Ladies and gentlemen, please click "Follow" in the upper right corner, and you will not miss the wonderful content, so that you can view it at any time.
Text: Bread Clip Knowledge
Edit|Bread Clip Knowledge
«——【Preamble】】 ——»
There is an old saying in the countryside, "If you stay in the green mountains, you are not afraid of running out of firewood", and many farmers living in the mountains used to say that it was a difficult time. Food production is insufficient, and everyone can't eat.
Fortunately, for the cultivated land without food, the mountains are full of treasures, and most of the wild plants in the mountains, except for some poisonous ones, can be eaten by people, which can not only fill the stomach but also replenish nutrition.
In fact, in the past, the best supplements were only affordable by high-ranking officials, in addition to the more famous ginseng, there are some wild plants in the mountains whose nutritional value is also comparable to supplements.
In the future, the life of the people improved, and many wild vegetables were eliminated and fed to the pigs, including some very precious herbs.
Among them, the more famous is "Huangjing", which was known as "immortal surplus grain" as early as ancient times, which means that the immortal grass has been eaten.
In the past, on the edge of the farmer's land, on the wild hills, the growth of this plant could be seen everywhere.
Practicing Taoist priests also love to eat this plant, because eating it is indeed good for the body.
Because it is edible and looks like bamboo, it is called: "rabbit bamboo, deer bamboo", and there is also a special nickname called "poverty relief".
Huangjing whole beads are also called sun grass, immortal branches, etc., which can be used as a medicine with rhizomes. Polygonatum polygonatum had very high medicinal value in ancient times and was known as the head of the grass. It can replenish qi and nourish yin, and is an excellent tonic that can be consumed by both men and women.
The value of Huangjing mainly lies in its root, which is like ginger and ginseng, so it has the common names of "Tiger Ginger", "Huangjing Ginger", "Paw Ginseng" and "Chicken Paw Ginseng".
As early as ancient times, Huangjing was deeply loved by the common people in the folk, and there were legends about this plant in the past:
In ancient times, a rich man's family had a little girl named Huang Jing, who looked like no other in the world, and the old rich man wanted Huang Jing to be his little wife. wrote a letter threatening Huang Jing's father to drive Huang Jing's family away if he did not agree.
Huang Jing's father was so anxious that he had no choice but to ask Huang Jing to hide out of the house as soon as possible.
On the dark night of the third watch, Huang Jing escaped from the landlord's house.
Finding that the beaked duck was about to fly, the landlord chased him to the edge of the cliff, and Huang Jing had no choice but to jump off the cliff.
I thought I was going to die, but I found myself hanging on a small tree, seriously injured and without food or drink, so I could only pick the weeds around me to satisfy my hunger.
At last Miss Huang Jing finally found a vine, and she only felt that her body was as light as a swallow, and she climbed up in two or three steps.
Finally getting rid of the cliff, the yellow girl continued on her way, and when a village appeared not far ahead, she walked to the door of a family and begged for a bowl of rice.
The family opened the door, and saw that it was a poor girl, and as soon as their hearts softened, they took in the yellow girl. After a long time, Miss Huang Jing told them about her life experience.
Huang Jing was seriously injured by jumping off the cliff, but he survived for more than half a year by eating grass blades and grass roots, which surprised everyone. Soon an old man in the village heard about it and keenly noticed that there was something wrong with what she was eating.
So she went to consult Miss Huang Jing herself, and she took the old man to find the grass.
The old man picked up one and put it in his mouth to taste, and after eating, he felt very warm and relaxed, and he was sure that this was a herb that could save people.
Later, he said that this herb was given to the patient, and the patient's condition would improve, and he gave it to the elderly, and the old man's body gradually became healthy, so he named this herb Huangjing.
Polygonatum used to be very wild on the mainland, and it can be seen everywhere in the mountains of the countryside, and no one will pay attention to this kind of wild grass that can be seen everywhere.
So why does no one pay attention to something with such medicinal value?
In fact, it is not that no one pays attention to it, but the farmers who originally lived in the mountainous areas did not think of these usages at all, which were too common and common in the mountainous areas, but were not cherished, but in the eyes of the dignitaries, they only paid attention to the particularly famous tonic of ginseng, which grew in the mountainous areas and was only accessible to farmers, so naturally did not attract the attention of the predecessors.
However, this kind of really expensive medicinal material, which was particularly common in the past, was not cherished and used, and gradually disappeared into the wild, and only was artificially planted.
In the past, when there was no food, people would eat this to satisfy their hunger, only knowing that it could fill their stomachs, but they did not know that its medicinal value was high.
The stems and leaves of this plant can grow to a height of about one meter, and the surface is smooth and hairless, and the leaves are very soft, making it a very gentle plant.
The roots of Polygonatum polygonatum are very well developed, and it is a perennial herbaceous plant.
Perennial refers to plants that live continuously for many years, such as bushes on the side of the road, and the roots can survive for more than two years, which is called perennial.
The lifespan of Polygonatum polygonatum is particularly long, although these lifespans are inconspicuous in plants, but for small plants, this is a relatively special existence.
The roots of this plant only grow once a year, and many can grow to more than 20 knots, and a rhizome can grow to weigh several catties.
Therefore, in times when there is no famine, farmers often use the roots of this wild vegetable, which can be seen everywhere in the wild, to feed pigs.
Some people will think that this is simply a violent thing.
But who let in the past, this plant can be seen everywhere, and the taste is not so delicious, so it will naturally be chosen by farmers who can live to feed pigs, after all, it is better to feed pigs with wild grass and vegetable roots than to feed pigs with grain.
In fact, yellow essence is not not delicious enough, on the contrary, if it is eaten properly, it is also particularly delicious.
In addition, when Taoist priests are practicing, the main food they eat is yellow essence. Zhang Hua of the Eastern Jin Dynasty also recorded the value of Huangjing in ancient legends in the "Naturalist Records":
"The Yellow Emperor of the past asked the heavenly grandmother and said: Heaven and earth are born, and there is food that makes people immortal? ”
It means to ask God what kind of thing can be immortal, and God says that the sun grass is yellow essence and can live forever.
Nowadays, in some remote mountainous areas, there are still farmers who feed pigs with it, but they don't know that the price of yellow essence is precious, and the price of wild yellow essence is 50 yuan a catty, and it is really a waste to feed pigs.
It is normal for everyone not to know the medicinal value of yellow essence, and if yellow essence wants to be better used in medicine, it needs to go through nine steaming and nine drying.
Nine steaming and nine drying means that it needs to be dried after steaming once, and after nine consecutive times, until the roots are black like charcoal, it can be used for food or medicine. This way of eating has been around for a long time.
In the "year of famine", yellow essence was also the food for the common people. This is also the origin of the "surplus grain of the immortals".
So why does Huangjing have such a complicated way to eat?
The purpose of steaming and drying Huangjing is to eliminate the irritation and toxicity of the roots.
Why has the yellow essence disappeared in the past few years?
Polygonatum was once widely distributed in the mainland. With the development of rural revitalization, the nourishing and health value of Polygonatum polygonatum has been widely spread.
Everyone began to buy wild yellow essence, there were a large number of purchased medicinal herb dealers, and for a time yellow essence was gold, everyone rolled up their sleeves and worked hard to dig to find it.
Gradually, Polygonatum has become a very valuable medicinal herb and food, and the wild resources have declined sharply.
Because it is a perennial plant, it takes three or four years for the roots to achieve medicinal effects, even if it is planted, it is too late, and in the early years, as more and more people pay attention to health, the market demand for them is very high, so that the corresponding market price soars.
Huang Jing is no longer fifty yuan a catty, and even once reached hundreds of yuan a catty, which makes everyone pursue it more and more, which is a typical interpretation of such a sentence: In the past, you loved to ignore me, and now you can't afford to climb me!
Under the blindness of interests, more and more people went into the mountains to find Polygonatum polygonatum vulgaris, resulting in the wild Polygonatum being directly hollowed out.
Therefore, in the mountainous areas of many places, wild yellow essence is rare, and it is not an exaggeration to say that its value is very precious.
Why is it so precious that it is still not a protected species?
It is an endangered plant, but it is limited to the wild, and now it is widely cultivated. But if you see wild yellow essence in the future, don't destroy it, after all, it is not easy to grow one in the wild.