In the middle of the summer of 2009, I came to Nagqu Town, the capital of northern Tibet, where the "Changtang Chaqing Horse Racing Art Festival" was being held. This year's horse racing festival is different from the past by adding the content of the "first charming cordyceps festival in the Nagqu area" and making it an important income for local farmers and herders.
What we usually call cordyceps generally refers to the wild "cordyceps", which is called "Yaza Rolling Cloth" in Tibetan (that is, winter is a worm, summer is a grass).
As we all know, Tibet is one of the main production areas of Cordyceps, and the average altitude of the Northern Tibetan Plateau is above 4500 meters, so the Cordyceps in the Nagqu area (now changed to Nagqu City) has always been recognized as the best Cordyceps.
The picture shows the finished cordyceps after mining and drying (taken by Tang Zhaoming in 2006)
Cordyceps is a precious Chinese herbal medicine, and the Chinese medicine literature believes that its sweet taste is warm and has the effect of nourishing the lungs and tonifying the kidneys. It is one of the three major tonics with ginseng and deer antler velvet, and is known as "golden grass".
It is understood that there are 507 species of cordyceps in the world, of which only one is Cordyceps sinensis, while the remaining 506 species are general cordyceps. Cordyceps sinensis with the best medicinal effect and the best functional ingredient is cordyceps sinensis in northern Tibet.
The best quality cordyceps in Nagqu are mainly produced in Suo County, such as, Jiali and other counties. Usually, there are more than 1,000 catties of cordyceps, and the smaller the number of roots, the better the quality of cordyceps and the higher the price.
Regarding Cordyceps sinensis, there was once such a beautiful legend. A former king had two sons. In order to compete for the throne, the boss made a poisonous plan to kill his clever brother when he went to the mountains to play. In order to protect his brother, the heavens turned him into a bug, and the eldest could not see his brother, only the bugs, so he cast a spell to transform into a mountain eagle and wanted to eat the bug. However, the insects were very clever, and at once they burrowed into the ground and grew a grass tail and drowned in the prairie ocean. The mountain eagle died in a fit of rage. The wise younger brother saw through the red dust and did not want to inherit the throne again, preferring to use his body to serve the health of mankind. This incident touched the mountain god, who injected the elixir of immortality into his body that had already turned into a worm. From then on, who can bravely and fearlessly go to the ice peak and snow peak to dig up cordyceps, and after eating it, they can prolong their lives.
However, after scientific research, Cordyceps sinensis is a combination of insects and fungi. The body of the winter worm is 3 to 5 cm long, has 20 to 30 links, 8 pairs of gastropods, and belongs to the Lepidoptera bat moth family, scientifically known as the Cordyceps Bat Moth. Shaped like a baseball bat, 4 to 11 cm long, the surface is dark brown, broken white, and belongs to the ergotaceae family of mycostic fungi. Cordyceps bacteria invade the larvae of the Cordyceps bat moth around winter, absorb nutrients, develop hyphae, and when the hyphae fill the worm body, the worm freezes to death. In the summer, the fungus grows from the top of the dead insect's head and exposes the soil surface, so it is called summer grass.
It is understood that Cordyceps sinensis contains about 7% of oxalic acid (dry dew alcohol), about 25% of protein, 8.4% of fat and so on. It has the effect of China's traditional "food therapy". For example, the method of stewing old ducks in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Use three or five pieces of Cordyceps sinensis, one old male duck, remove the belly, split the duck head, take the medicine in the middle, still tie it with thread, and steam and eat it as usual." Its medicinal qi can penetrate the duck's whole body from the head, and it is all translucent. For those who are weak after illness, each duck can be used to offset one or two ginseng."
In recent years, with the improvement of people's material living standards, healthy physique has become the goal of people's pursuit, so cordyceps has become a key to the door to health for affluent people; and limited cordyceps resources can not meet the strong market demand, resulting in soaring prices year by year. When Cordyceps was the most "cattle", "a pound of good Cordyceps can sell for more than 100,000 yuan", naqu cadre told me.
But in the past, no one took cordyceps to sell for money. In the eyes of herders, cordyceps are the intestines of mountain gods, and if you dig up cordyceps, the mountain gods will not be able to live.
By the 1960s, cordyceps were sometimes just food for herders. Really hungry, go up the mountain to dig bags of cordyceps, wash and fish in the water, cook and eat, feel the unique spirit of people.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Tibet Autonomous Region Pharmaceutical Company began to buy cordyceps for five or six yuan a catty, and some students from poor families often used their spare time to dig up and sell subsidized food. Even in the early 1990s, cordyceps was only one or two hundred yuan a catty, and now cordyceps is becoming more and more valuable.
According to the Chinese Medical Code, Cordyceps can tonify the lungs and kidneys, stop bleeding and phlegm, relieve cough and asthma, have a certain effect on lung cancer, blood cancer, lymphoma and long-term weakness after illness, and is a good tonic for the elderly and weak. And because of the peaceful nature of cordyceps, even if it is taken for a long time throughout the year, there are no symptoms such as fire, whether it is made with other foods or eaten alone, it does not reduce the efficacy.
Several children observe a spotted cordyceps on a meadow under the Sapp Glacier in northern Tibet (Tang Zhaoming, July 10, 2014)
I have been interviewing and running in the grasslands of northern Tibet for many years, but I have never been able to see the growing cordyceps. Unexpectedly, in the summer of 2014, when I was taking photos under the Sap Glacier in Ruxian County, northern Tibet, several little shepherd boys found a cordyceps on the grass and took the initiative to let me take pictures.
The picture shows a cordyceps stick head exposed to the ground on the grassland under the Sapo Glacier in northern Tibet, and the soil under the stick head is connected with bugs (Tang Zhaoming, July 10, 2014)
Looking at the cordyceps, the surface of the ground was obviously a purple-brown plant grass stick. How can it be cordyceps? But after it was dug out, the golden body under the straw stick had a head and a foot. The red and cute head, the clearly visible mouth organ, and eight pairs of neat feet on its knotted abdomen are obviously a worm.
In order to find a few more cordyceps to take pictures, I looked down with a few children. At this time, I realized that finding cordyceps was not an easy task, and I had to bend over and walk forward with my head about half a meter off the ground. You can't go too fast, because the part of the grass head of the cordyceps that exposes the ground is so small, and the color is easy to mix with the small dry grass, which is difficult to distinguish.
A big shepherd boy points to a cordyceps growing in the meadow under the Sapo Glacier in northern Tibet (Tang Zhaoming, July 10, 2014)
According to experienced old shepherds, as long as one cordyceps is found, other cordyceps will be found nearby. In the densest places, 10 to 20 cordyceps can be found in 1 square meter.
I searched with a few children who were playing and never found any new cordyceps. However, the cordyceps I just saw made me very happy.
In addition to the precious cordyceps, there are also 50 or 60 kinds of medicinal plants such as common primroses, wolf poison, edelweiss, hyacinth, tiger ear grass, weeping chrysanthemum, green orchid, aster, rhubarb, gentian and so on, which is worthy of a beautiful, rich and magical land. (China Tibet Network text, photo/ Tang Zhaoming)