I reckon that the people who have eaten eel rice like my hometown must be "very rare".
In the fifties of the last century, the hometown was in ruins, and the people's living standards improved significantly. So my parents often improved the food for us. My childhood was really delicious.
My home is on the shore of the Yellow Sea.
I have the impression that at that time, there was white saline-alkali land everywhere, and there were salt-worm weeds everywhere. In order to improve the soil, the production team divided the land into (18x20) zhang flat fields. Dig a longitudinal ditch two zhang wide and one zhang deep in the meridian direction (north-south direction), and dig a middle ditch three zhang wide and one zhang deep in the Mao unit direction (east-west direction). It is irrigated with fresh water, and then the cool alkaline water is discharged to the sea.
In this way, there are ditches and rivers everywhere in my hometown, and there are fish, shrimp, crabs and turtles in them.
Every family is tired of eating a lot of fish and shrimp, but freshwater eels have always been our favorite fish species. Braised in, steamed, fried, pickled, are the most commonly used cooking methods.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, my father cooked for a company of the New Fourth Army, and during the War of Liberation, he participated in the logistics team of the Huaihai Campaign. On the eve of the birth of New China, the poor peasants in our old liberated areas were given a few acres of land, and my father also went home to farm.
He learned a lot outside, and making river eel rice was a must. The neighbors learned from him.
This is a moray eel
Eel, we all call it "hairy fish", maybe the homonym is the same. There are two types of eels: moray eels and river eels. Moray eels are hypertrophied and spiny, and their mouths are incomparable to those of river eels. River eel is slender, delicious, oily but not greasy, and contains unsaturated fat, high-quality protein, amino acids, and a variety of trace elements, which is a highly nutritious "tonic".
There are certain conditions for the growth of river eels. In early spring, they spawn at the seashore where salt water and fresh water meet, and then enter the inland area about 50 kilometers with the ebb and flow tide, when the cauliflower is yellow, it is the period when the eel grows into an adult fish, and the eel at this time is the best to eat, called "cauliflower eel". 3 About a catty, this kind of river eel is the most delicious. Fewer thorns.
Use pumpkin leaves to wipe off the mucus on the eel skin, cut the gills from the gills to the tail with scissors, remove the gills and internal organs, and cut off the head and tail (can be braised separately). Put the washed headtail fish into the pot and cook until it is rotten, pinch the head skeleton, shake it gently, and the flesh and bones are separated. Fry the green onions, ginger and garlic in oil (meat oil is more fragrant), and then add an appropriate amount of salt and vinegar and soaked rice to cook into rice.
The operation is simple, but very tasty, with two bowls per person.
It's a pity that I haven't been able to eat river eels for nearly 30 years.
The reason for this is that in the 80s, people were called upon to show their talents to make money, so the adult eels were sold to Japan at a "high price", and later the eel fry were also purchased by Japan at a "high price", and then the seeds of the eels were also sold to "friendly neighbors" at a "high price". (There are also those sold to South Korea).
In the past 30 years, I have been back to my hometown several times, but I have never seen a single wild eel.
An old friend told me:
- Wild eels are extinct.
Now there is only nostalgia.