era, of course, I don't believe in what the king of the stove, that sugar melon, the twenty-third day of the waxing moon, I didn't want to eat it, until the day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, I enjoyed it after lunch.