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Text: Little Lamb
Edited by Little Lamb
Preface
In this land of China, there are not only hundreds of kinds of vegetables and fruits, but also the types of wild vegetables are very dazzling, such as bracken, toon and other wild vegetables are not lost to those normal vegetables.
In the last century, when supplies were scarce and natural disasters were raging, these wild vegetables were people's "life-saving vegetables", filling many people's stomachs and saving their lives at critical times.
Although the standard of living has been greatly improved, there is no need to worry about filling the stomach, but everyone has begun to focus on health, and for a while, these once brilliant wild vegetables have been sought after by people again.
Among them, there is a wild vegetable that likes to appear in large quantities after thunderstorms, its nutritional value is already comparable to ginseng, and the price can be sold for 100 yuan a pound after drying, which is very precious, but people have expressed their unacceptability after hearing its name.
So, what exactly is it sacred, why does it appear in large numbers after thunderstorms, and what are its nutritional values and uses?
Strange name
The name of this wild vegetable is "Lei Gong", yes, it is the same as everyone imagines in their minds, because it appears after a thunderstorm, and it looks like "" and gets its name, and many people will feel very annoyed when they hear such a name.
In fact, it also has other nice names, such as "ground vegetables", "ground fungus", "snot meat", etc., and each region has its own name, and the scientific name is "Candida algae".
Even though its name is a bit strange, as long as you have taken a brave step and tasted it, most people will be impressed by its deliciousness, calling it "the delicacy given by Lei Gong to the peasants", and it has been recorded thousands of years ago in Chinese history.
According to the "Book of Jin" compiled by Fang Xuanling and others, it can be known that there was a Jin Dynasty scholar Ge Hong who did not seek fame and fortune and was not afraid of power, and when he lived in seclusion in the "southern soil", he had eaten Candida because he had no food to eat, and at the same time gave Candida a good evaluation, and the Candida here is what we call "Lei Gong" in this article.
In addition, in the medical masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica", the medicinal value of Candida algae is also clearly recorded, and it can be seen that since the Jin Dynasty, people have regarded Lei Gong feces as a delicacy.
In modern times, when many people first hear this name, they will think of another food with a strange name - cat poop coffee.
The name goes after the coffee, which is made by an Indonesian cat called the civet, who like to feed on the ripe fruits of the coffee tree.
However, since it does not have the ability to digest coffee beans, these coffee beans will be fermented in the gastrointestinal tract and then excreted by the civet intact.
It is such a process that happens to make the coffee beans change in flavor, and the taste is more mellow and mellow than other coffee beans that have not passed through the cat's digestive system.
In addition, the coffee beans selected by the civet cat are of high quality, which makes the taste of cat poop coffee unique.
Compared with cat poop coffee, Lei Gong poop is more normal, and its growth process and environment are not as "outrageous" as cat poop coffee.
The requirements of Lei Gong on the growth environment
In order to avoid subconsciously wearing colored glasses about this plant, let's first call it the most people use it - ground vegetables.
It grows mainly on hills, meadows, gravel, ridges, and embankments near rivers, and a common feature of these areas is that they are humid enough.
Not only that, but after a thunderstorm, local vegetables in these areas will spring up like mushrooms after a rain.
The plant is sticky and wet on the outside, and most of the plants are dark green in color, covering the ground in patches, and after a period of change, they will also turn grayish-black.
This appearance is very similar to the fungus, which is also the origin of its name "ground fungus".
Not only that, the ground vegetables also have a strong ability to resist drought and cold, not only can adapt to the temperature of minus twenty or thirty degrees Celsius, but also can grow in the environment of twenty or thirty degrees Celsius.
Even if it is so dry that it will crumble when you rub it with your hands, as long as you let it encounter water again, it will rejuvenate again in a short time, and after mastering these characteristics of the ground vegetables, people can pick them well.
Before picking, you don't need to take any tools, just a plastic bag, of course, there are some "delicate" people will bring a pot, so that you can protect the picked vegetables and avoid the destruction of the complete structure of the vegetables.
After picking home, it needs to be carefully cleaned to remove some sediment and dust from the ground vegetables, and it takes at least four or five times to clean up.
Even if there is no sediment, it needs to be carefully cleaned, because some of the ground vegetables grow in a miserable environment, even next to cow dung.
In the early years, as long as you want to pick, you can easily find a big bag, but with the vigorous development of human industry and agriculture, a large number of pesticide residues and environmental pollution have affected the growth environment of ground vegetables, resulting in a great reduction in their number.
The wild land where the ground vegetables used to grow has also been developed by people, and cash crops have been planted, which has reduced the growth area of the ground vegetables.
Because although it has a strong ability to adapt to temperature, the requirements for the environment are still very high, and the scarcity is expensive, which has led to the price of local vegetables in the market soaring to about 40 yuan a catty, and the price of dried products has broken through the 100 yuan mark.
However, the reason for the increase in the price of ground vegetables is not only the scarcity, but also the wide range of uses and rich nutrients.
The valuable "Lei Gong"
The first is its role on people's tables, whether it is used for stir-frying or boiling, or as a filling, the texture and taste of the local vegetables will bring people an unprecedented experience.
For example, people in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningbo like to make dumplings or buns to eat, Sichuan likes to make it into chili fried vegetables, and people in Northeast China also like to use it to stew soup to increase the nutritional value of the soup.
If you can't finish a meal, you can also dry it and store it, and when you eat it, it will change to its original appearance just like soaking dried kelp, which is very convenient to eat.
At the beginning, people were only impressed by its unique taste, but with the discovery of the nutritional value of the vegetables themselves, the craze for people to eat them has reached its peak again.
In the ground vegetables, there are a lot of protein, vitamins and phosphorus, zinc, calcium and other nutrients, among which it is worth mentioning that the calcium content in the ground vegetables has exceeded the same quality of milk.
It is a very suitable vegetable for children, middle-aged people and the elderly, and its overall nutritional value is comparable to that of ginseng.
Not only that, although the nutritional value of the ground vegetables is high, but its fat content is very low, which is very suitable for some people who pay attention to health, and there will be no psychological burden to eat.
The second is that it can treat a variety of diseases of medicinal value, whether from people's experience, or from the record of the "Compendium of Materia Medica", the ground vegetables have the effect of lowering lipids and brightening the eyes, clearing heat and reducing fire.
Not only that, the ground vegetables also help to improve their own immunity, and also have a certain alleviating effect on wound ulceration and other phenomena, so how can wild vegetables coexist with medicine and food not arouse people's love?
However, everything has a scale, although the ground vegetables are good, there are also certain precautions in the process of eating.
Because the ground cabbage grows in a humid environment for a long time, this leads to the coldness of the ground cabbage, such food is not edible for some women with digestive diseases, spleen and stomach deficiency, and menstruation, so as not to cause damage to our body.
Under the increasingly severe environmental situation, not only the ground vegetables are facing a crisis of survival, but also other wild vegetables.
For example, wild celery, also called water celery in some areas, has the effect of treating the early stage of measles, high blood pressure, insomnia, etc., and can also be used to stir-fry vegetables, but it is such a wild vegetable, but with the development of society, it gradually fades out of people's field of vision.
There is also dog liver vegetables, some rural areas call it nine lion grass, mainly distributed in the southern region, has the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, shengjin diuretic, but it still can't escape the fate of gradually decreasing.
epilogue
As a wild vegetable that has existed for thousands of years, the existence of ground vegetables is not only the value of medicine and edible, it is the precious wealth left to us by our predecessors, and it is also a valuable experience in the growth process of generation after generation.
It is hoped that in the future, as people's awareness of environmental protection gradually increases, they can establish a sense of protection for wild vegetables that are gradually decreasing, such as ground vegetables.
Let's work together to create a good living environment for wild vegetables, leaving a more complete ecosystem and more types of vegetables for our future.