Text | Qian Ziqin
I have eaten many kinds of dates from childhood to old age, and they vary in size, taste, and sweetness. However, the one that left the deepest and most unforgettable mark on me was the jujube in the Great Northwest.
I remember when I was a child, I often followed my mother to my grandmother's house, and my grandmother's yard planted a circle of date trees, and there was a date garden outside the yard. There are many varieties of dates, such as wood king, big purple dates, pepper dates, small crisp dates... When I was a child, there were no snacks for the children to eat, so I went to my grandmother's house, and my grandmother and concubine took out dates and peanuts for me to eat.
In the autumn, when the dates were red, I climbed up to the roof with my little cousin and niece, who was two years younger than me, and sat on the roof to eat. In winter, I went to my grandmother's house and had drunken dates to eat, and the drunken dates did not have the folds of dry dates, full and round, sour and sweet with a smell of wine, which made me remember it deeply.
My house is four kilometers away from my grandmother's house. Later, my mother brought back a jujube sapling from my grandmother's house and planted it in a corner between the kitchen gatehouse and the toilet, where it grew and blossomed. At this time, my sister and brother were all working, and I was the youngest in the family, and no one fought with me. Climbing the roof of the tree is my strong point, and when the dates are red, climbing on the roof after school to enjoy it is more convenient than going to my grandmother's house to eat dates.
In the year of school, under the guidance of my mother, I personally got a drunken date. Drunken dates should be picked now, can not be bumped, put the dates bathed with wine into a blue and white porcelain altar jar, covered with a lid with red glue paste, just wait for winter I come back from winter vacation to enjoy. Unfortunately, before I could return to taste the fruits of my labor, the drunken dates were enjoyed in advance. My mother said that my sister-in-law had come from Shaanxi and opened the jar of drunken dates to reward her relatives who had returned from afar. Since it was opened, it was not suitable for a long time, so soon, the jar of drunken dates soon reached the bottom. I don't know if my sister-in-law remembers this, but I am very happy that someone has eaten the drunken dates I made.
When I was a child, I also ate Iraqi dates, sweet throats, but that special taste still exists. Later, there were more dates to eat and see, what Leling golden silk jujube, Chiping jujube, Xinjiang Hotan jujube, Taiwan jujube, as well as dried crispy dates, candied dates, this season is just eating fresh winter dates... Numerous.
But the only jujube I saw on this trip to the northwest that began on October 8 was the first time I saw and eaten a distinctive jujube in my life, and its name was Sand Jujube.
After entering the pass from Jiayu Pass, go out of the gate of "Tianxia Xiongguan" and go to the left-hand side, there are many jujube trees on both sides of the road, the trunk is thick, and the leaves of the tree are like the leaves of a willow tree, narrow and slender. The strings of dates hung from the branches, red and lustrous, like rubies in the setting sun. It is estimated that due to the drought and lack of water, the dates do not grow much.
Jujubes are about the same size as Leling jujubes, and the skin and flesh of the jujubes are separated. Open the red jujube skin, the flesh inside is a layer of sand, the color is like the sand in the desert, the jujube core is slender, and it is also a faint acid, a faint sweetness, like eating a small bite of moist flour, there is no strange taste, the sweetness is not as sweet as the Hetian jujube, nor as squealing as the Iraqi date palm; the jujube skin is also soft and easy to chew. After eating, it gives people a feeling of lingering.
At that time, I bought two small bags to eat on the way to play, because these days lunch is solved in the car, generally buy anti-hunger food and fruit, such as my own bread, local supermarket to buy bread, bread, bread, ham sausage, cooked eggs, salted duck eggs, apples, oranges, bananas, cantaloupe, dried apples, etc., are the kind that can be stuffed with one bite.
I also brought a few pounds of winter dates, and Sister PeiWen also bought dried dates, there is no date core, these are more convenient to eat to relieve hunger, so the two small bags of sand dates I bought always did not come out of the day, and its appearance was also a bit "out of hand". I took it out several times but my sisters stopped me, saying that I wanted to eat those who took one bite and one bite, and I would not eat this small sand jujube first, so I never gave the little sand jujube a chance to show her face.
In this way, two packs of small sand dates followed me all the way to the bus, plane, subway, car, and thousands of miles to my home - Linqing, Shandong Province, on the banks of the Grand Canal.
Putting down my heavy bags and closing the mood of letting go, I studied this peculiar sand date.
The jujube tree, also known as cinnamon willow, is produced in the western desert of Inner Mongolia and is the guardian of the desert. Because the flowering fragrance is similar to that of Jiangnan osmanthus and the vitality is very tenacious, it has the reputation of "osmanthus flowers of the fragrant desert".
Jujube leaves are low and grow fast. In late summer, the fragrant flowers of the trees also provide a rare silvery-white landscape for the garden, and can also be used as an ornamental tree and a background tree. In addition, the jujube tree is also a good afforestation, greening, charcoal, windproof, sand fixation tree species, has become one of the main afforestation tree species in the northwest region.
There is a saying that goes well: "One side of the water and soil nourishes the other side of the people". The characteristics of sand dates, especially the "sandiness" of their flesh, are simply a replica of the desert. Even in this barren environment, you can still live your own appearance, and it has a variety of functions.
From this, I think of the vast number of people in the Great Northwest. Isn't this jujube a symbol of the people of the northwest who are not afraid of barren and harsh natural conditions, who fight against the heavens and the earth, and who stubbornly survive and develop? Just like poplar to the people of the yellow land in northern Shaanxi!
You are the most inconspicuous, most intriguing, and most comfortable jujube I have ever eaten in my life. Having eaten your flesh and understanding your life, more importantly, I want to melt your essence into my veins, become my spiritual nutrition, and accompany me forever...
About author:Qian Ziqin, who once worked as an employee of the Linqing Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China in Shandong Province, is now retired.
One Point Shandong Creation Center
The content of this article is published by the author of One Point and does not represent the position of Qilu One Point.
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