What is "nostalgia"? Maybe just take a bite of it and you'll have the answer.
On the third day of the third lunar month, at six o'clock in the morning, Guantang Village, Tonggu Town, Youyang.
Sunlight shines through the sparse clouds and into the ancient village. Li Shifei carried the basket on his back to pick fresh Qingming vegetables on the ridge, which is a kind of wild vegetable with slender stems and slender leaves, covered with white spider silk-like hairs, and pale yellow flower buds on the top of the young leaves. His wife, Chen Weizhen, also got up early and began to prepare fillings, such as tofu, bacon, wild garlic, and spring bamboo shoots...... Each ingredient exudes a strong local flavor.
After a while, Li Shifei returned with a full load, selected the tender seedlings from the Qingming vegetables that had just been picked, washed them with water and put them in the pot to steam, and after the color became darker and cooled, he added an appropriate amount of water and glutinous rice flour and sticky rice flour and rubbed them repeatedly until the rice flour dough became soft and elastic.
The grandchildren of the family came to the stove room after getting up, rubbed their sleepy eyes, and watched curiously how Li Shifei divided the kneaded rice flour dough into small balls, then wrapped them in the filling, and then gently pressed them into a flat circle. At this time, a traditional local delicacy, the vermicelli, took shape.
On the stove, the water in the iron pot was already boiling hot. Li Shifei carefully put the finished flour into the steamer, then closed the lid and waited quietly. After a while, wisps of fragrance wafted out from the cracks of the steamer with water vapor, and the children sat around the stove, their eyes glued to the steamer, looking forward to the moment when the powder was out of the basket, while Li Shifei and his wife stood aside, their faces full of satisfaction and happy smiles.
"When I was a child, my grandparents would make noodles for us to eat before and after the Qingming Festival, so we would also make noodles for the children to taste before and after the Qingming Festival. At this moment, for Li Shifei's family, it is a transmission of family affection and nostalgia.
Powdered rice is also known as Qingming rice cake and March three rice cake, and these nicknames are closely related to the specific season of its tasting. For the sons and daughters of Youyang, flour baba is not only a traditional delicacy with excellent taste, but also a spiritual sustenance for people to remember their ancestors.
The Shangsi Festival, also known as the "Ghost Festival", is one of the ancient traditional festivals in China. The Tujia children of Youyang will eat the noodles on this day to pray for peace and auspiciousness, hoping to dispel the ghosts and protect the souls of their families.
Nowadays, the meaning of its "baba soul" has been left behind in the long river of time, but has become a cultural inheritance and expression. Around the third day of March, the fragrant and soft glutinous flour cake wraps a strong nostalgia and family affection, and becomes a link for people to visit relatives and friends and exchange emotions.
"I went back to my parents' house this time and brought my own noodles to try for my parents and siblings!" said a villager proudly displaying the noodles in her hand, a happy smile on her face. She said that in the village full of local flavor, Fenba has witnessed the changes and development of Youyang Village, and also carries people's yearning and pursuit of a better life.
In recent years, with the vigorous development of Youyang's tourism industry, powdered rice with its unique taste and profound cultural connotation has gradually stepped out of the mountains and become a special food that tourists are vying to taste.
"I'm from Youyang, I settled in Shapingba more than 50 years ago, and the last time I came back was more than 10 years ago, and I miss the taste of noodles very much. This year, 83-year-old Grandma Yin took her wife back to her hometown and specially tasted a mouthful of Youyang noodles to relieve the pain of homesickness, "Taste it carefully, it still tastes good in her hometown!" Grandma Yin took her wife's hand and said that she would take this delicious food home and share it with relatives and friends.
Powdered ba, a delicacy that carries deep local feelings, is moving towards a broader world with the pace of the times. The young villagers are not only the inheritors of traditional culture, but also the innovators of the new era. Their clever use of modern elements in the making of the vermicelli is constantly reinvigorating this age-old delicacy.
"Different fillings make the noodles have a variety of flavors, and the innovative cooking methods make the noodles more delicate and layered, and the fabrication of unique shapes makes the noodles visually present a new beauty, attracting the attention of more tourists. The owner of a shop selling noodles said that with its unique charm, noodles are becoming a bridge between the past and the future, tradition and modernity, so that people can feel the inheritance and innovation of culture while tasting food, as well as the unique local feelings it brings.
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Reporter: Yu Lin ▏Editor: Zhao Shuting Duty: Ren Guirong ▏Editor-in-Chief: Chen Jie Produced by Youyang Autonomous County Rong Media Center