01 Peanuts
There were very few snacks available for our little children as children, and peanuts were one of the few. However, it is not common in daily life, and only during the New Year will adults buy a few pounds of peanuts to fry as a must-have supper to entertain guests. At that time, we saw the stitches and needles on the fried peanuts on the table, and stuffed them into the pants pockets one by one, and feasted heavily.
The deepest memory is that one winter, the aunt who cut in the team brought the northeast flowers when she was in the province, and the grains were roughly as big as two local peanuts, and the ones were full, and the raw smell was also very fragrant.
In order to preserve it better, my mother set up the wok and began to fry raw peanuts, and I sat at my mother's feet and smelled the aroma and enjoyed it. My mother laughed and scolded me for being a little hungry cat, just thinking about eating. The big peanuts and rice are red, churning with the black sand in the pot, and the aroma is fragrant in the blink of an eye, and a few naughty ones jump out of the pot. At that time, it was a godsend opportunity, I quickly scanned the ground with my "radar" eyes, immediately found the trace of peanut grains, and blew two mouthfuls and stuffed them into my mouth with lightning speed. It's delicious, it's delicious! And because of its large size and long time in my mouth, it fully satisfies my taste buds.
My mother looked at me proudly and enjoyed it, and beat me on the head with the stir-fry handle, of course, she never fell. But the rules followed: "A peanut comes to break two pieces, half and half to eat." "Whew! I was stunned. I thought who eats peanuts and rice, and breaks two portions from it and then eats them, isn't it all eaten in the mouth?
The old mother said in a serious tone, "Save a little, you can eat for a long time." "I seem to understand. Because I know that my mother is frugal and all for the good of the family, it must make sense.
02 Sweet potatoes
In summer, the most common thing for us is sweet potatoes. We call sweet potatoes locally. After school, when the peasant students pass through their own land, they must first dig a sweet potato and rinse it at the well or creek to serve as a stomach filling snack.
My family is in town, but I don't have this experience. But my mother would often buy some sweet potatoes to go home, not as a snack, but as a staple food. Especially when cooking dinner, scoop up the rice and put it in the pot, then cut the peeled sweet potato into small pieces and put it together in the pot, and when it is cooked, it becomes sweet potato rice. After school, as soon as I entered the house, I smelled the fragrance, and I eagerly lifted the lid of the pot and took a piece of chopsticks to taste first. At that time, my mother did not speak.
A family of four, sitting around the dining table, each person has a bowl of sweet potato rice, fragrant and a little sweet, broken and then pounded with rice grains is more delicious. After eating a good meal, seeing that there was still leftovers in the pot, my mother told us to cook rice in the morning. The next day's rice was even sweeter, and the sticky taste is still fresh in my mind.
When I grew up, I learned that my mother was trying to save some white rice. Diligence and thrift have always been my mother's aim.
03 Jingle Candy
"Jingle, jingle... Chicken feathers chicken gizzard for sugar! When it sounded in the far distance in the alley, a few of our little rabbit cubs began to scratch their hearts, fidget, and immediately looked for adults in the yard. It turned out that we were looking for adults to ask for old things and waste products in the house, and only if we could change sugar to eat.
After becoming a university, I learned the story of the struggle of Yiwu people to "change chicken feathers for sugar", which was quite inspiring. When we were young, we only knew that those vendors did not come often and rarely encountered them, so we felt that the opportunity could not be lost. At this time, the adults are also very reasonable, and they have found some bits and pieces and undesirable things to give to us, so that we can take them for sugar.
The vendor carried the burden into the courtyard, the burden was a flat tin frame, square, very shallow in depth but quite large in area, covered with transparent plastic film to prevent dust, in the frame a whole piece of yellow candy impressively tempted our little devil's head. At the other end is the usual bamboo basket frame, which is quite powerful for loading and changing objects. The peddlers speak in foreign voices, kindly to the naughty people who are small and big, but they do not dare to deceive the little ones, "How to change?" What is it? We handed over our belongings, squeaking and whimpering at a loss.
Finally, with the help of the adults, the vendor took a thin copper piece similar to a ruler, aimed at the appropriate amount of sugar and tapped it with a small copper hammer in the other hand, and when the "clang" sounded, a small piece of sugar slice was separated from the whole block of sugar and handed over to us. So, we call it "jingle sugar".
04 Hard cake
It was a snack of our childhood, and it was also a local specialty, a starchy pastry, but it was very hard and the average person couldn't chew it. Now it is estimated that it is difficult to find in the market in the hometown, on the one hand, no one is willing to do it, on the other hand, no one wants to eat this thing.
I remember when I was a child, the economy and material were scarce, not as rich as the snacks of children now, at that time there were not many things that we could stuff in our mouths, if we could eat different from the small snacks that were cold and hot, it was a great gift.
Wujingtan hard cake, also a rare snack at that time, only when relatives in the countryside of Wujingtan visited, they would send some as gift boxes. But I can still remember it now, only because its "hard bone" texture makes me unforgettable, and looking back at the snacks I have encountered over the decades, it is difficult to find anything harder than it.
I thought that in order to nibble on a small piece of hard cake, I had to use a kitchen knife to slash it. When the knife falls, a small piece of hard cake bumps into the kitchen knife, often rebounds high, and a small piece jumps out at once, but most of it is still intact. Leaving only a little left on the board, I picked up the small piece of residue, stuffed it in my mouth, and slowly dissolved it with saliva for a while, softened it slightly, and then tried to chew it with my teeth before I went down. Then pick up a large piece of hard cake from the ground, continue to cut, continue to pick up and eat, this is how to eat hard cake.
Strange it!
05 Great White Rabbit Milk Candy
At that time, it was almost impossible to eat the great white rabbit milk candy. Only the people in the town with good conditions get married, and you can climb up to relatives and the like, and you may still have a chance to taste it.
The great white rabbit milk candy is produced in Shanghai, and I heard that it is also a popular thing in Shanghai, and it is used as a gift. So our friends in the fishing town have only heard of it, haven't tasted it, and thought sadly: "If there is a milk candy to eat, even if I let me lick it, I can do anything." This thought lasted for years.
Later, everyone's living conditions slowly improved, and more young people ran to Shanghai. Every New Year's Festival, always buy some Shanghai souvenirs to come back, of course, you have to carry the famous white rabbit milk candy. I remember my brother-in-law brought back a big bag when he went to Shanghai on a business trip, and at that time my sister, cousin, and cousin were already studying outside, so I enjoyed this share exclusively.
It's funny to think about now. At that time, I seemed to eat milk candy according to the rhythm of taking medicine, one in the morning, one in the middle and one in the evening, and not much, otherwise one pack would not be enough for me to eat for a few days. And the sugar coating is collected, and you can exchange other rare things with your classmates and circulate among our children like hard currency.
06 Compress cookies
Now compressed biscuits are not unusual, they are available in supermarkets and are not cared for, because there are so many delicious foods than it.
In the 1980s, it was a soldier in the army who could eat it, and it had nothing to do with our people, and it was an absolute rarity. But I was different, at that time, my uncle was on an errand in the government department, had a close relationship with the garrison, and from time to time he could make some compressed biscuits to give to my cousin. Therefore, when Damu's mother returned to her hometown, she would occasionally bring a box back to me to eat, saying that I could not be hungry when I was long.
At that time, the compressed biscuits, one as large as half a palm, was rectangular and wrapped in tin foil, neatly stacked in a square green-skinned iron box, estimated to be twenty or thirty pieces. My mother only allowed me to eat half a piece at a time, afraid that I would not eat a meal after eating it. When I was in junior high school, I was hungry and panicked early after school, and there were so many tubes that I tore open the package and ate it beautifully. Compressed biscuits are naturally compressed, a piece of overall pale yellow like a small square brick, the brick surface has a tight brown small piece of ingredients, the whole piece is very flat and moist, take it far away and look like amber jade. A bite into the mouth, not soft or hard, milky, biscuity, chestnut flavor are mixed together, sweet and hungry.
So, mom told me to eat half of it and stop, how is this possible. So in the days when there were compressed biscuits, my mother and I always caught the mystery, she hid the biscuit box every day, Dong Sai Tibet, I rummaged through the boxes and cabinets every day to find, always can find.
I never saw a compressed cookie again in high school or college. Later, after work, I saw in the supermarket that the compressed biscuits had become thumb-sized packaging, and although I was not interested, I bought some to relive the taste.