In autumn, the Loess Plateau under the sunset shows her majestic and magnificent page! The millet, millet, soybeans, yams and wheat on the hillside show colorful and brilliant colors, just like a soft ink painting. The breeze sent a wisp of fragrance, and I greedily stirred up the wings of my nose, carefully searching for its roots in the depths of memory, and the first feeling was the fragrant oil cake.
When it comes to "oil cake", we have to talk about "millet". "Millet" belongs to the genus Of the grass family, the leaves are linear, the seeds are yellowish, and after peeling, they are called soft rice, which can be used for brewing, oil cakes and so on. It is a small grain that is extremely common in Jingle, and its vitality is particularly strong. Jingle is "summer drought and autumn flood", which has almost become the law. But as long as there is a little bottom in the ground, it will struggle to break through the soil skin and emerge. The newly unearthed seedlings look very well-behaved, some shy, some pitiful, and look tender yellow and very inconspicuous. But it burrows its roots deep into the soil, trying to absorb nutrients, and the seedlings are unearthed in the summer, and it rarely rains in time to moisturize them. The scorching sun burned the earth hot and hot, and the feet were burned with pain. With tenacious perseverance, poor Miao Miao silently endured and persisted, looking forward to the arrival of the rain. A fierce wind blew, not only did not bring a hint of freshness, but also wrapped in a wave of heat, the seedlings were breathing heavily in the heat wave, and what was enviable and touching was that they were still alive, strong to live. I've seen a seedling living on a dirt mound, a young sapling growing on a dry patch of dirt, and you have to admire its tenacious vitality.
Jingle people pray for May 13th, according to legend, it is Guan Laoye's sharpening day, Guan Laoye will sharpen the green dragon and moon knife before going out on the expedition, the Dragon King, who is in charge of the rain, must give him face, Jingle Dujia Village, Zhang Gui Village has the custom of rushing to the temple fair on May 13, and people expect God to open some rain. After a long drought, those who are dying by the sun, once they are moistened by the rain, they will slow down overnight, and they will immediately behave energetically and full of vitality. Energetically, he flew up section by section. Standing at the top of the hill and looking out, the trees on the hillside are green and dark, some are still pulling joints, and some have been spitting. The mountain breeze swept by, and a fresh, sweet smell entered the heart.
The knots on the branches of the yellow are as obvious and orderly as the knots of bamboo, and the bone nodes are prominent, hard and strong. The spitting ears all bowed their heads, not showing any ostentatiousness, and quietly protruded their heads from the cracks in the top rolled leaves. It shows an indisputable and obscure posture. The millet also has a skill that other crops do not have, and if a piece of millet grows sparsely, it will miraculously grow three or five branches at the root, from one branch to a brother. Therefore, experienced farmers are not afraid of thinning their crops. Textbooks call this phenomenon "division of sins", and jingle people call it "fork". If there is enough rain, these bifurcated branches will soon grow as tall as the main pole, and a single plant will become a "flutter" and the yield will increase exponentially.
The seeds of the millet are actually crushed to remove the chaff and the golden yellow rice, which can be made into soft rice noodle steamed buns and oil cakes, and the most popular thing is the oil cake. The straw of the millet is the best feed for the livestock, and the rice bran is the feed for the pigs. Even the threshed spikes can be tied into brooms, which is an indispensable tool for Jingle people to sweep kang. Three pieces are needed to make a broom, namely a sickle, a mallet, and a thin hemp rope, a belt fastened around the waist of a strong man, and the mallet is blocked across the palm of the foot, and between the belt and mallet is a long thin hemp rope, and the two ends of the thin hemp rope pull a tight string. The spike of the hemp is flipped on the string, and then the thin hemp rope is wrapped around the circle and fixed on it. A real broom was turned over and turned, and finally the scythe was used to cut off the excess spike stalks. It is not difficult to see that the millet is a very willing to give a crop, and it really contributes everything to society.
From the millet to the oil cake is the highest realm of the life of the yellow, because the cake and the high harmonic tone, there is a prosperous, high rise in the auspicious meaning, Jingle people every New Year's Festival, the birth of children to wish for birthday, marry and housewarming on the occasion of the "oil cake" celebration is naturally indispensable. The yellow, soft cake bites down and pulls long, and the soft, sticky, sweet taste is unforgettable in the toothless people who grew up in Jingle. Jingle's women are simple and gentle, enthusiastic and generous, and they are all good at doing housework, which is a good way to make oil cakes. The millets that have just been harvested from the threshing field are round and full, and the grains are golden and dazzling. Slippery, grabbing a handful in the hand, the particles slipped straight out along the finger slit, as if they were intentionally amusing people. Huang Cheng's shiny yellows glowed with a seductive breath that loomed over from the land, sunshine, rain and dew, and also from the sweat of the peasants.
I miss the days when I was a child eating oil cakes during the Dragon Boat Festival, and around the Time Of The Dragon Boat Festival, the stone mills in the village began to turn away, shelling the yellows into rice. Then soak in a large vat with warm water for a day or two, fish out the filter with a fence, and the villagers will grind the soaked yellow rice into rice noodles on the mill, and then use the fine "basket" to form a fine powder, called "cake noodles". Mix the cake noodles with warm water, put them on the steamer basket to steam, and the steamed cake noodles should be kneaded on the board while hot with cold water, and an appropriate amount of white noodles should be added when kneading, so as to reduce the viscosity of the rice noodles and avoid foaming when frying the oil cake. At this time, the kneaded dough is cut open, which is called a vegetarian cake. The vegetarian cake can be eaten with sesame oil and sugar, and is soft and smooth, sweet and sweet. Cut the vegetarian cake balls, knead them into strips by hand, and then cut them into thin slices with a knife, and wrap them with bean paste, sugar, and mixed vegetables, which are called bean cakes, sugar cakes, and vegetable cakes, respectively. After the cake is ready, it is waiting for the frying pan to be fried, and the Jingle people squeezed the oil cake with sesame oil, and the maroon sesame oil is fragrant, elegant and mellow, and the flavor is unique, which is by no means comparable to other varieties of vegetable oil. When the oil pot is boiled, put the cake in the oil pot and fry it until golden brown, that is, the oil cake, the yellow is clear and bright, and the food is crisp and refreshing. The oil cake porcelain is solid, and it is resistant to hunger, so there is a saying of "thirty miles of noodles and forty miles of cake".
Jingle oil cake is a low-sugar food, suitable for all ages, is a rare gift and a traditional special product that sells well in the market. Due to the cumbersome procedures for making cakes, but also fried, in the old society, ordinary people dare to expect extravagantly on weekdays, and can only eat a meal during the New Year's Festival. It is said that Li Zicheng went to Beijing to become emperor that year, and in order to treat every day as the New Year's Day, he sent people to collect millet from his hometown of northern Shaanxi to make cakes, eat cakes every day, and celebrate the New Year every day, so the Jiangshan that should have been decades old only sat for a few dozen days. From this legend, it is enough to see the position of oil cake in food.
With the development of the times, jingle oil cake as a traditional food, its cultural connotation has been further promoted and developed, oil cake has become one of the most representative local flavor snacks in Jingle. Dear friends, if you have the opportunity to come to Jingle as a guest, the delicious oil cake should not be missed! It was another season of ripeness, and I walked to the field with great interest, and the autumn wind blew, and the yellows danced with it, and layers of golden waves appeared in front of me. Suddenly, the words "Jiangshan Sheji" flashed into my mind. "Jiangshan" is well understood, refers to the mountains and rivers of the land, is synonymous with the country. The "she" of "sheji" refers to the god of land, and the "ji" refers to ceres. At this moment, I suddenly realized that land and grain are not the foundation of the country and the foundation of the people? Farming is equally important as landscape land, and the combination of "Jiangshan" and "Sheji" is even more extraordinary. I now finally understand why the ancients exalted the black man to the supreme level, and it turned out that the sacred and solemn state and the little man had such a close connection.
(Wang Yanfeng, Yang Xiuchuan)