Today marks the 24th anniversary of the death of Mr. Wang Zengqi.
In this life, although he showed his talent very early, his life went through several twists and turns, and after the age of 60, he "suddenly" "showed his skills" in the literary world, and his works are still selling well today.
People are also willing to call him "living home". What he wrote about was the simple life he was familiar with- Gaoyou in his hometown when he was a child, Kunming where he studied and lived, and the bitterness that still existed in the tribulations. Eating and drinking, and reminiscing about the past are the most worthy things to taste in life.
"There are many things in the world, and when you think about it, you think it's very interesting. Sometimes A person sits alone, thinks about it, thinks it's funny, and laughs out loud. It's humorous to write down or say something like this. Most people with a strong sense of humor have good intentions and are often smiling. ”
"Life is very fun", is one of his famous sayings. Many people still like him to this day because he wrote out the fun of life, and the ability to have fun in the most ordinary things of daily life is precisely what modern people who are accustomed to busyness and anxiety are most lacking.
His life experience is not all beautiful, he has encountered many ups and downs, and there are also times of displacement. But even during the toughest times, he kept himself passionate about life.
"We've had all kinds of traumas, but we should be happy today," he said. ”
Wang Zengqi (March 5, 1920 – May 16, 1997)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="19" > four-way food, but a bowl of human fireworks</h1>
As a food connoisseur among the literati, Wang Zengqi's preference for food can be described as "unscrupulous".
He once said directly in "Meat Eaters Don't Despise", "There are flaws in life that does not love food." Only those who know how to eat and can eat can feel the beauty of being alive. ”
Wang Lao, who was born in Gaoyou, Jiangsu Province, has a deep love for the food in his hometown. Stir-frying rice, soaking crumbs, and sleeping on a futon is a romantic night. Eating high-mail salted duck eggs with tender egg whites and fine and oily yolks, I can't look at them anymore.
From pickle mushroom soup to screws and tiger sharks, although they are all home-cooked dishes, they are "one entrance, three springs do not forget", full of hometown feelings.
In 1939, Wang Zengqi went to Kunming Southwest United University to study, staying for 7 years, which made a Jiangsu and Zhejiang people who were accustomed to eating sweets fall in love with the taste stimulation brought by peppers.
"We practiced eating spicy in Kunming, and we used to use green peppers to burn on the fire with a few Guizhou classmates and dip them in salt and drink under water. There are many peppers eaten in ordinary life, such as chaotian peppers and wild mountain peppers. ”
Even on the days when air raid sirens were frequent, Wang Zengqi never gave up on tasting food. The food that seems ordinary to us today has also become a small comfort in life at that time.
"Kunming does small business, and when there is an alarm, they carry the burden to the suburbs." All five tastes, everything. The most common is 'tintin sugar'. 'Ding Ding Sugar' is maltose, that is, the Kanto sugar used by the Beijing people to sacrifice the stove, but made into a large sugar cake with a diameter of more than a foot and a thickness of one inch, placed on a square wooden plate, someone pays money to buy, the sugar seller uses a planer-shaped iron piece to wedge into the sugar edge, and then uses a small iron hammer, a blow to the iron piece, a sound of Ding, a piece of sugar is shattered down,—— so it is called 'Ding Ding Sugar'. ”
"In Kunming, I saw the best-growing camellias, ate the best beef, and delicious rice noodles can save the pain of lost love."
Wang Zengqi traveled all over the country, tasting food first, and after eating, he also liked to taste and compare, and described his name, workmanship, and taste carefully between the lines.
The mouth of a foodie, of course, is picky. Beijing is where Wang Zengqi settled in the second half of his life and the city where he stayed the longest in his life. Therefore, wang lao also has more "complicated" feelings about food in Beijing.
"Beijingers are easy to satisfy, and their material requirements for life are not high. If you have a nest, you will be satisfied. Big pickled radish, just fine. Little sauce radish, then what else to say. Stinky tofu drops a few drops of sesame oil, can treat the aunt. Shrimp rice peel boiled cabbage, hey! ”
"What's so good about tea soup?" A little bit of surimi, that's it. Some add walnut kernels, green plums, raisins, green and red silk to the tea soup... It is called "Eight Treasure Tea Soup", and that's all. Beijingers and Tianjin people love to drink tea and soup, and I can't understand their feelings, I can only say that this is a cultural accumulation. ”
"Peking kebab is grilled on 'hot' grills." A 'hot seed' is a round board nailed with iron bars, under which large pieces of chopped wood, pine or fruit wood are burned. The lamb is cut into thin slices (there are also roast beef, less), and the condiments - soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking wine, a lot of coriander - are mixed in a large bowl, add a little water, and handed to the customer, who uses long chopsticks to spread it flat on the seared. There are small cracks between the iron bars of the hot pot, and the firewood smoke and fire gas below can penetrate from the gaps, not only the whole hot pot is evenly burned, but also makes the roasted meat with the fragrance of firewood; the above soup brine meat crumbs can be filled into the seams, increasing the burnt aroma of the roast... Bake yourself, tender a little, burn a little, feel free to do so. And roasting itself is a pleasure. ”
Wang Zengqi not only knows how to eat, but also has his own exquisiteness in making and eating - imagination, love to ponder, as Su Dongpo said, "suddenly out of novelty"; to practice more, learn to make the same dish always have to fail several times to get its essentials; and as Wang Lao's "idle book", the recipe also needs to be turned over.
Zhu Yanqing, a cultural scholar who is the deputy governor of Gaoyou County, visits Mr. Wang's house every time he goes to Beijing. When his fellow villagers came, Wang Zengqi would cook several hometown meals, which was also the origin of the later "Wang Family Banquet".
"Coarse dishes are carefully made" is the only way to make home-cooked dishes, of which a dish of stuffed meat back to the pot fritters is the most famous:
"This is my invention, which can be patented. Cut the fritters into small pieces of inch and a half, use your fingers to pull out the gaps in the inner layer, stuff them with minced meat, green onions, and squeezed vegetables, and fry them in a frying pan. Fritters have alum, which is particularly flavorful than spring rolls. The fritters are extremely crispy and can be chewed for ten miles. ”
Wang Zengqi's good craftsmanship can be "famous", on the one hand, because there are real materials, and on the other hand, it is inseparable from his intentions for the choice of dishes.
Once Chen Yizhen from Taiwan came to Beijing and asked him to cook by name, because he knew that there were no small red water radishes in Taiwan (only white radish), so he added a roasted radish with dried scallops to the menu. Look at the object of cooking, and do what the guests have not eaten, and then feel fresh.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="68" > must love something, just like the love of grass and trees for time</h1>
"Life itself is already monotonous enough that you always have to spend a lot of time eating and sleeping. But think about it, if something unexpected happens between meals, life is not only monotonous, it's simply boring! ”
Wang Zengqi left this "unexpected thing" to the flowers and trees. From the garden in his hometown of Gaoyou, he had a special affinity for grass and trees - "If my face has the red color brought from childhood, its source is the garden."
When it comes to wang Zengqi's grass and trees, no one will forget the "pain and happiness" of "gardenia":
"Gardenia flowers are thick and thick, and they are so fragrant that they cannot be dusted, so they are not taken by the gentle and elegant people, thinking that their character is not high." Gardenia said, 'Fuck you, I just want it to be so fragrant, fragrant and sweet, can you fucking handle it?' ”
He is a storyteller, and everyone in the world has a temperament and a temper. Every flower, he loves, every flower, he is happy to have a story with it.
"It is said that pear blossoms are like snow, but in fact, apple blossoms are like snow." The snow is thick and not transparent. What does a pear blossom look like? - The petals of the pear blossom are made of the moon. ”
"I never knew how many petals the small flowers of the hydrangea were, but I just felt that it was a large flower ball that could not distinguish the petals. I occasionally draw hydrangeas, and I also draw a lot of petals clustered together, which petal belongs to which small flower, no matter what! ”
In addition to grass and trees, there are also fish and insects. When the family talked about Wang Zengqi, they all jokingly called him "old man", and "old man" had a childlike heart, especially on the "research" of fish and insects.
"The grasshopper will fly and make a noise, and I don't know how it makes this sound." Grasshoppers have elytra wings, and elytra have hymenoptera wings. The hymen wings are a faint pinkish red and are very good-looking.
We also have a "soil grasshopper" there, with a short body, a square head, black as dirt, and black spots on its wings. This grasshopper, catch it, it spits out a bubble of brown saliva, very annoying. ”
"All insects with compound eyes have very sensitive vision. The hemp fly is also a compound eye, you get closer to the dragonfly and the hemp fly, and there is still a distance, and it finds, oh - flying.
I used to think: What if someone has a pair of compound eyes?
Or don't! What a look! ”
Specializing in the depths, or returning to a "eat" word - "calling clams can be eaten." ...... Thrown in the fire of dead branches, it will ripen in a moment. It tastes like shrimp. ”
This is the vitality brought to him by flowers, flowers, plants, fish, insects, rats and birds, "I don't like this artificial amber with insects pressed inside", "beauty, more or less contain a little accident".
"The world loved me first, and I couldn't help but love it." Life is like grass and trees, when you are proud, everything is lush, and when you are frustrated, the branches wither. Wang Zengqi's life is not only quiet and good, but he still loves the world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="105" > we have had all kinds of trauma but we should be happy today</h1>
Wang Zengqi has experienced very turbulent days, the most difficult period, the eldest daughter Wang Ming even seriously asked him to "not commit suicide", it is in such days, he still has his enthusiasm for life.
After experiencing ups and downs, I prefer to be plain and plain. Even if his life is better later, Wang Zengqi still maintains his original temperament. Buying vegetables and cooking, watching flowers and plants, these daily things are "poetic" by him, which is the purest appearance of "life qi".
"When I get to a new place, some people love to visit department stores, some people love to visit bookstores, and I'd rather go to the wet market." Looking at raw chickens and live ducks, fresh watery melon vegetables, and red peppers, lively and crowded, people feel a kind of fun. ”
Wang Zengqi likes to observe people. Whether it is the earliest group of bird walkers in Beijing, or the big mothers who have a taste in their own buildings, or the two old people who meet and pick up goji berries in Yuyuantan. He likes the life of someone, "I want to make people's feelings nourished, to make people feel that life is beautiful, people, beautiful, poetic." 」 ”
His life is also inseparable from such a person, that is, his wife Shi Songqing. In the turbulent years of love, most of them are expensive in "companionship" and "perseverance", and the days of gathering less and leaving more do not separate them, but make each other more concerned.
"That year, the flowers did not bloom the best, but fortunately, I met you;
That year, the flowers bloomed so well, as if it were only for you;
That year, the flowers bloomed late, and it was okay to have you. ”
Wang Zengqi and his wife Shi Songqing
Wang Zengqi has three children, his son Wang Lang, the eldest daughter Wang Ming and the youngest daughter Wang Chao, but his family's life is actually very "casual", which stems from his educational concept:
"I think a modern, humane family must first be 'no big, no small'."
"A father who wants to mold his children with his own ideal model is stupid, and, abominable!"
"I joked with the old man, there are a few people in the family, and you are in the first place." This is what Wang Lang often jokes about at home.
In 1987, Wang Zengqi and his granddaughter Wang Hui
Given the background of the times, Wang Zengqi rarely sat down with his children to discuss literature, Wang Lang worked in the media, Wang Ming worked in the university's foreign language department, and Wang Chao was a picture editor, all three of them had never been formally involved in literature.
Talking about his father's influence on himself, Wang Chao said, "If you want to talk about literary branding, there is no mark at all. But he is very equal and kind with anyone, and this is long-lasting in our temperament."
In 1996, Wang Zengqi's family portrait
In the face of life, Wang Zengqi is leisurely and free, in the face of aging and death, he wrote "Seventy Books of Carrying out the Law Without Changing":
Seventy years of leisurely, you are drunk, only to feel that the climbing steps are late.
Calligraphy and painting Xiao Xiao Yu Su mo, the article faintly recalls childhood.
I also write book reviews and prefaces, and I don't open the atmosphere and don't be a teacher.
Fake me ten years of salty porridge rice, unknown left a few bags of poetry.
- Seventy books do not change the law
On May 16, 1997, Wang Zengqi died of gastrointestinal bleeding, which was immediately the 24th year of his departure, and he is still teaching us how to live well.