#Childhood Food in Memory #It was a time of hunger! Luckily, there are delicious and hungry wild fruits all over the mountains.
1. Yew
There are two yew trees at the entrance of the village where they were born, one is a few small yew trees under the ancestral hall on the left side of the village (2019.10.13 back, these trees have grown into towering trees, but there are no fruit), the annual fruit is small; the other is two trees on the left half of the hillside of the village, the trees are more than thirty years old, and they are full of red and colorful fruits every autumn, which is the children's tongue kingdom (in 2019, I can't find these two trees, no more). The flesh is sweet, somewhat sticky, and wrapped in a small brown oval nucleus.
Later, it was found that on a hillside passing through the school, there were two yew trees with a long age. In addition, in the center of the ancestral hall of Grandma's village, there are two old yew trees. Unfortunately, Grandma is no longer there, and there are no people in these two villages. A few years ago, a person in the village was sentenced to prison for peeling the bark of yew trees, and I don't know if these trees were peeled or if they are now safe!
Yew
2. Citrus aurantium
Also known as marigold fruit, jujube. There is a tree on the left side of the village, which is about 50 years old at that time (I heard my father say that my grandfather liked to squat on this tree in his later years and scold the people who came in and out of the village). When the fruit is not yet ripe, it is very astringent. When the ripening period comes, it will fall under the tree with small branches. At this time, there is often a group of children who are pulling around in the grass under the trees, looking for fallen fruits. Occasionally, adults will pick up a few branches, stuff them in their mouths, or take them home to their children (in 2019, the tree is still alive and bears a lot of fruit).
Citrus aurantium
3. Bayberry
There are two arbutus trees in the back mountain, a white plum and a red plum. The trunks are close together, the canopy is intertwined in the air, and climbing one tree can slip from the branches to another. Every year in May and June, the bayberry ripens, and these two arbutus trees become a frequent place for children to visit. Climb up the tree, pick the ripe just right to eat, eat until the tooth is sour, go down the tree home, and by the way, use a long thin bamboo pole with the bark glue of the neem stick to the tree, bring it back to the fire and roast it.
In the process of labor, I learned that arbutus trees can be found everywhere in the mountains. In my memory, there is a tree that is often associated with childhood nightmares. In the dream, it was often standing under the arbutus tree (I remember it now, that place was called Thalipu Carbon (Hakka dialect, which should mean birds hatching eggs)), looking for dead branches to tie home as firewood, and when I looked at the distant hillside, there was always a white-bearded grandfather who was humming and humming upwards, and suddenly disappeared, and suddenly emerged from the valley on the right side. Whenever this happened, she nervously shouted at her mother, but the mother who was collecting firewood together was either at the bottom of the deep valley or did not respond to how to call. Just at this moment, two green bamboo snakes sneaked down from the arbutus tree next to it, spitting out letters. He was frightened and woke up.
White plum and red plum
4. Wild loquat
Wild loquat is very sweet, peeled, put in the mouth, gently bite, fragrant, sweet. But the memory of it is always accompanied by fear. I remember two wild loquat trees, one on the way to school and one in a mountain nest at a fork in the road. The one on the way to school, on the steep slope down the road, is tall, fruity and delicious. Turning a corner about 100 meters apart, the bottom of the road is a deep water stream, and there are often "ghost fires" in the dense forest on the upper slopes. For children under the age of ten, it is a place where they do not want to stay for a moment. With deliciousness on one side and horror on the other, children seek a balance between the pleasure of the tongue and the fear of the heart. The one at the fork in the road is often surrounded by imaginary savages coming down the mountain, ghosts sneaking out of the road ahead on the right, and wild animals climbing up from the valley coldly. Therefore, although wild loquat is sweet, the memory is not too good.
Wild loquat
5. Mountain lychee
"Three hundred litchi in a day, not to quit being a Lingnanian." Wild lychees are very different from artificially grown lychees. Wild lychees undergo a ripening process of cyan, yellow orange, flesh red to vermilion, its skin is rough, covered with small nests, and the flesh inside is fleshy red, wrapped in about ten hard cores. The delicious flesh of the ripe lychee is not only a favorite of adults and children, but also a favorite of birds of all sizes. There seems to be one tree in the back mountain, and there are probably many in the mountain, but the exact location has no memory, which is very strange! (2019 back, see the mountain lychee on the way to school, the fruit is hanging on the branches, the skin has shown the color in the picture on the right, but because of the hurry, so did not pick, it is a pity)
Mountain lychee
6. Goat tits
In front of the right side of the wall in front of the old house, two sheep's tits appeared at some point (I didn't know what it was at the time, but many years later, I accidentally learned that it was called goat's milk), which grew extremely fast, long climbing vines, and hung down to the back gable of the neighbor's house. The fruit is initially green, then green, pink, rose, vermilion, and when ripe, the epidermis is reddish-black and frosted, and when you bite, it is sweet and sour.
Goat tits
7. Wild cherries
I first learned about cherries no sooner than college, but as early as the age of seven or eight, I had already enjoyed its delicacies in the mountains, and I didn't know if it was a wild cherry at the time. Its fruit is about smaller than a peanut kernel, and the fruit is clustered, undergoing a ripening process of green, yellow, pink, and crimson. At that time, there were not many wild cherries in the mountains, and they were occasionally encountered when entering the mountains to collect firewood, cut down trees or harvest rosin. For the delicious, when you meet it, you must have a full meal, and the memory is to eat it one by one, as if it is skewering, and like an old cow picking up the grass!
Wild cherries
8. Tea brewing, tea ears
Before and after the Qing Dynasty, a variant of the fruit or new leaves of the camellia oleifera tree. Tea bubbles are variants of camellia oleifera (tea oil that can be squeezed), shaped like irregular peaches, white in color, some reddish, hollow, thick flesh, sweet, crunchy, and refreshing. Tea ear is a variant of the oil tea leaf, which is slightly red when thin and white when thick. Thin slightly astringent, thick and sweet. There are many camellia oleifera trees around the village, which generally have more or less tea ears, but tea bubbles are not common. Occasionally I saw a white fat white tea bubble hidden in the green leaf bush, and I was very happy. Look at no one around, quickly find a hooked branch to hook it down (tea trees are generally thin and tall, can not climb). Pick it up in your hand, put it in your mouth, take a sip gently, taste it; take another bite, chew it; take the last bite, click it and swallow it into your stomach.
Tea brewing and tea ears
9. Black rice
When I was a child, the wild fruit I ate the most was probably black rice. From the age of 7 to the first year of high school, when I was not in school, I always had to collect firewood, in addition to hard firewood such as branches, trunks, bamboo (fire-resistant firewood), but also cut a kind of firewood for ignition (the shape is a bit like bracken, Hakka called black chicken (scientific name to be checked)). The black rice tree (which is actually a relatively small and sparse shrub) tends to grow in these black chicken bushes. Therefore, in the season when the black rice is ripe, when cutting the black chicken, from time to time there will be two black rice trees hanging green, red, or black. At this time, stop the machete, take down the black rice fruit and start to stroke (yes, it is to use your mouth, because the black rice is in clusters. The black is ripe, the green is immature, the red is semi-mature), and the mouth is full of black. I hit a load of firewood and filled a belly circle.
Sometimes, a swarm of wasps flew out of the cutting, threw the knife, and people jumped and ran away in a panic. However, do not run far, wrestle a pine branch, waving around to drive away the wasps, after driving the wasps away, often in the black chicken or black rice tree can find a small honeycomb, hungry years, everything can be imported, the young pony bees still in the hive are one by one to be picked out and sent into the stomach. Of course, to eat the next generation of people, it is also common to be stung by horse bees.
Black rice and wasp
10. Thornberry
The Hakka dialect is called "Paoli". Baidu Baixue is called raspberry, and there are many aliases: hanging hook, raspberry, tree plum, raspberry, wildberry, raspberry, azadha. It can be found everywhere in the fields of the village, from cyan to yellow orange to red. In March and April, it has become a good thing for children to eat. Children often treat their thirsty mouths and hungry stomachs in the process of beating pig grass and cutting cattle grass (tender large-leaved miscanthus). Years later, when I think of the sweetness of the thornberry, I always feel that my hand is bloodied by the serrated teeth of the big leaf miscanthus, which makes people unconsciously clench their fists.
Leaving home, many wild fruits have never been eaten again. Only thornberries have been seen and tasted in the Mulan Rose Garden and Mulan Tianchi.
Bubbles
11. Be a barnyard
Hakka is called dang mud, dang barley. The scientific name is "Myrtle Lady", aliases: Donny, Gangjing, Shanjing, Dorian, Dang pear root, Barley Tree, Bean Barley, Zhongni, Wu Belly, Peach Uncle Niang, Dang Mud. This wild fruit was known in the fifth and sixth grades of the outer village (because the village is only in the first to fourth grades). Every Friday afternoon, children who had been boarding for a week were released from school early. On the slopes of September, there are ripe danglings everywhere, and the children climb the hillside on the side of the road, look for ripe dang mud in the bushes, pick a handful and send it to their mouths, and when they are full, they also pick some and put them in their school bags and bring them back to their sisters and brothers to eat. After eating it several times, I learned that this fruit can not be eaten more, and it is easy to be constipated when eating too much.
When the barnyard
12. Tang pears
Nicknames: sugar pear, bird pear, pear, small astringent pear. It can be seen everywhere in the mountains, and the yield is large, which can be eaten raw or cooked, and the raw food that is not cooked will have an astringent taste, so it is better to cook it. When I was a child, I didn't like to eat much, so I wasn't impressed.
Don Pear
13. Black bar pickpocket
The Hakka call it "cow egg" because it looks like the testicles of a bull; it is also called a rattan bun, which is a causal seed knotted on a vine. Commonly known as Wulan Grill, the scientific name is Five Leaf Wood Pass. The fruit is oval or kidney-shaped, with a delicate flesh and many seeds. A bit like The August Fried. Wood is wrapped around vines, often wrapped around the canopy of miscellaneous trees and shrubs, and is commonly found along ravines and streams.
Cowha egg
14. Sarsaparilla (ba qia)
The leaves are thin leathery or papery, round, ovate or otherwise shaped, and are usually pale green and less pale underneath. The berries are red when ripe and have a powdery cream. The flowering period is from February to May, and the fruit period is from September to November. Eat after peeling and chewy. It was a small snack when I was a child.
Sarsaparilla
15. Knotweed (acid barrel)
After looking for a long time, I learned that it was called knotweed, and the Hakka called "acid barrel pole". It generally prefers to grow in cool environments, next to common valleys and rivers, and its shape is very similar to bamboo, section by section, with spots on the epidermis. The rhizome is thick and erect, up to 2 meters high, hollow. In March and April, when the buds first grow, the children twist its stems, peel off the outer skin, and eat white stalks, juicy and sweet. The thicker the rod, the better its taste.
Acid barrel rod
16. Sour tung seeds
Sour tung seeds, also known as sour copper, sour tubes, bamboo slugs, bamboo oranges. The fruit ranges from cyan to yellowish in the skin and has a sour taste. The leaves are thick, a bit like rubber leaves, the young buds are edible, and the taste is like fungus. I only remember that there were three trees in my hometown, growing on a steep stone wall next to a deep water pool (known as coffin pond), and a few arbutus trees next to it. Therefore, even if there is a gloomy coffin pond, the children will still climb up the stone wall with their hands and feet, and they can find the yellowing fruit, which is very blessed. Peeled, the flesh seeps out of the white sticky gelatinous, sticky hands will turn yellow, not easy to clean. The flesh of the fruit is put into the mouth, and the sourness is exciting, and then the sour and sweet feeling of fullness overflows the mouth, making people addicted. If there is no yellow fruit, sometimes you can't help but pick green fruits, or goose yellow buds, and put them in your mouth to stimulate the numb taste buds, just like modern people eat lemons.
Sour tung seeds
16. Schisandra
Schisandra, (Xuanhe, Huihe, Wumei) are divided into Northern Schisandra and Southern Schisandra, and Northern Schisandra is better than Southern Schisandra. The Hakka dialect is called "cow egg lump". He often grows up with Uba. When eating, eat them one by one, a bit like eating pomegranate seeds.
Schizandra
17. Hazelnuts
The Hakka dialect is called Yuanzi. Hazelnut trees and hooked round trees generally grow in the mountain jungle, and the hook round trees are very tall. This tree is also a host for the growth of wild mushrooms and fungus, and on the dry and damp trunk, you can often see bushes of mushrooms or fungus, and it is rare to pick them back to stew soup and stew meat. After September to October every year, hazelnuts and hook rounds mature successively, the shell cracks, and the internal nuts fall off. People often call on friends and go up the mountain in groups of three or five to pick them up. If you go late, most of them will be eaten clean by squirrels, pheasants, wild beasts, etc. Round nuts can be eaten raw or cooked.
Round
18. Wild Kiwi (Vine Pear)
The Hakka word "vine pear", the fruit of a vine plant, grows on a vine, the berries are ovate or oblong, with dense brown fur on the outside. There are a few vine pears on the slopes of Xiaotan Mountain, where the water is taken from birth, because it is right next to the house, you can always go to see if it is ripe, and when the skin of the fruit is yellow-brown, you can pick it. Naturally ripe vine pears, the middle part is also ripe and soft, and it is sweet and delicious to eat. The deepest impression is that because the vine crawls too far, the little child will drill under the vine, use a Y-shaped branch to prop up the vine, and the person will sit under the supported vine and eat as he pleases. Sometimes, the mother shouted at home to let her go to do some work, but the happy child Quan Dang did not hear (2019.10.13 back to his hometown, in keeping up (place name, Hakka dialect), saw a kiwi fruit, vines wrapped around a small tree, hung full of fruit, dragged two down, not ripe, too hard, left for it to slowly ripen).
Fujinashi
19. Akane
Hakka dialect "miscess". The fruit is twice as large as the rice seed, but the plant is taller than the rice seed. When going up the mountain to collect firewood, harvest pine oil, and cut down trees, you can often encounter them, and they are more common fruit trees. When searching Baidu, I was surprised to find that it has become a pursuit of many bonsai lovers. I don't know if the Akanna in my hometown has been dug up!
Rice plugs
Once, these wild fruits soothed my hungry childhood! Now, it is no longer difficult to go back, and it is no longer difficult to find!
Can't go back...
Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from the Internet.