Prose | He Junlin: Northern Sichuan Liang Powder

Text/He Junlin

In the heat of the summer, every time I go to a small restaurant on the street, I almost instinctively ask: Is there any cold powder? Then I would like to add a sentence: if there is a northern Sichuan cool powder, it is the best. As a result, most of them can eat cold powder, but they rarely eat cold powder in northern Sichuan.

In the area where I live, cool powder is not uncommon, but it is not easy to find authentic northern Sichuan cool powder. Of course, if you are patient to look for it, you can still find a storefront with a sign of "Chuanbei Cool Powder". In order to eat authentic Chuanbei cold powder, every summer I will work tirelessly to eat Sichuan Northern Cold Powder once or twice. This has become a ritual, a kind of privacy of one's own.

The reason is obviously related to my hometown in northern Sichuan. If exaggeration is allowed, I can say that I grew up eating cold powder. I remember when I was a child, in my hometown in northern Sichuan, every pea harvest season, almost every household had to make cold powder, both as a cold dish and as a wine.

In those years, the grain was not abundant, especially the fine grains such as rice were limited, and it was impossible for the average family to eat rice with an open belly, and to fill the stomach, it was necessary to stuff coarse grains such as corn, red amaranth, soybeans, and peas. Perhaps to make the whole grain easier to ingest, more fragrant and more enticing, the peas are polished into a tender and fragrant cold powder.

Cold powder is delicious, but the production process is quite complicated, and it takes a series of processes such as soaking, milling, filtering, heating, stirring, and cooling before the peas can eventually become cold powder. This is similar to making tofu, saying that you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry, and you can't eat cold powder in a hurry. Every time I see adults making cold powder slowly, my heart is as anxious as a cat scratching, and I hope that peas will become cold powder in the blink of an eye. Once, when the cold powder had just come out of the pot and had not yet cooled, I was impatient to reach out and cut a piece, and almost beat my father violently.

Obviously, like me, the monkey hurriedly cut a piece of cold powder into his mouth, not the style of the people in northern Sichuan who eat cold powder, nor can they eat the taste of cold powder. People in northern Sichuan eat cold powder, to cut the cold powder into thin slices, or spin into chopsticks thick strips, put into a bowl, and then add seasoning soy sauce, vinegar sauce, garlic paste, sesame paste, oil splashed pepper, mustard, etc., you can also shake some MSG, pepper powder, sprinkle a little green onion, mix some coriander or tender celery or something, before starting to eat.

Whether from the outside or the inside, people have not yet imported it has obviously felt the tender, soft, delicious, smooth, spicy and delicious taste of the cold powder, which is the so-called tongue-in-cheek at a glance. When the tip of the tongue really touches the cold powder, the taste buds are strongly stimulated in an instant, as if they have been attacked by a sneak attack, especially those who eat the cold powder of northern Sichuan for the first time, they will be somewhat caught off guard. The cool, icy, sour, spicy and crispy taste, refreshing the spleen, can awaken all your dusty taste, will make you eat once will always remember, want to eat a second, third time. As the folk proverb says: The cool powder in northern Sichuan is tender and fragrant, and it does not hurt to eat it three times a day.

When I was a child, I never went far away, I never saw the world, and I thought that people in small villages would make cold powder. Later, I learned that people in the entire northern Sichuan region would make cold powder, and the northern Sichuan cold powder was also a well-known Sichuan specialty snack.

It is said that northern Sichuan liang powder was born in the late Qing Dynasty, and there was a farmer named Xie Tianlu in Nanchong Jiangcunba, who often sold cold powder in Zhongdu. Because of his unique taste and unique production process, from grinding to seasoning, to the flavor are very exquisite, many people are amazed after tasting, calling it Xie Liang powder. Since the advent of The Northern Sichuan Cool Powder, it has been famous for its unique red, spicy, mellow, fresh and refreshing Sichuan flavor style, which has been passed down to this day.

I don't know how the cold powder in other places is made, but I know that the authentic Chuanbei cool powder is a white body without a trace of impurities, the whole body is as white as jade, smooth and tender, the condiments are exquisitely prepared, it can be described as color, fragrance and taste, eating into the mouth, the unique spicy taste lingers for a long time, and the aftertaste is endless. In fact, in addition to using peas as raw materials, you can also use red amaranth, corn, banana root, and mung beans as cold powder. When stirring the cold powder, add turmeric to make a yellow cold powder, especially the red amaranth cold powder, which tastes unique.

It is said that years can wear away a person's passion, can promote a person's body, but can not erase the taste of memory, especially the taste of childhood. Although the northern Sichuan cold powder is not chicken, duck and fish meat, nor is it sea cucumber abalone, it is not on the big scene, it is difficult to enter the banquet, but as a famous snack, it nourishes the hearts of the people of northern Sichuan, and also enriches the taste of the Bashu people.

Above all, it satisfied my childhood appetite and accompanied me through my childhood when food was not abundant. It is no exaggeration to say that the taste of Chuanbei cold powder is the taste of my hometown, the taste of my childhood.

Perhaps, I always instinctively ask whether there is cold powder in a small restaurant, and even run to eat a bowl of authentic Chuanbei cold powder at the expense of tossing and turning, just hoping not to forget the taste of my hometown and the taste of my childhood. For that is my root, my source, the starting point of my departure.

【About the Author】

He Junlin is the editorial board member and editor-in-chief of the Supplement Department of Chongqing Science and Technology Newspaper, and the editor-in-chief of the supplementary magazine of Guizhou Nationalities Daily "Literature China". He is a member of the Chongqing Writers Association, the Chinese Prose Literature Society, and the China Popular Literature Society.

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