11 High-end ingredients, gray face
I am a farmer's child, I have been away from my homeland for many years, but I have always had a soft spot for potatoes.
Except for Zhaolu Bazi, my hometown is a mountainous area in the second half of the mountain and the alpine mountains, which are good places to produce high-quality potatoes.
The two semi-mountainous areas mainly produce potatoes
In early spring and February, the chill is not over, and spring plowing begins. Every household is busy leveling the ground, transporting fertilizer and growing potatoes.
In the spring of March, the chill receded, and after several crisp spring rains, in the spring light of red flowers, willows and green, warblers and swallows, the potatoes buried in the soil could not wait to break out of the soil. In the sun, in the spring breeze and drizzle, it continues to grow, dyeing the desolate brownish yellow fields green.
In June, the potatoes ripen and the turquoise foliage withers away day by day, giving way to the sun and rain to the booming corn around them. June is the season when the countryside is not connected. If last year was a famine year, the potato would become a life-saving food for the people of the hometown. At this time, it can help people survive the famine, and it is entirely reasonable to say that it is not exchanged for charcoal in the snow.
Harvest potatoes
The potato is buried deep in the ground, and unlike peaches and pomegranates, it hangs bright red and seductive fruits on the branches, making people admire it from a distance and must be dug out to know. In the middle of summer, farmers brave the scorching sun, swinging their hoes to carefully dig potatoes out of the soil, and the tender yellow potatoes are like mud dolls that have just woken up, laughing and jumping out of the soil. The farmers laughed and picked them up in baskets, either to pick them home or to pull them home in an ox cart. At this time, the countryside became a potato world, in the field, lying potatoes to be picked; roadside ox carts, loaded with potatoes to be transported; in the small courtyards of farmhouses, piled up with small mountains of potatoes; on rural roads, large trucks full of potatoes drove to Kunming or Sichuan.
The potatoes in my hometown are not good-looking on the outside, full of dirt and uneven. But it is loved by people because of its cheap price, good taste, convenient consumption, and variety of eating methods. Hometown people have eaten potatoes for generations, and year after year, they have formed a unique potato food culture in their hometown. Potatoes can be roasted, boiled, fried, grilled, or cold. Rural and urban eating methods have their own characteristics. Rural people eat rough and affordable, primitive and simple, can be styled three meals a day staple food; urban people eat elegant and exquisite, creative, mostly made into flavor dishes.
In the potato harvest season, the farmers come out early and return late, there is no time to cook, most of them wash a basket of potatoes, scrape off the skin, pour the white raw potatoes into the pot and cook, put them in the basket, look at the steaming cooked potatoes, smell the ethereal fragrance, plus the green peppers mixed with Zhaotong sauce, you can also eat a full meal for breakfast and dinner. Young people like to eat freshly cooked potatoes, take a bite, sweet with fragrance, sticky with crisp and tender. Toothless grandfathers and grandmothers like to eat potatoes that are simmered with a low flame and dried on the surface, put in their mouths, and the noodles are fragrant, and the two cheeks are closed, and they are immediately crispy as mud. The dish of "old milk potato" may originate from this.
Whenever I see a lignite fire rising in the street, shaking a blower, buying a potato to make a living, looking at the yellow in the fire, the fragrant roast potatoes and the diners walking around the street eating potatoes with relish, I think of my childhood life.
When I was a child, I used to herd cattle for my father during the summer holidays. In the morning, I got up, picked up a mesh bag of potatoes on my back, met a few friends, and drove the cattle up the mountain. The first thing is to collect firewood, raise the fire, and burn potatoes. Put the potatoes under the firewood, light the fire, and after a puff of smoke, turn the potatoes over, and in a few moments, the potatoes are ripe. At the beginning, everyone was scrambling for me, afraid that others would eat more, their stomachs were full, and there were many places next to the fire, so they gently scraped off the skin outside and put them on the edge of the fire. The friends were tired of playing in the mountains, occasionally eating another one, and when the sun set and the shepherd boy returned late, the remaining potatoes were all swept away.
"Eat flat in the morning, eat gray face at night", we rural people use this sentence to play riddle guesses. Today, with the development of the economy of the hometown and the improvement of people's living standards, the potato, which has always been rustic, has become changing with each passing day with the wisdom of the hometown people, shining on various occasions, and has carried out the so-called large-scale development around the potato. To this end, the "China Potato Conference" was also arranged to be held in Zhaotong.
2018 Zhaotong "China Potato Conference"
"Eat potatoes, eldest children" is the mantra of hometown people to promote potatoes. On the table, there are many dishes made from potatoes. The light and refreshing potato sauerkraut soup greatly increased the appetite of the greasy and anorexic Daguan rich people. The spicy crispy fried potato strips will make you feel endless. Green and white green pepper potato shreds will make you salivate. Copper pot potato ham stuffy rice smelly. Potato yellow stewed chicken makes you nostalgic for going back and forth...
Copper pot potato ham stuffy rice
With the development of science and technology, the fine processing of potatoes has sprung up, and the exquisitely packaged "Pu Mi La" brand potato chips have been exported to other places, knocking down the popular Western Fries. Potato extract powder has become the best natural green health tonic... Potato food has also entered the modern supermarket of Fulitanghuang, comparing it with various famous products. The ugly duckling of the past has finally become a beloved white swan today.
Spicy potato chips
Authentic Zhaotong people, do not eat potatoes for three days, sleep is not good. It can be seen that the Zhaotong people have a deep affection for potatoes.