The grass loves the mountain, and the savage cherishes the soil. After leaving my hometown in Gannan for more than 30 years, many people have forgotten many things, but the smoke of my hometown often lingers in my dreams, and the lead-gray smoke has brought me infinite warmth and memories......
When I was a child, my family had a large population and a small labor force, so my mother often got up before dawn to do housework, carrying water, chopping wood, washing rice, washing vegetables, and brushing pots in order not to delay the early work of the production team...... After picking up these, it was already dawn, and when I heard the bell of the production team, my mother explained a few words to my grandmother, and then hurried out to work with farm tools.
My grandmother lit a match in front of the stove and slowly stuffed the lit firewood into the stove, and after a while, a puff of cooking smoke came out of my chimney. The smoke in the morning light, white in the gray, light and ethereal, looking at the past from a distance, like a weeping willow swaying in the wind. At almost the same time, the smoke of cooking stoves rose from every house, the clatter of pots and pans, the barking of chickens and dogs, and the village was suddenly full of life when it woke up from its sleep.
After my grandmother was busy in the kitchen, it wasn't long before my brother and I had a hot meal and went to school with our village friends.
When I was in junior high school, the rural areas implemented the contract responsibility system of joint production, and our family of nine was divided into six acres of land, and in order to get more food, my mother led my three older brothers to work in the fields from morning to night. During the summer vacation of the school, the early rice in the field was ripe, and a large area of yellow and clear was not visible at a glance.
One morning, we went to cut rice in the field farthest from our home. It was unusually hot, and after only two or three hours of work, I was so tired that I was sweating, my stomach was rumbling, and my legs were straight. The eldest brother next to me comforted me and said, "Fourth brother, the sun is almost in the middle of the sky, hold on for a while, and we can call it a day." When I left work, I saw that my grandmother had prepared chili peppers and dried fish, as well as mung beans and kelp, which are all dishes that you like to eat, and you can eat them when you go back. Hearing my eldest brother say this, I stood on tiptoe and glanced at the tree-lined village, and found that the chimney of my house had emitted a light gray-white smoke. Seeing this, I was salivating and feeling even hungrier. My mother knew that I couldn't bear the hunger, so she hurriedly broke a few ears of corn in the field, and then picked up some branches and pine needles to make a fire. The dried pine needles caught fire at a moment, and the red flames rushed upward. The mother carried the corn cob with a sickle and roasted it on the fire, and the sweat dripped down her cheeks and fell to the ground. With a sizzling sound, the corn cob gradually turned from green to burnt yellow, and the fragrant smell penetrated into the nostrils, and the sleepiness suddenly dissipated without a trace...... After many years, in retrospect, the corn that my mother roasted that day was undoubtedly the best corn I have ever eaten in my life.
When I went to high school in another country, my grandmother passed away. The next year, the eldest brother married his sister-in-law back to the family. My sister-in-law's father is a famous chef in our hometown, and she has been exposed to it since she was a child, and her cooking skills are also good.
I boarded at the school, and I usually went home once every six months. Forty miles from school to the village, every time I went home, in order to save three cents for the bus fare, I walked back step by step with my feet. When I walked to the small river at the entrance of the village, I was hungry and tired, but as long as I saw the curling smoke rising from the village under the cover of the setting sun, I could not help but flash such a picture in front of my eyes: in the dark kitchen, my mother continued the firewood into the stove one after another, the flames crackled and burned, and the light of the fire reflected my mother's eyes brightly; the smoke by the stove was steaming, and the sister-in-law was chopping vegetables on the cutting board for a while, and stir-frying the stewed vegetables in the pot with a shovel; the house was full of aroma, and the smoke was not only the smell of burning firewood and grass, but also mixed with the smell of green onions and chili peppers; and the brothers and brothers were sitting around the dining table, while talking harmoniously about family affairs, while waiting for me to come back for dinner. The delicious temptation, the call of family affection, my feet seemed to be on the hot wheels, and I instantly had inexhaustible strength.
Later, I left my hometown to make a living in other places, and the cooking utensils at home were replaced with rice cookers and induction cookers, so that I no longer had to burn firewood and grass for cooking rice and stir-frying. It's convenient, but the food cooked with the same ingredients and the same method doesn't taste as mellow and pure as the one I ate in my hometown when I was a kid - this is probably missing the soul of fireworks.
Hometown has a taste, this taste is not only stored on the tip of the wanderer's tongue, but also rooted in the wanderer's heart, no matter how long you leave, no matter how far you go, as long as you smell this warm breath, the nostalgic passenger ship can find a harbor to anchor.