The current year is boring, and people are beginning to miss the old year. It is in response to the sentence that only when you lose do you know how to cherish it. What do you miss? The enthusiasm among people, the hope for food and clothing, and the great joy that comes from it.
The Xi of the New Year varies from place to place, but the tradition of New Year's greetings is the same everywhere. In my hometown, after the fireworks and bonfires on the morning of the first day of the new year, we went back to the house to wash our faces and change into new clothes, and the children and young people who had not yet started a family went out to pay New Year's greetings. They were very happy to greet the New Year, said hello and bowed, symbolically ate some peanuts and melon seeds on the kang head, and immediately quit and went to the next family as soon as the New Year's money was put into their pockets.
After all the children are gone, the juniors who have become a family are going to pay New Year's greetings to their elders. They pay New Year's greetings to relatives who are distant and close, go to distant relatives first, stand and leave, and then to close relatives, and have to sit down and have a drink. This meal, which looks hasty, is actually the most attractive. Without it, there are many people and it is lively.
The morning wine on the first day of junior high school is also called welcome wine, I wonder if it is unique to my hometown. This wine must be a good wine, and the appetizer must also be a hard dish, and it is a long-standing rule to leave the best for the guests. There are three kinds of sumptuous appetizers, and almost every family has to prepare them, so listen to my table.
1. Lamb head meat
Eat pig's head meat on the Chinese New Year's Eve, and prepare lamb's head meat for guests on the first day of the new year. One is a good appetite for family reunions, and the other is a good taste for family and friends.
The sheep has a small head and little meat, but it is the most fragrant when cooked. Before entering the pot, the wool is burned clean with an iron hook on the stove, and the surface of the sheep's head is slightly yellowish and occasionally burnt. Wash with water, put it in a large pot and put the seasoning, the people in the village have little seasoning, what to put in it, except for peppercorns.
Bring the fire to a boil, simmer for a few hours on low heat, take out the sheep's head when it is about to be deboned, drain the soup and let it cool, so that the meat is firm again. Put it on the morning of the first day of the new year to heat it up, knock open the sheep's head, and mix the sheep's brain with garlic juice, which is called sheep's head mixed with garlic.
It looks like the lamb's head meat is all there, and the chopsticks come down as soon as you eat it. The usual lamb head meat is not so rotten, you need to use a knife to cut and eat, and on the first day of the new year, there is no ironware, so I have to use chopsticks instead.
The morning wine on the first day of the new year, the lamb head meat is the most popular, the faint burnt aroma melts the fire, the thick meat aroma is mixed with all kinds of condiments, but it does not suppress the original mutton flavor, a mouthful of meat and a mouthful of wine, the first day of the year is so bold.
2. Cold cuts of sauce meat
When I was a child, rural people rarely ate large livestock meat such as beef and donkey meat, because they were thrifty and reluctant, and second, they had the ancient Xi of not eating contributed livestock. At the end of the year, this rule was broken, and in the words of the old man, life was good, and it didn't matter. I was shocked when I thought that the villagers were kind-hearted and couldn't bear to eat cows, horses, donkeys and mules.
The cold cuts of sauce meat are mostly beef, and there are other meats in between. At that time, there was a saying in the countryside about the best meat: mule meat, donkey fragrant, beef head meat, horse sausage. There is a ranking in order.
The villagers who are in a tight situation, even though they have slaughtered pigs and sheep at home, have to search and buy some beef, for the sake of this meal on the morning of the first day of the new year. Poor people who have nothing, it is better to save face.
Why don't you buy mule meat, donkey meat, and horse meat? Whoever has these cold dishes on the table, it must be a relative near Lao Wanquan, who is good at making kettle meat and uses all large livestock.
Hard-won things, especially hard to do. The meat that comes out of the sauce can also be fragrant when it is cooled. The housewives who can live their lives perform exquisite knife work, and the huge plates look covered with meat, but in fact they can't cut a few pieces. The rest is left to his family. You have to be careful about face, and it is also cost-effective.
People who come to pay New Year's greetings are pressed to sit down and eat sauce meat and peanuts first, as if they are passing the time and as if they are appetizing. Take two sips before drinking, so that you don't feel uncomfortable in your stomach.
3. Wild boar elbow meat
In the past, the countryside had to slaughter the New Year's pigs at the end of the year, except for a big meal on the 30th night, the rest of the poor were all sold, and the rich were half left, and they could eat the whole New Year. Even if the family is poor, they should keep the pig's head and pig's trotters and the half-pulled elbow, the first two cannot be sold for a price, and the latter is to treat himself.
On the thirtieth day, the pig's head, pig's trotters and pig's knuckles were stewed together in the pot, and the elbows were taken out and cut into a pot, and half of them were eaten. The other half was seen at the dinner table on the morning of the first day of the new year.
In the years when there was a lack of oil and water in the stomach, elbow meat was very popular. Moreover, people like to eat lukewarm, which is not so sticky and quite greasy when eating elbows.
If you want to say that lamb head meat and sauce meat are for drinking, elbow meat is for stomach. People who drink alcohol eat smaller, but no matter how small the amount of food is, it is larger than today's people. Take advantage of the aroma of wine echoing in your belly, eat a few pieces of elbow meat in a big gulp, and sit down to be full. What does it mean to sit down and be full? It is to feel that you have eaten enough, and when you stand up and walk a few steps, you find that you seem to be able to eat. This scene is best felt when everyone eats barbecue.
The New Year's wine on the first day of the new year is not enough for food and wine. But no one really drinks too much, just have fun. After all, my family is still waiting for dumplings at noon. It is also an old Xi to manage wine and rice, and the old people in the past, wine and rice were separated, and on the first day of the new year, the rice had to be eaten at home, which meant not to eat (want) rice.
The past has finally become a memory, and the morning wine of the New Year's greetings has completely disappeared. In the lonely village, there is no longer the bustle of people coming and going, and in the steel jungle, there is a barrier. Sometimes I think, if I used to, would I be able to eat something as greasy? The answer is yes. Affection, the most greasy.