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Date cake
Hu Yuting | Changsha University of Science and Technology
In my childhood memories, there was an alley outside my home.
At the end of the alley is a cake shop selling a wide variety of soft desserts. On the old-fashioned cake, there are a few white and bright pink flowers, and after eating a bite, it is thick and sweet, and the cream is pasted on the upper tooth chamber, and it takes a while to melt it clean. Butter biscuits are sometimes mixed with cranberries, and crispy biscuits are added to the tough dried berries, which is a match that I always can't understand, like biting into the plastic shell wrapped in the book cover in a soft dream, so I woke up with disappointment.
My mother didn't like sweets, and often blamed me for eating sweets so I had tooth decay, but my grandmother spoiled me and always took my hand to the end of the alley to buy desserts. However, there are exceptions, whenever the cake shop bakes date cakes, the aroma of red dates passes through the long alleys, faintly surrounding the home, my mother will pick up a small leather bag, take me to the cake shop, buy a whole basket.
The cake shop was run by a chubby aunt with a face as brown and red as a date cake, a sweet smile, eyes always squinting, and a red plaid apron stained with chocolate marks.
At that time, I didn't like to eat date cakes, and the taste of red dates always reminded me of the chicken soup stewed at home, although sweet, but mixed with a seemingly innocent medicinal smell. The jujube cake made by my aunt was very rough, with fine pieces of dry skin sandwiched inside, like eating pieces of paper, stuffed between the teeth and very difficult to pick. When it first came out of the oven, the cake was still very soft, and the taste of the jujube skin was more obvious, and when you closed your eyes and took a bite, there was a large red date in the center, oozing honey-like water.
My aunt greeted my mother while weighing the date cake, and I was holding a piece of cake in my hand and chewing it dissatisfiedly. At the checkout, my mother took out a small stack of blue bills and handed them over, and the aunt smiled, wiped the corners of her eyes, wiped her hands on the apron again, and finally bent down to take the money with both hands.
Although I don't know the amount of money, I know that it is a lot of money, when a blue bill can buy the meals of the three of us for two days, and Grandma once exchanged a blue bill for a magical girl's wand, not to mention that it was only a small basket of unpalatable date cakes!
This must have been extortion, and I shouted cleverly.
"Auntie, your cake is so hard to eat, how dare you sell it so expensive!"
As soon as the words fell, my mother's slap slapped me the head, and I snorted and hid behind the cake stand without saying more. Mom said sorry to my aunt and grabbed my arm and walked home quickly. When I looked back, my aunt's smile froze on her face, but she still waved at me. I threw my tongue at her in disbelief, and hit my mother on the head again.
Later, the aunt never made a date cake again. I often saw my mother sitting in the courtyard in a daze, going to the cake shop more and more often alone, but always returning empty-handed. I felt a little guilty in my heart, but I didn't know where it came from, so I gambled and stopped going to the cake shop.
Until one day, when I was playing hide-and-seek with my friends, I rushed to the end of the alley, hiding by the wall, and behind me came the roar of an excavator, the cake shop was already in ruins, people were watching the liveliness, the smoke was flying, and I was the only one who stayed where I was.
I ran home crying and threw myself into my grandmother's arms. He said to her, "It's all my fault that the cake shop isn't there, because I don't like to eat my aunt's date cake." ”
Grandma touched my head and coaxed me: "How can it be my grandson's fault, hey, we can go somewhere else to buy cakes." ”
"It's different, it was when I said my aunt's cake was expensive, and I said her date cake was unpalatable, so she left." I cried intermittently, and the guilt in my heart finally had a destination, like a flood breaking the embankment, and the tears were pasted.
"It's her husband who's gone," Grandma hesitated to comfort me before she spoke, "I'm sick, I don't have money to treat my illness, and the cake shop sells it to pay off my debts." ”
After I listened, I looked up in a daze, but I could no longer shed tears, just a soft but infarcted stream of air like cotton blocked in my chest, up and down.
"I shouldn't tell your little child about this, your mother was a classmate of her before, so ask your mother yourself."
I didn't dare to go to my mother, for fear that she would scold me, and I was even more afraid of seeing her upset. As a young man, I did not understand the feeling of death and leaving, and I just vaguely believed that the person I loved left must be as sad as I was punished for not eating desserts, but such a punishment was a lifetime.
Nowadays, I have begun to like to eat date cakes, but now there are no rough dry skins and honey-like fillings in the date cakes. I also began to understand how bitter my aunt's smile was that day, the meaning of self-esteem and sincerity, the friendship between my aunt and my mother, the wordless tacit understanding.
I walked on the road, smelling the smell of red dates wafting from the cake shop, and still looked forward to a warm shop, pushing open the door to see my aunt's red smiling face. I still owe her an apology.
Winter is a taste
Li Mingyue, | of Hubei College of Arts and Sciences
It is already winter, and although the temperature has not changed significantly, the wind has added a cold smell. With that came an increasingly tense and heavy atmosphere. The date of the examination is approaching, and everyone can find a little solemnity on their faces. There are fewer topics of small talk, and more people walking in a hurry in the morning. As I walked towards the library in the dark sky, I couldn't help but have a little trance, is this preparation day coming to an end, and if there is no good result, how will my next life start?
Not allowing me to be immersed in dazedness, my roommate slapped me awake: "Today is the winter solstice, eat dumplings." ”
Ignoring my doubts about eating dumplings for breakfast, she grabbed my book and headed in the direction of the food street. I smiled at her and said a few words and turned to keep up. The campus is still shrouded in a layer of hazy at dawn, and the three or two students who emerge from the dormitory building from time to time have not awakened its slumber. I don't know how long I've been watching a familiar morning like this. When I first went to the crowd of people in the library, my mood suddenly relaxed, and I was left behind by the endless professional classes and mathematical problems without ideas. What is the exam? I'm going to eat dumplings!
Arriving at the dumpling shop we were familiar with, the roommate quickly sneaked into the back kitchen and whispered to her aunt, seeing that she was holding two bowls of dumplings before she sat down and began to shout: "This is an exclusive special offer, there is no signboard." If I hadn't had a good relationship with my aunt here part-time before, where would you have this blessing? Listening to it, I was interested: "Then I have to taste it." ”
I picked up the dumplings and took a bite, it was zucchini stuffed. The dumplings are small, but firm enough, and the soup is wrapped in zucchini and eggs that spread in the mouth, without a thick seasoning, and swallowing one bite is not greasy at all, leaving only a light and refreshing fresh flavor. The heat wet the tip of my nose, and it seemed to extend into my body with my breathing, making my heart a little soft and moist.
Four people in the dormitory had gone out for internships, leaving only the two of us to stay at school to review. Different study rooms and different schedules give us little time to communicate throughout the day, and only after the lights are turned off at night and the words that are stuck in our hearts all day find an exit.
"It's a lot of mistakes in English reading, so annoying."
"After the test, we will go to eat that hot pot."
"Hey, everyone has to eat dumplings on the winter solstice, and we can't go to the canteen to get in line."
"When will the school be unsealed, so I want to go out shopping?"
Subtle memories come and go, the most authentic sense of taste evokes the most authentic emotions, and the steaming dumplings in front of you overlap with the countless fragments in reality. I remembered the grapefruit handed over by the girl opposite me when I was in a bad state of mind, and the bitter taste became much more blurred; I remembered the roasted eggplant that my roommate brought to us when he came back, the soft glutinous eggplant wrapped in garlic, and the hot tongue still wanted to eat the eggplant skin in one bite; I remembered the barbecue when everyone was hungry in the middle of the night, and the hot sauce brushed more made the memory become mellow and hot. I think of the moments in these four months when I thought I was lonely but I wasn't. This is a sense of solidity that has not appeared for a long time, and the emotions engraved by time have not disappeared, but they are constantly wrapped in anxiety and pessimism, and they show their true colors at this moment.
Near graduation, the invisible future used to worry and fear me, the high nervousness of the exam preparation, and the transitional self-internal friction also made me toss and turn in the middle of the night. Day and night do not change, but the concept is changing rapidly, sometimes feel that they are full of ambition and unswerving, and sometimes feel that they are walking in the wilderness, the fog is thick, and the lamp cannot distinguish the direction. When I fell into the emotion of self-pity and could not get out, I forgot to look back at my side. When hopeless emotions are wrapped in the unknown, I am not the only one who has these feelings. The time when we discussed which grilled rice in the cafeteria was the best, the small cakes that appeared on the table when we woke up from naps, and the black marks on the teeth of the chocolates we laughed at each other were all moments when we warmed up to each other. In the face of the same unknown future, whether spoken or not, each other's encouragement and companionship are the most real. In fact, I have already found the courage to get out of the wandering.
Looking up at my roommate who was sitting across from me waiting for my praise, I said generously, "Look at you so hard, reward you with a bag of oranges." Pretending not to hear my roommate's wailing, I dragged her toward the library. At this time, the sky was bright, the laughter and scolding and conversation filled the campus very full, the mountain recovery cloud recovered, and even the national flag was constantly stretched in the wind.
The oranges in the fruit shop are a little sour, but very appetizing.
flavor
Tang Yueyue | Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities
The taste falls on the pen and becomes the style, eating into the stomach becomes nostalgia, and engraving it on the heart becomes a knot that cannot be undone for a lifetime.
- Caption
There is always a sweet and greasy smell in the memory, which is like a silk thread, gently strung together the past and the present. Occasionally, tracing back to its roots, the sweet taste spreads again.
Big red lanterns are hung high, auspicious Spring Festival doors are pasted, and unconsciously, the Spring Festival is coming. Every year at this time, I especially miss the strong taste of my childhood, and I miss my grandmother's handbaged rice balls.
Until I was eight years old, I lived in my grandmother's house, and in this family, my grandmother was busy eating after the year. A few years ago, the soaked milky white glutinous rice was raised in clean water, changed the water once a day, and after three days, it was fished out and placed on a sieve and drained, and it could be processed into glutinous rice noodles.
Grandma always said that "the machine grinding noodles can't catch up with the sticky stickiness of hand grinding", so my grandmother always insists every year, personally using small stones to grind slowly and slowly. It's like rubbing into the love and tolerance of our group of juniors in the quiet years. When the weather is good, Grandma will dry the rice noodles with a large dustpan woven by hand, dry for two or three days in good weather, and dry for half a month if the weather is bad. Protecting it from the big pecking at it is my task. During that time, I always drooled at the fresh sticky rice fragrance, and every day before going to bed, there was a ritual: fold my hands, place them on my chest, and meditate in my heart, tomorrow if it is a good weather.
In the early morning, in the sound of firecrackers to welcome the "New Year" and the children's surprised and joyful wah-wahs, Grandma took out her polished peony flower porcelain pot, scooped a few scoops of white flower flour with a gourd scoop, added the right amount of water, pressed the basin with one hand, and followed the edge of the basin with the other hand, and reconciled.
I would always learn from my grandmother, holding a little rice noodle to press, pull, rub hard, and my grandmother would laugh while rubbing the noodles, "Yo! Whose little flower cat is this, so diligent! I would proudly say, "Grandma's!" "It made Grandma laugh out loud."
Kneaded rice noodles, soft and smooth, white as jade, like a cute fat doll, lying in the basin, a little awake, you can take a small ball, a small ball, with a noodle stick rolled out, began to wrap the tangyuan. Grandma fried sesame seeds, added a little rose sugar, boiled into a filling, the aroma of sesame roses, tempting our taste buds. Fill every crevice in your home.
The flames in the Beijing furnace licked the bottom of the pot, cracking and screaming, the warm fire reflected the children's full smiles, the water in the large steamer boiled, and the white and fat boat-like tangyuan babies who had been waiting on the porcelain plate for a long time could finally get off the pot.
Baptized by water and fire. The floating tangyuan baby is more and more rounded and white. Take a bite, fluffy and sweet, sesame rose filling can't wait to overflow, suck a bite, sweet and delicious, it seems that the heart has softened. Hear your children and grandchildren say in unison, "Delicious!" Grandma ate honey, and the wrinkles on her face swirled into a flower.
This mellow taste has been with me for nearly seven years and three months.
As I grew older, the taste of the year became fainter and fainter, so faint that I couldn't hear the familiar sound of firecrackers. The light Chinese New Year's Eve meal is also a hotel make-up, and there is no whole family of old and young people working together, and the whole Han is placed on a table. How many quick-frozen tangyuan, how complete the variety, and now how many people, will personally beat rice noodles, roll out the dough skin, wrap tangyuan? The spring cold outside the door is steep, and the indoor warmth is like a spring scene.
Eating thousands of times, there is finally a taste in the depths of memory, that is, the simple "taste of grandma" when I was a child, that taste, there are memories of my youth, just like the "Little Madeleine" snack in "Reminiscing Like Water", so intoxicating, so real, as for the reason, maybe only the heart knows the truth.