Zou Zhaotao
Before and after the Qingming Dynasty, it is the most poetic day of spring. In 1937, an essay in the NewsWeek wrote: "In the spring, it is especially easy to find vegetables. There are green bushes growing on the shore of the field, which are tender and fresh, and can be made into very delicious treasures. It is what the masses like to eat, that is, the 'broccoli, cabbage and marantou' that the masses eat." Indeed, when you taste wild vegetables, you meet spring.
Cen Hengqing's photographic work "Digging Wild Vegetables during the Qingming Dynasty" (partial, 1931 Wenhua Film Festival)
The "Classic Taste" of Spring Wild Vegetables
Cabbage is a "regular" in many regional spring wild vegetable recipes. Although the main market season of cabbage is not limited to spring, many people's spring "ritual sense" is completely inseparable from the blessing of cabbage.
On March 12, 2020, in Hefei, citizens were digging wild cabbage in the spring wilderness. Visual China figure
In 1935, the "Common Sense Pictorial" image described the origin and eating method of chinese cabbage: "This is a wild vegetable, in early spring, tender green and lovely, rural children, pick in groups." Or cook a vegetable rice, or make a soup, delicious and delicious." Of course, the place where cabbage grew a hundred years ago was not limited to the countryside, and the figure of cabbage can also be seen in the corners and corners of the city. For example, a diary in the magazine "Youth Circle" in 1937 tells the protagonist's "urban wild vegetable experience" of taking a ride to Tiananmen Square and Taimiao Temple in the morning to pick wild cabbage, and bringing a large bag of harvest at night to go home and wrap the meat stuffed dumplings with cabbage.
1929 Shanghai Children's World magazine cartoon
The method of eating cabbage is very diverse, but the most essential one is also roasted with chicken and fresh bamboo shoots. In 1911, the magazine "Yu's Aerial Cooking: Professor's Class" introduced the cooking method of the famous spring dish "Stir-fried Chicken Slices with Chinese Cabbage": "Cut the chicken breast into thin slices, mix in a little salt and a tablespoon of wet diamond powder, and burst in a large amount of oil until it is out of life." Scoop up, scoop up the remaining oil in the pot, leave three tablespoons, and blast the sliced winter shoots for a few minutes. Stir-fry the cabbage in a fine layer, sprinkle half a cup of wine, soup or water, add salt and sugar, and cook for a moment. Stir-fry the fried chicken slices, add the remaining tablespoon of wet powder, and fry thoroughly." In 1936, the Southeast Daily also published a recipe for "vegetarian chicken slices", which had a "soul echo" with "stir-fried chicken slices with chinese cabbage": "First cut into domino slices with fresh bamboo shoots and placed in a frying pan." When cooked, put in the tenderloin slices with the thin mustard powder slightly, turn slightly to the side, add a pinch of cabbage, add a little water, cook for about a minute, then its taste is delicious."
In addition to the cabbage, wild vegetables that are especially popular among Jiangnan people in spring include Malantou, of course.
On February 18, 2021, on the vegetable stalls in the Nanjing Tea South Vegetable Market, the wild vegetables "Seven Heads and One Brain" that the people love to eat, such as cabbage, malantou, and artemisia annua, were placed in a conspicuous place in the stalls, and from time to time, citizens bought and tasted them. Visual China figure
The most classic way to eat Marantou is naturally cold mixed with dried incense. However, if it is made into a pickle, it is also very refreshing, and the flavor is not lost when it is fresh. In 1925, the "Family Recipe" edited by Shi Xisheng recorded the processing essentials of "salt malantou": "Malantou is picked and washed, salted evenly, drained every three or five days, put into a bamboo plaque until it is slightly dried, add fennel into the altar, fill the altar, plug its altar mouth with firewood, and then turn the altar over, merge it into the pot, add some water, and then mature." The author also suggests that if someone in the family suddenly has a sore throat, a little "salt marlan head" can be relieved.
Similarly, another famous Gangnam wild vegetable can also be pickled to make a unique delicacy. That is the broccoli, which in some areas has the nickname "grass head". In 1909, the "Business Portrait" cartoon of the Picture Daily praised: "Pickled broccoli tastes good, this thing is from Taicang, not salty, not light, fresh, raw and cooked." So how should broccoli be pickled? In 1929, the Shanghai Women's Magazine published a recipe that revealed the secret: "Use scissors to cut off the most tender fat head of the broccoli, put it in a wooden basin, that is, a foot barrel or the like, add salt and knead it vigorously (about four or two salts per kilogram), and squeeze out all the green juice it contains." Add a little ginger and fill it layer by layer with an altar, with a little more salt in each layer. When it is full, it is covered with straw ash and it takes about fifty days to eat."
Woodcut print "Picking Golden Cauliflower" (Xiu Feng painting, in China Pictorial, 1944)
The broccoli thus pickled is "refreshing and delicious, and has a special flavor, which is more suitable for summer meals." In 1930, the "News" provided a recipe for the pickling of grass heads, which was more particular in the ingredients, suggesting "adding fennel and peppers to the top, wrapped in lotus leaves", and the upside-down basin could be "slightly filled with snow sauce". The author believes that the broccoli pickled according to his method "tastes ten times better than that of the townspeople and the hawkers!" ”
A hundred years ago, Shanghainese had a fondness for spring wild vegetables, shaping a huge seasonal market. In 1932, a report by the Social Bureau of the Shanghai Municipal Government analyzed the price curve of the Shanghai wild vegetable market: "Grass head and cabbage have a seasonal relationship, more than half a year, as little as one or two months." When it was first listed, the so-called 'fresh goods' were particularly expensive. After one or half a month, it often falls again and again."
February 26, 2022, Shanghai, Wine Vanilla Head Visual China Photo
In 1934, jing bao also talked about the huge market potential of the wild vegetable trade in Shanghai in the spring: "In the spring of February and March, it is called the pick-and-vegetable festival. In the past, I sold three small dollars a pound in Sudi, but recently I sold two or three copper rounds and a pound, and in Shanghai I sold twelve or three copper rounds and a pound. If you go to the Erma Road Zhengxing Restaurant to eat, they will have a raw stir-fried grass head, each plate to sell you triangle Xiaoyang, about each plate is only four or two. However, Shanghai's broccoli is planted, not grown everywhere. The firing method of the Zhengxingguan is also good. In short, the broccoli is gradually making good luck."
A touch of nostalgia from my hometown
Wild vegetables with an earthy smell can best evoke the nostalgia of wanderers. In the spring of 1924, Tao Ran, a Zhejiang scholar living in Beijing, accidentally bought cabbage in the Xidan market, which reminded him of his hometown of Zhejiang thousands of miles away. He looked back with emotion on the "wild vegetable life" of the old village: "Cabbage is a wild vegetable often eaten in the spring in eastern Zhejiang, and it is needless to say that in the countryside, it is in the city, as long as there is a backyard garden, people can eat at any time." Women and children each take a pair of scissors, a 'seedling basket', crouch on the ground to search, is a fun game work. At that time, the children sang: 'Lettuce Marantou, sisters marry at the back door'"
Digging wild vegetables in spring is a process of dialogue between rural children and nature, and the local atmosphere nourished by wild vegetables is their unforgettable spiritual wealth for a lifetime. In 1928, a writer published a wild vegetable essay in "The New Woman" recounted his unforgettable trip to "return to childhood" and "find himself": "He dug up some cabbage with three little nieces and bought tofu. The wife fried the tofu slightly in oil and chopped it up to make a flat dish, which was very delicious and had a slightly sweet taste of wild aroma." The novel "Lonely Grave", published in 1934, also vividly described the emotional connection between wild vegetables and rural teenagers: "In the spring, when the hair of cabbage and Malan is long, I often take small baskets and knives with some children to look for them. At that time, he was much more interesting about these things than in the school, than at home, so he was always happy to do them."
In spring, the beautiful scenery of the sun often arouses the singing desire of wild vegetable diggers. In 1935, the famous musician Hu Jingxi composed two children's songs such as "Ma LanTou" and "Pick The Vegetables" and so on.
Famous musician Hu Jingxi composed the children's song "Picking Vegetables" in 1935
The famous musician Hu Jingxi composed the children's song "Ma Lan Tou" in 1935
Among them, "Indium, Indium, Indium, Cut Full pocket, Go Home ... Smack, smack, smack, squeak, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk, The lyrics are catchy, as if leading the singer into a great spring light. In 1937, "Qiaomu" published a folklore article in shanghai's "Hope" magazine, which also recorded the witty and lively wild vegetable proverb: "Playing spring, running barefoot, picking wild vegetables, picking thatch needles", quite a sense of rhythm of "labor trumpet". After returning from picking wild vegetables, "Arbor" wanted to write a ballad with a pen, one of which sang: "Pick wild vegetables!" Voila, spring comes with the first good sun, sitting on the soil you can smell the fragrance, pick wild vegetables yo! In April 1945, an essay in the Gwanghwa Daily recalled the old scene of the author's hometown, and the little tune that the girl hummed when digging wild vegetables still echoed in the author's ear for a long time: "Six or seven-year-old girls will take a small knife to the shore of the field and pick and dig up in the grass." I can't finish eating, I go to the market to shout and sell, and I innocently sing like a mountain song. Ten years ago, a full basket was only a dozen copper dollars. I was in my hometown, and in the morning, I always gave them a group of five or seven, singing and singing, and waking up a good dream. You can change the Tang poem to 'Spring sleep is not aware, everywhere MaLan song'. ”
In the turbulent and special years, some literati who have long been absent from wild vegetables will also lament that the countryside is no longer there. In 1947, the famous botanist Pei Jian wrote an article in the journal "Science World" to teach the plant characteristics and eating methods of chinese cabbage. In the text, Pei Jian sighed in combination with his own experience: "Thinking back to the time of the War of Resistance, I lived in the countryside of Shuzhong, and every spring day, I could not afford to buy vegetables, and I would pick and choose to make vegetables... After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, I returned to Shanghai, and if I wanted to eat cabbage, I had to spend hundreds of yuan a pound to buy it, which was not as tender and fat as the one I picked in the countryside. Now the flames are all over the world, and those who want to go back to the countryside can't either... The countryside is devastated! Every year, the cabbage continues to flourish and grow, waiting for the people of the countryside to return."
Wild vegetables are the closest soul to the earth. Eating wild vegetables in spring is not only fragrant teeth and cheeks, but also looking for distant "roots".
Editor-in-charge: Zhu Zhe
Proofreader: Liu Wei