The taste of the meat
Author: Li Jun
TV series "Iron Age" depicts the work and life of Iron and Steel workers in Anshan in the fifties and sixties, episode 29 tells the most bitter day of three years in 1958, the heroine Mai Xiang put a piece of meat into the mouth of her husband Yang Shoushan, such a plot is really touching, acting very real, people who see this scene will not help but cry, as long as people who have experienced the hard days have the same feeling and resonance, will recall the poverty and sadness that they have experienced in those years and are worth remembering.
I remember that in the fifties and sixties, there was an extreme shortage of living materials, and the supply of materials had to have indicators and plans, food stamps for eating, cloth tickets for dressing, meat tickets for eating meat, oil tickets for eating oil, sugar tickets for wanting to eat some sugar, coal tickets for burning fires, popsicle tickets, tofu tickets, bath tickets, and so on. These tickets are all determined according to the population of the family, our family of seven, five brothers and sisters, I am the second oldest in the family, the top is three daughters, the bottom is two sons. In that era, rice was rare to eat, each meal of rice was added to the sweet potato shreds, most of the rice was early rice, early rice was hard and dry, each meal parents divided the rice into seven parts, parents always gave the sweet potato shreds on the top to themselves, the rice below to the children, sometimes they really couldn't eat it, they added some boiling water to swallow the rice, occasionally after the mother agreed to add a small spoon of sugar to mix the rice to eat, that is a reward for the parents to the children, after eating, they will also lick the sweetness at the bottom of the bowl with their tongues. After eating, our brothers and sisters all laughed and giggled and lifted the bowl up, laughing and saying, see whose bowl is licked the cleanest, today's bowl does not need to be washed.
My brothers were still young parents always called me as a boy, when our family according to the indicators, there were only two pounds of meat a month, then there were only a few times a month of meat supply, one morning my father asked me to go to the supply office to queue up to buy meat, a meter high cement railing, my small head, only showing a small upper body, holding a meat ticket in my hand, I held the meat ticket high and shouted, "Uncle is coming to me, uncle is coming to me." "The adults' bodies have long buried me in the crowd, the meat sellers can hardly see me, and the people in the meat sales room, three layers inside and three layers outside, squeeze me out of breath, sweat, and bones are scattered." Some people, in order to please the butcher who chopped meat, called the butcher in his thirties Daddy. It was my turn, finally saw the meat, saw the white and fat meat, the white lard glowed with a shiny luster, the red fresh meat was delicious, the saliva in the mouth could not help but flow down, kept swallowing saliva, bought a pound of meat, the butcher used a few grass ropes to tie the meat to me, ah ah bought meat today, did not waste my hard work, quickly went home, all the way to laughter, the family can improve the next meal beautifully.
After school came home downstairs smelled the smell of radish, I took three steps and two steps to rush up to the third floor, my mother was cooking meat by the coal stove, radish boiled meat, opened the lid of the pot fresh red meat and white radish in the aluminum alloy pot tumbling, the smell of meat coming from the nose, really love people yo, I have already salivated, busy with chopsticks in the pot to clip a piece of meat to the mouth, "delicious ghost, the meat is not cooked yet." Mom yelled at the side. After eating, the mother brought the meat to the table, and the room was suddenly filled with a surprising aroma of hot steaming, clear and fragrant, mellow, fragrant dissolved into people's blood, giving people a sense of desire and satisfaction, it can stimulate a force in the human body. The mother first gave the two younger brothers, one of them sandwiched a larger piece, said, "The sisters should love the younger brothers, and the big one should love the small, which is called respecting the old and loving the young." "Then give our three sisters a piece, the lean meat to the children, mom and dad eat the remaining two small pieces of fat meat." After the meat is eaten, the taste of the meat can arouse people's appetite, and you can eat a large bowl of rice in the broth without vegetables. Putting down the bowl mouth is still in the bar, the smell of meat is still savoring. The smell is still in the palm of your fingers, full of temptation, comforting the hard-working soul, yearning for a good life of eating meat every day. Sometimes the eldest brother still has a piece of meat, and he picks up the meat to show off in front of us, "Hey hey owe you guys, I still have meat to eat." The little brother said, "Daddy, when will we still be able to eat meat?" "Play while you play, it won't be available next month." My little brother was only four years old, and he didn't know how long next month would be, so he asked me, "Sister, how long is next month?" I said, "If you go to bed and wake up every day, it will take more than twenty days." "In the middle of the night I heard my eldest brother grinding his teeth and his mouth rattling like he was eating. The whole house also has the aroma of meat.
Once, my mother made a plate of chili fried meat, just on the table, the naughty big brother saw that his parents were not around, put the pepper fried meat in his bowl and spit a few mouthfuls of phlegm, the little brother immediately complained to his mother, and his father beat the big brother to remember that selfishness was not allowed in the future. Dad occasionally had a small plate of oil residue in the canteen for our brothers and sisters to relieve their hunger, and slowly chewed the oil residue with a strong greasy smell in his mouth, fragrant, fragrant on his teeth and cheeks, fragrant as if his body was covered with that crisp fragrance, refreshing and endless aftertaste.
My parents worked at the Taolin Lead and Zinc Mine, my father was a worker in geological surveys, and my mother was a teacher at the Second School for Children of Peach Mine. In that era, the workers who worked in the unit could not raise pigs, chickens and ducks at home, and one year the father got a chicken from the home of relatives in the countryside, in addition to the sister, each of our four brothers and sisters ate a chicken leg, the chicken head belonged to the father, the mother ate the chicken offal, the sister ate chicken wings, the chicken soup floated on top of a thick layer of yellow chicken fat, the taste of the chicken soup is more delicious than the fresh pork soup, this is the most beautiful delicacy I grew up to eat, I think the chicken has four legs like a pig, I didn't know until I was ten years old that a chicken had only two legs. It turned out that the father did not want his daughter to think that the parents were partial to his son, and chopped the meat next to the two chicken wings into two chicken legs. It was also many years later that I read an article and learned that Dad did not like to eat chicken heads, but that he kept the best food for his children.
Mother Chinese New Year's Eve told our children a New Year's story, there was a teaching gentleman passed by a withered peach tree, in the distance saw a middle-aged woman with tattered clothes under the peach tree was using a rope to tie her neck ready to hang herself, Mr. rushed to the rescue, asked to know that tomorrow is going to be the New Year, the woman's family does not have a grain of rice under the pot, several children have not eaten for a few days, Mr. busy took out the only two pieces of ocean in his pocket and gave them to the woman, asking her to live strongly, encouraging her to come in the end of a good day. The woman knelt down and thanked Mr. Over for coming home. In order to thank Mr. Wang for saving his life, the woman Chinese New Year's Eve night, just walked to the door of Mr. Wang's house only to hear Mr. and his family eating New Year's dinner, "This thing is really delicious, Madam you come to a piece, son you also come to a piece." The wife and son ate with relish, "Husband, you also come to a piece." The gentleman smiled and said, "It is delicious, really fragrant, so fragrant, fragrant like meat." "When the woman heard that the husband's family was eating the right dinner every year, she thought that their family might be eating meat, pushed the door in, and when she saw it, she realized that the husband's family was eating sweet potatoes, and the woman burst into tears. It turned out that the husband gave all the money to the woman, and the family could not afford to buy meat for the New Year, so they ate sweet potatoes as meat. I often think of my mother teaching us to be kind and helpful.
Now the material is rich, the living conditions have been greatly improved, the meat has been served on the table of every household every day, the delicious food on the table in the poor days, now it may be just a side dish, we have long been not rare meat taste, no longer desire that taste, but inadvertently the past will come to our side, some stories in the heart, the past days, the past years, the simple, simple, innocent, Some precious things in the exciting difficult times have been hidden deep in the heart, and the precious experiences that fate has given us often remind us at some point, evoking certain precious feelings in our hearts, we will keep it in our hearts forever, warm our lives, and remember them in our hearts.
About the Author
Li Jun, a retired employee of Hunan Petrochemical Vocational College, loves life, literature and badminton.
Image: Network