"Xiao Bo, why don't you eat blood ducks?" At my aunt's house, my uncles and aunts asked me with concern one after another. "I've been eating too much lately." I dodged a caring glance and whispered back.
The third day of the Lunar New Year. We went to the second aunt's house for lunch, along with the third uncle, the fourth uncle and other cousins. As soon as I arrived, I saw my second aunt busy in the small but clean and exquisite kitchen. On the shiny steamer, steaming hot. On one side, orange flames licked the bottom of the pot, and the oily vegetables made a nourishing and warm sound.
Delicious Lotus Blood Duck is about to be served! The second aunt of the "diamond grade" of the chef lifts the lid of the pot, and the delicious lotus blood duck appears in the water. "This duck, which is free-range, did not eat feed, and was fried with this year's camellia oil, the only thing that was missing was that it was not fried with firewood." The pride of the second aunt, for several of our nephews who work outside, emphasizes the authenticity of the blood duck.
Closing my eyes, the long-lost aroma of bloody duck came to my nose, and immediately brought my thoughts to the "smell of mother".
"Every festive season, I think of my relatives". Oh, yes! When every traditional festival comes, it will make me sad and sad, especially in the Year of the Tiger, which stirs up my memories of my mother.
My mother is my most memorable loved one!
……
I have five sisters, and my mother loves us very much. From the time I can remember, the family was not very prosperous, relying only on the meager salary of my father, who was a village teacher, to support the family of seven.
At that time, we had to cook every meal mixed with sweet potatoes in rice. Because of the small labor force in the family, the rice that my mother earned from the work earned in the production team was far from enough to support our family. Afraid that we would eat sweet potatoes and spoil our bodies, my mother would open the sweet potatoes every time she helped us scoop rice, and all she served us was rice, and her bowl was full of sweet potatoes. In that era of lack of clothing and food, all the mother could do was "rice". From the spring of each year in March to the seedlings, until the autumn and August there are new grains into the warehouse. During this long period of green and yellow days, three meals a day, it was just sweet potato rice. Sometimes, we who don't understand things can't help but be angry at our mothers. At this time, my mother was always silent, as if she really shouldn't just cook such a meal. Now that I think about it, I am really a little remorseful, and whenever I think of her sentence "I don't like to eat rice, I love sweet potatoes the most", I can't help but burst into tears. Despite this, there is still not enough food to eat. When eating, my mother always filled us with a large bowl and then scooped her own. How naïve we were at that time, we didn't know how to give rice to our mothers. This innocence became an inner pain when it grew up. Oh, yes! Where in the world is there anyone who loves sweet potatoes but doesn't love rice? Mother is here to make us eat well!
I remember once, my father bought a duck and went home to let the whole family add a dish. Perhaps, father wanted to surprise us, did not tell us in advance. In fact, at this time, the happiest person was her mother, who often said in her mouth, this is good, and finally you can eat the blood duck. Kill ducks, dehair, chop ducks... Her skillful technique still vividly remembers me. After a while, the mother packed up the ducks and prepared red peppers, onions, ginger, garlic, etc. And I sent firewood to the hearth. Don't underestimate the firewood, whenever this happens, my mother will teach us how to do things and how to behave, which is also the same as the fire to master the fire is a truth.
I vividly remember that when my mother cooked for us, she first made a fire and cooked rice in an iron pot; then, she used the time to cook the rice to pick and wash the dishes; after the rice was cooked, she immediately stir-fried the rice. This is more time-saving than picking vegetables, washing vegetables, and then cooking rice. It is such an example that she told us that how to arrange time and do things must use our brains. My mother worked in the fields or in the fields during the day, or went up the mountain to collect firewood or cut grass to herd cattle, and at night she had to feed the pigs to feed the chickens, cut the pig vegetables, and often picked up the lamp and threaded the needle and lead to help us sew and mend our clothes.
Three bowls full of blood ducks were served. The mother would excitedly announce: "Eat rice, eat blood duck!" Eat bloody ducks! Zhang Luo ate happily, but she herself always rarely moved her chopsticks, quietly staring at us, and from time to time she said: "I really want to be like this every day!" At the dinner table, my mother always sat near the "hanging corner" (the four corners of the small square table) near the stove. Holding the bowl, he slowly raised the chopsticks, as if tasting the delicacy, and seemed to be difficult to swallow. Whenever he saw that my father or our bowl was empty, he rushed to add food to us and spooned the blood duck into our bowl. If the bowl was gone, there would be a trace of sadness and sadness on my face, so heavy that I will never forget it. Perhaps, my mother's greatest happiness, like ours, is the New Year's Holiday. Because during the festival, she can cook us a delicious meal.
The taste of the countryside is very strong, and families never hesitate to bring out the best food to entertain guests. In the two years of 2020 and 2021, due to the epidemic, there was no gathering at all. This year's Year of the Tiger can be said to cherish the gathering between relatives and friends, no matter how big or small the party, no matter how many dishes, lotus blood duck is indispensable.
Looking at the dishes cooked by my second aunt and listening to the laughter of my uncles and brothers, I fell into the deep memories of my mother for a long time. For so many years, I have always loved the lotus blood duck the most, like its sticky red, heralding the appearance of full happiness, and reveling in its spicy and honeyy taste. But since my mother left, I finally did not taste the mellow, soft, fresh and untie lotus blood duck, maybe this is the taste of my mother!
After twenty years of being out, as long as there is a lotus blood duck dish at the party, I can't help but "lose my attitude", and I will also miss the blood duck fried by my mother, especially the mother of the fried blood duck. My mother has been gone for almost seven years, but I always feel that I talked to her yesterday and am still eating the lotus blood duck that she has carefully prepared for us. The dark red color, the spicy taste, seemed to be like a happy smile, just like the warm face of countless mornings when my mother smiled and told us to get up for breakfast. The mother was a good laborer, and the mother was also a hard-working woman. My mother was always working, and her biggest influence on me was that I worked non-stop and planned. Later, we became a family, and when my mother saw that we were busy with a breakfast in the morning, she would start nagging, counting us without a plan, not using our brains, not making overall arrangements for time, time was wasted, but we could not do things.
Grandma's family was larger. Every Spring Festival, the family has to receive a lot of guests, generally one or two tables of guests' meals, the mother alone is very busy very relaxed. Now that I think about it, my mother's work in the kitchen, whether it is wind and rain, or the heat and cold, this is a lifetime. She started making breakfast every early in the morning, and when we went to school one after another, she was busy with the vegetable garden and the housework. The five of us, my brothers and sisters, always liked to look at my mother's toiling figure from a distance in the dawn of the morning light, and listen to her nagging words. Especially whenever I came home from school and saw a circle of cooking smoke floating over the kitchen at home in the distance, I always imagined that my mother was a god, who kept tossing and turning in front of the small mountain, and kept outlining the beautiful scenery in front of the peak with her strange hands that flew up and down. In the hazy morning light, the mother is always very attentive to the duck, feeding the duck, fried duck, accompanied by the nagging sound in the kitchen busy, the duck fragments in the pot are like a fragrance, blooming between the mother's fingers. Every time I approached my mother gently, he always stretched his kind and kind eyebrows dotingly and gently told me to walk away, not to be splashed by the oil.
I remember when I was in my first year of junior high school, my mother asked me to go to the paddy field at the door to drive the ducks raised by the family home. Without saying a word, I picked up a bamboo pole in the corner of the wall, whistled and went out. I used a bamboo bar to rush from this end of the field to the other end of the field, and I didn't know how many times I went back and forth like this. Seeing that the sky was gradually darkening, I was also anxious! I went down into the field, but I drove the ducks to pieces, a few in this field, a few in that field. Fortunately, my mother saw that I had not returned home for a long time, and after making dinner, she came out to look for me, so she asked me not to worry, went up to the field, and let her come to catch up. I saw my mother holding a bowl in her left hand, and there was some rice soaked in water in the bowl, and the right hand spilled the rice up and down into the bowl, and the duck was called "Mile Mile" in her mouth. Strange to say, the ducks invariably assemble from different fields in the direction of their mother's call, and have been following their mother's footsteps home. Witnessing my mother's diligence is a shame. I can't help but sigh often: what kind of perseverance it is to be able to persist in doing this for many years and months! All along, my mother has been my role model and my motivation to move forward! When my daughter and son complain about the hardships of studying, the hardships of work, and the hardships of life, I tell them the story of a hard-working mother.
Looking at the hot blood duck, I always feel that it is my mother, no matter what kind of life experience she has gone through, she always shows people with a smile and brings warmth to the people around her. The delicious dish is "Lotus Blood Duck", which was once my favorite "Lotus Blood Duck", and after my mother left me, I finally failed to taste my mother's taste again.
The time is often dusk, and the sky is full of color; or dark, thin twilight. Father was still toiling in school and in the fields. My brother and I were still on our way home from school. At that time, the most urgent wish was to be able to see the cooking smoke on the roof of our house - it was a sweet and warm incense, that was a warm love; no matter how far away, it could light up our eyes and faces.
When my mother was ready, she waited silently for us to come home in the sunset light, in the few wisps of cooking smoke that drifted away, "watching, watching." ”
"See the cooking smoke rise again..." Every time I heard this song, I felt in a trance that there was a wisp of cooking smoke floating up in front of my eyes, and the light blue and light blue cooking smoke was full of the most ordinary human breath, simple, warm and fragrant, which made people inexplicably moved and sad. In my eyes, I couldn't help but feel a burst of dampness, and I vaguely saw that my old and kind mother was standing at the intersection of my hometown and under the low eaves of the old house, standing in front of the background of wisps of cooking smoke, looking at us from a distance, shouting at us warmly.
That wisp of cooking smoke, I think, should be the beam of my mother's life. And it, I know, is the origin of my life.
(Some of the accompanying pictures are from the network)