The year was "boiled" by the mother

I've always felt that Nian was "cooked" by my mother.

From the eighth day of the first lunar month, the mother put together the various ingredients that she had saved for more than half a year and cooked a pot of fragrant porridge, and the mother began to "cook" for a year.

After the new year, my mother took off the red beans hanging high on the beams of the house, used the dustpan to remove the broken branches and leaf chips inside, picked out the soil and small stones mixed in the red beans, and the rotten beans, washed them twice with water, and soaked them. After waiting for two days, my mother put the soaked red adzuki beans in an iron pot and boiled them, the red adzuki beans had been soaked for two days before, and when they were cooked, they were very fire-saving and easy to cook. The mother fished the boiled red beans into the basin to dry, put a little saccharin, kneaded them into bean paste with both hands, and the bean paste of the bean bun was ready. I said to my mother, "I taste sweet or not." Without waiting for her mother to respond, she reached out and grabbed a handful and stuffed it into her mouth. The mother smiled and said, "You're hungry!" ”

After steaming the bean buns, the mother did not stop, and then used a shovel to dig out the turnips buried in the corner of the wall, a whole basket. Wash and peel, rub the radish into strips with a rub and cook in a large iron pot. This is used to steam large vegetable buns and dumplings. Every new year, my mother would steam two or three baskets of large vegetable buns, and when she ate in the morning and evening, she would distill it, and the steamed buns would also have it, and the dishes would also be there, which was very labor-saving.

The most anticipated is the twenty-eighth day of the Waxing Moon, when the mother cooks meat. My father removed and divided the pork he bought, washed it, and cooked the bones and meat together in an iron pot. The ingredients are complete, and as soon as the water in the pot is boiled, the aroma of meat fills the air, stimulating the taste buds. I lay on my stomach on the stove and waited for the meat to be cooked quickly, so that I could fish out a piece of pork bone and feast on it.

On the fifth day of the first year, my mother was the first to get up and cook the family's dumplings. The aroma of boiling dumplings is not as strong as the aroma of boiled meat, but as long as I smell the aroma of dumplings in the bed, I can overcome the cold and the habit of lying in bed, and climb up with a bone. At that time, it was usually difficult to eat dumplings, and occasionally eating dumplings was also vegetarian stuffing, and only in the New Year would you eat meat dumplings. Every year on the first day of the first five years, I eat a meal of meat dumplings, and I can miss it for a whole year.

Cooking tangyuan on the fifteenth day of the first month means the reunion of the family, and also represents the completion of the new year. But at that time, I had never eaten real rice balls at all. On the fifteenth day of the first month, the mother and the noodles, pulled into a noodle that was a little larger than the belly of the finger, pressed the noodles into a concave, made into a bowl, filled with a little brown sugar, wrapped tightly, and dipped the flour on the board, rubbing it round and slippery. Mother's homemade rice balls are ready. The mother scooped the cooked "tangyuan" into the bowl, looked at the white and round "tangyuan", took a bite, sweet and silky, and was very satisfied.

Usually, in the village, only when there are three meals in the morning, middle and evening, every household will raise cooking smoke, and the New Year is different, this cooking, that cooking, cooking smoke will rise all the time. The smoke of cooking, filled with the aroma of vegetables, meat and rice, renders the New Year red and red, reunited, lively, and sweet.

Every year at the end of the year, I will smell the smell of my mother's "cooking" Year, and the wisps of sweet cooking smoke tie my strong nostalgia.

Shang Qinghai/Wen