Childish vermicelli
Li Jiancheng
Vermicelli, as the name suggests, is processed with starch from plants such as sweet potatoes, beans, mung beans, etc.
As for which year there were noodles, the theories are different, the time is different, some say six hundred years, some say fourteen hundred years, the inventor can not verify. Anyway, no matter what year it was, who invented it, this was created by the ancestors with great wisdom. In the Greater Chinese food culture, it is an unparalleled delicacy.
My hometown is rich in sweet potatoes, which are also the best raw materials for making vermicelli. Because of this unique favorable condition, every winter in my hometown still has the traditional habit of making vermicelli.
Processing vermicelli, the process is very complicated, simply put, that is: after the sweet potato is cleaned, the pulp is refined, beaten into a paste, poured into the boxy, like a large bag of bristles, and then the four corners of the bag are picked up, into a large cloth pocket, put into the water, and constantly shake the cloth pocket. White powder foam will continue to seep out from the gap in the cloth pocket, and when there is no powder foam oozing out, what remains in the cloth pocket is waste slag.
The powder that oozes from the cloth pocket is the material for making vermicelli, which we call face or powder, (when the production team, the place where the vermicelli is made is called: powder room). This powder sinks into the water, at this time the powder and water, the boundary is clear, the water is still clear water, and the powder is a white whole at the bottom of the water. Then use a finer large bag to pick up the powder, or lift the four corners of the bag, leak water after the sun to dry, the powder after drying, is a dozen pounds of large lump, it is wide and narrow, like a rice bucket.
When it's time to make vermicelli, put the lump in warm or cool water and soak it. At this time, several strong men need to work together, use their hands to continuously and quickly pound, and when they are pounded into a thin paste, they are quickly scooped into a large gourd scoop. There are one eye after another under this gourd scoop, and the person stands on a high place, holding the scoop in one hand, and the other hand constantly pounding the hand of the scoop, and the powder will leak out of the brush from the scoop in the vibration. These silks continue to leak in the boiling pot of boiling water, and someone on the side of the pot fishes out the silk with a large long chopstick, wraps it around a thin bamboo pole that is a meter long held up by another person, spreads it evenly, wraps it around the bamboo pole, cuts the silk, and the person who lifts the bamboo pole will hold the silk to the shelf that has been set up outside to dry, and it is this delicious thing to dry: vermicelli.
The dried vermicelli is dark white with black and green, bright and transparent, like wisps of silver wire, intertwined with each other, and elegant and generous.
The cooked vermicelli is crystal clear and sparkling. Nagging on the chopsticks like a jingling silver wire, making people salivate, will be impatient to swallow into the mouth, the taste is smooth and smooth, before chewing, it is like a leg, automatically slid into the throat, grunt and run into the stomach. At this time, he immediately hooked his appetite and was eager to swallow a large bowl of it.
When I was a child, people who had been busy in my hometown for a year Chinese New Year's Eve this dinner, in addition to making a delicious dish as much as possible: noodles, pork, tofu stewed cabbage, is a staple dish that cannot be lacking. This dish is also the most anticipated and anticipated of the year. Because there was little money at that time, it was rare to be able to afford meat, so pork was only added to the stew noodles for this meal throughout the year.
It is also during this festival that the family is reunited, sitting around the Kang table, the bowl is filled with dried rice, and the dry rice is spooned on top of this main dish. That taste, beautiful: the aroma of pork, the smoothness of vermicelli, the run of tofu, the freshness of Chinese cabbage, and then a mouthful of fragrant dried rice, that sweet, that kind of delicious, is really wonderful, better than the taste of mountains and treasures.
Adults watched the children gobble up, the noodles sucked into their mouths and made a sighing, rattling sound, and the beads of sweat on their cheeks dripped into the bowl and could not be wiped. I forgot the tiredness of the year, and enjoyed the joy of this day, beautiful, happy in my heart, smiling on my face. Holding up the small wine cup, placing it on the lips, it is very pleasant to inhale the wine, and the sound of sucking wine is like a happy song. Nagging a chopstick of noodles, taking a bite of food, cheering the joy of the past year, imagining next year's harvest, its happiness and harmony, the most warm moment.
After dinner, the children will carry homemade kerosene lanterns and run to the street to find their friends to play, or go to their families to kowtow to the elders and say good New Year.
One year, after I went out, I met an old man in the village, who kept slapping his stomach with his hands, and his mouth was full of energy, walking back and forth on the street. Looking at his sad face was very uncomfortable, I was curious, and went up to him to ask him what was wrong. At this time, he swept away his sad face, narrowed his eyes, and said to me with a smile: "Big brother, my brother has eaten too much pork stew noodles." As it is, food cannot be used much. At this time, who can say that he did not eat enough to support the ground before he walked all over the street.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the highest specifications for receiving guests in my hometown paid attention to five bowls and four plates. Five bowls are filled with five bowls; four plates are filled with four plates, adding up to nine dishes. One of the nine dishes must be made of vermicelli, because the vermicelli is long. And vermicelli is one of the five bowls of dishes, this way of serving, its central meaning, is nothing more than: grain abundance, four seasons of peace, long-term. Take the intention of health and longevity, the frequent comings and goings of guests, and the desire to yearn for a better life.
In those years, cooking was done on a grass fire. After school, students will meet to go to the slope to collect grass, and after the grass is full of baskets, they will play in the slope for a while. We also have an unwritten rule that when you go out, everyone brings the same delicious food. At that time, there was nothing good to eat, except that you took a handful of soybeans, I carried a handful of peanuts (these were luxuries at the time), and then sweet potatoes or something.
That day, I took the vermicelli, because it was the New Year, my parents exchanged the squash for two pounds of vermicelli. We each took out what we brought and put it together. A piece of iron is propped up with a stone, the fire is lit below, the soybeans are first roasted on top of the iron sheet, and the sweet potatoes are thrown directly into the fire.
All this also has a nice name, the beautiful name: roasted dishes. After the soybean was constantly heated, it rattled and bounced, as if it were dancing a cheerful dance. The vermicelli is held by hand on the flame, after the vermicelli meets the fire, it will make a humming sound, and at the same time, it will also emit a stream of cyan cooking smoke, jumping up the red flame, the fire tree honeysuckle, the fire is beautiful, and the air is still filled with a fragrant and seductive fragrance. After the noodles are inflated, you can eat, while hot into the mouth will have a burning smoke smell, this taste spray incense, bite a piece, hot, crisp, soft, fragrant, that delicious, have a flavor in the heart.
My mother made me a new pair of cotton pants, which I wore on the first day, and I didn't know how to clean it, so I just knelt on the ground and burned the noodles. When I was busy, I suddenly felt that the right leg knee was hot, and when I looked up, the cotton pants had been burned out of a big hole, and the flames also sprang up after lifting the leg. In winter, the ground was frozen, and the water in the ditch was frozen, so the partners had no choice but to shelve their food dishes and work together to draw fine soil on the ground with their hands and press the soil against the flames. There were many people with great strength, and it took a lot of effort to put out the hateful fire.
I didn't dare to say when I went home, to know that making a new pair of cotton pants at that time was no less than buying a Huawei mobile phone for seven thousand yuan now. Knowing the mother of the child, everything about the child can not escape the eyes of the mother, and the mother still saw it at the first time. However, the mother did not say anything, and after I fell asleep, the mother silently patched a beautiful patch under the kerosene lamp. It's all thanks to the vermicelli, isn't it.
The Spring Festival is coming, and it is time to eat noodles, so I want to go back to my hometown to eat noodles, return to my hometown, and find my childhood while eating noodles?
About author: Li Jianhui (net name man), lives in Qingdao West Coast New Area, is a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and an editor and editorial board member of the April Literature Platform. Member and director of Qingdao Lingquan Poetry Society. After graduating from high school, with the passion of youth, he devoted himself to the military camp for several years and cultivated the temperament of a soldier. After retiring from the army, he entered the enterprise, now retired, loves words, and seeks the purity of the spiritual world in words.
One point number Huang Hai Wenxuan