1
For me, the most important significance of the Dragon Boat Festival is that I can eat the rice dumplings wrapped by my grandfather.
Every year in the early morning of the Dragon Boat Festival, Grandpa came to my house carrying a cage woven with red willow (pronouncing three voices, yi tong basket).
As soon as I heard the door knock, I knew that it was Grandpa who had come to deliver the rice dumplings. The reason why I came so early, Grandpa hoped that before we went to school, we could eat hot rice dumplings.
Uncovering the gauze that covers the cage, inside are neatly arranged rice dumplings, mixed with the smell of rice and jujube, sweet and rich, and fill the whole cave.
The rice dumplings in grandpa's bag are large, long cone-shaped, and one is the size of an adult's palm. Such a big rice dumpling, when I was a child, I could eat at least two, and sometimes even three.
I love rice dumplings, but I don't like the stickiness of rice dumplings. Every time I was in a hurry to go to school after eating, washing my hands and washing my face was very troublesome, and I often asked my grandfather to peel the rice dumplings for me to eat in a bowl.
In my expectant eyes, Grandpa folded the ma lian (a plant in northern Shaanxi, the leaves are slender like orchids, dried and then soaked in water, tough for bundling things), and then unwrapped the wrapped rice dumpling leaves layer by layer, and as the golden shiny or crystal clear zongzi filling inside was revealed, my saliva also flowed down.
■ Source: Hundred Houses @ Passers-by walking in the rivers and lakes
Every time he peeled the rice dumplings, Grandpa always used chopsticks to clean up every piece of rice dumpling leaves, afraid that there would be a star and a half of rice grains left on the head. If there was rice stuck to the chopsticks, Grandpa would eat it himself. Rice dumplings in a bowl, even without sugar or honey (in fact, there will be very few), I think zongzi is simply one of the most beautiful tastes in the world.
After eating zongzi, the rice dumpling leaves can not be thrown away, according to the requirements of grandpa, it must be collected, washed, and used in the second year. The leaves are wide, and the aroma can be retained for a long time, even if it is used for two or three years, it can also wrap out the fragrant rice dumplings.
2
I spent a long time in my childhood at my grandfather's house, and I liked to help my grandfather wrap rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Grandpa sat on a pony, crouching next to him in a huge enamel basin soaking in washed rice. I couldn't help but put my hand in and fish it out, it was cool and cool, and the water quickly drained, leaving only a handful of rice grains tightly adsorbed in the palm of my hand.
In northern Shaanxi, there was only one flavor at the beginning, that is, soft yellow rice (probably a kind of millet) and red dates as filling, and later there was soft rice (glutinous rice) rice dumplings.
Every year, before wrapping rice dumplings in the Dragon Boat Festival, Grandpa had to go to the market to buy rice.
Sometimes the year is not good, the yellow rice produced in the county is not viscosity enough or the color is not good, grandpa will buy back, will be slightly apologetic to the family said, alas, this year's soft rice is not good, eat first, next year to buy some good.
The shiny ingredients like red agate soaked in another porcelain basin next to it are another protagonist of rice dumplings, the big red dates.
Northern Shaanxi jujube, the quality is also too good. The jujube industry in Qingjian Yanchuanjia County and other areas has developed, and jujubes have been sold throughout the country. I used to think that the dates in northern Shaanxi were the best, with large sugar, silk drawing, and high nutrition.
There is a saying that summer worms do not speak ice. To put it bluntly, I wasn't afraid of jokes, before I went to college, I didn't even know that cucumbers could be fried and eaten. At a time when I had never even been out of the county, I knew from books that there was a sky outside the sky, but I didn't know that there were dates outside the dates. I used to stubbornly believe that the northern Shaanxi red jujube is the king of jujubes, that is, number1.
Until I grew up and went out to study and work, Xinjiang Zaoshan Jujube Hebei Jujube ate all, only to find that there was still some gap in the appearance and taste of Northern Shaanxi Jujube. Dried dates have more folds, are not easy to clean, the core is large, the skin is slightly thicker, the entrance is sweet and spicy, and eating with the skin occasionally has the feeling of pricking the throat.
At that time, I said that it was to help Grandpa wrap rice dumplings, in fact, the main purpose may be to play with rice in the water, in order to steal bubbles of shiny and chubby red dates.
I played with rice and fished out the dates and ate them one after another. Grandpa said on his lips that he did not dare to eat it, and it was not enough to eat zongzi again, so he could only wrap sweet zongzi (there was no ingredient, only rice zongzi). But I still ate it, and Grandpa said that he did not blame it.
In addition to eating dates, my grandfather and aunts also gave me careful guidance on wrapping rice dumplings, but I always had a heart for the horse, and the guidance became futile. Although I have the true legend of the dumplings, I have never been able to grasp the essentials, and in the end I have not been able to grasp it. Craftsmanship has been broken in my lifetime.
3
Grandpa was born in 1936, in his concept, from a young age, I loved to dance guns and make sticks upside down various tools, I should be like my second father, learn a craft, become a carpenter. He used to say to my parents, "Tell me to see, let's go and be a carpenter in the future."
But I didn't become a carpenter as Grandpa wanted, and I don't know when I began, losing interest in knives, guns and guns, and indulging only in books and words. Although my academic performance has always been in the middle of not slipping up and down.
More than ten years ago, during the Dragon Boat Festival, I got back the university acceptance letter from the next county and the first person I showed it to was my grandfather. He had no concept of college, only his second grandson, who no longer had to be a carpenter.
In 2015, his cousin took him to Xi'an by train, fulfilling his grandfather's wish to come to the provincial city. This is the second time in grandpa's life, the first time is when he was young, and the production brigade planned to walk to Xi'an, a few days after walking to Tongchuan, he really couldn't walk, and he had no choice but to go back home.
I took my grandfather to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and in turn told my grandfather the story of Journey to the West that he had told me, and I said that when the Tang monk came back from taking the scriptures and became a state cadre, he worked in that pagoda as an interpreter. Sitting on a bench in The New Town Square, I pointed to the earth-yellow building and said to Grandpa, Grandpa (native dialect, pronounced ya, between two and three sounds), that is the provincial government. Grandpa asked, "Oh (native, isn't it)? Where does the governor go to work? I said, yes. Grandpa didn't say a word, and looked at the fluttering pigeons and fell into thought.
After a few days in Xi'an, Grandpa went back. I remember the last day, I took him to Kaiyuan Road to eat lamb noodles. Grandpa finished eating half a bowl of noodles with a spoon, wiped his mouth with his hand, and said, This rice is the right (good) rice, Xi'an's rice is not delicious.
Four years ago, at this time, my grandfather Hui Hongyi died in northern Shaanxi at the age of 82.
Year after year after the Dragon Boat Festival, I studied in the provincial city, went to work in other places, and ate all kinds of rice dumplings, sweet rice dumplings, salty rice dumplings, meat dumplings, vegetarian rice dumplings, long rice dumplings, square rice dumplings, just like the ice cream dumplings that appeared in the past two years have not yet tasted. My understanding of the Dragon Boat Festival and Zongzi is constantly being updated and subverted.
But I have never eaten such a sweet northern Shaanxi rice dumpling.
Author | Xu Xi | Shaanxi people