Text | Li Jinxiao
In the poor mountain villages of northern Pibei, there is no custom of starting to marinate meat after the winter solstice. At that time, there was a saying: twenty-four dust, twenty-five to make tofu, twenty-six cut the year meat, twenty-seven years to finish, twenty-eight to buy incense wax, twenty-nine Pepsi have, thirty nights, keep the age ... It seems that the real preparation for the New Year begins at the twenty-fourth and ends at the twenty-eighth, and the meat and tofu wax are indispensable, and the rest is not a must. Although it is almost the New Year, the first sentence of acquaintances to meet is: "Is your family finishing the New Year's goods?" "What about your house?" Same same. ”
Killing pigs, generally between twenty-four and twenty-nine, most people buy New Year meat for the New Year, one is necessary to make meat cake meatballs, the other is to respect the ancestors and eat a bowl of meat for the New Year, the third is the relatives of the first few to cook meat, generally until the fourth relatives of the first four are gone, and the meat is also eaten. There is a saying that "the first five or six of the New Year's Eve, and there is no wine and no meat", and the people with good conditions have the surplus to marinate it into bacon.
Mom and Dad are hard-working, feeding one or two fat pigs every year, one of which is sold in August and September for us to go to school. The other end is left to be killed until the New Year, so that you don't have to worry about a large amount of money to buy meat at the New Year, and the money sold can also supplement other expenses for the New Year.
Killing the pig in the bay is still a small happy event, that day to the left and right neighbors and the family are called to "drink pig tail wine", the first night will go to each house to greet, "my family will kill the pig tomorrow, in the morning to help catch the pig's tail Ha", afraid that others will not come, it is equivalent to a disguised pick-up, and then the catch of the pig does need five or six powerful offspring to help, but also appears to be close and harmonious neighbors. As long as the families of the pigs who kill the New Year pigs are helping each other in this way, those who do not kill the Pigs will feel that they are very unhappy in their hearts, and they will definitely make up for it in the next year.
At three or four o'clock in the middle of the night, my parents would boil several large pots of boiling water, and when the water was about to boil, the butcher would also come, and then go to call the neighbors to help. When the pigs were barking, I heard my mother in the kitchen calling the pigs and saying: Pigs, don't be angry, go early this year, come early next year. We children also got up to help choose dishes and wash dishes, and help cook rice.
After more than an hour of busy work, the pig was hung on the ladder separately, and the butcher would really cut down the first meat with the pig's tail, about three or four pounds, and call it to the kitchen to cook, which was the most luxurious time of the year, the meat was cut into thick squares, cooked together with the pig's tail in the simmering jar, no other side dishes were added, and some dates were put on it, the aroma was fragrant, and the first bowl was brought to the table when eating, which was a treat for the hard-working butcher and the helper, then eating large pieces of meat, drinking wine, and the veritable "drinking pig's tail wine".
At that time, when we were little in the kitchen, we thought it was the best smell in the world, and we ate a piece in our mouths, with a hint of chewiness in the soft glutinous, and drank a mouthful of soup, which was thick and fragrant with a sweet taste that could never be forgotten.
After opening the edge, the people who buy meat have come one after another, and the butcher will match according to the number of fat and thin people who want each family, and then everyone is still good at talking, and there is no opinion. Good year, cut meat more people, although there are few left, but the mother will be particularly happy, because you can sell more money, eat your own nods, feet, heart and lungs, large intestine, lard, will be particularly satisfied. If a lot of meat leftovers can't be sold, the mother will look sad and persuade the person who buys the meat to buy more, even if there is no money, the credit account can also be. At this time, there is often not much left, take the meat given to the elders to resign, keep the meat that makes the meat cake, and then sprinkle salt and make bacon.
That afternoon, our whole family was busy, I took my heart and lungs to the river to be hammered, my father would split the pig's head, put the bones on the stove to cook, and after two or three hours, we would all take the big bones and nibble on the meat on them. My mother would wash the pork belly, wash the large intestine, put the pork head meat in the pot to produce water, and if there was glutinous rice, she would also fill some glutinous rice intestines.
At night, Mom would pour lard. The three of us brothers and sisters gathered around the pot, watching the lard of the white flowers slowly shrink in the pot, slowly out of the oil, slowly become fragrant, and finally become a pot of oil, feel particularly magical, but also particularly excited, my mother put a jar in the basin, put water below, and then put the oil into the jar, to cool, sealed, it became a good oil to replenish physical strength in the second year of farming. We waited to eat the oil residue at the side of the pot, and the people in the bay smelled the fragrance from afar, and also came to the pot to "sniff" and eat some oil residue, and my mother sometimes asked us to send some to the neighbors and the old people in the bay to taste the fresh.
At that time, I felt that killing pigs was a tiring day, a fulfilling day, and a happy day.
In my memory, there are not many times when i can eat cured bacon. Usually, the mother of the visitor will take the ladder, cut a piece down, cook the radish or stir-fry. All we could eat was the remaining hard bacon skin, water, boiled radish or fried garlic leaves, a little bacon flavor, and the dishes became fragrant. If there is the last piece of bacon, it will definitely be left until the time of planting early rice to eat, at that time, the people in the bay help each other to plant seedlings, to entertain others, with bacon, one is to save money to buy meat, the other is to have a lot of face, people think that your family is solid, will be a home.
Photo/Persian cat
Nowadays, our next generation does not eat bacon, and it is difficult to chew it if it is not fresh, and in their hearts, there is a strange smell of smoking. And our generation still has some nostalgia for bacon, that is a feeling, an unforgettable taste, a time gone.
This year, the bacon was marinated early, and the husband said that there was no taste of bacon. After the winter solstice, I pickled some more pork belly, specially pickled, to stir-fry a variety of fresh vegetables, in order to find the happiness and satisfaction of the past in the aroma of wax.
Nowadays, no matter how expensive pork is, no one can afford to buy it, and many people pay more attention to fifty or sixty, seventy or eighty-one kilograms of beef and lamb. In today's increasingly rich material life, in the present when there are all kinds of fresh fish to eat at any time, in the four seasons when you can buy bacon at any time, have you eaten the taste? Feeling cherished? Feeling happy?
The author of this article, Li Jinxiao, authorized impressions of Huangpi to publish
About the author Li Jinxiao, female, Caidian people, now Maekawa five small work. Have a grateful heart for life and a simple trust in friends. Love work, work hard!