National Day overtime, Chinese food usually do not dare to eat "ha", students are not there, teachers talk and laugh, one person a "ha" slowly peeled, more leisurely than usual.
What Ningbo people say about "Ha" is crab. There are more than 500 kinds of crabs, and locals often eat "white crabs", also called pike crabs, with two pointed heads like pikes. White crab is not white, just on the shore of the whole body of gray, after cooking the crab shell orange red, crab paste crab yellow burst, with yellow wine to talk about the road, eat until the sun goes down, eat crab to be patient and skilled.
Ningbo by the sea, the opening of fishing for a few days, the crab in the vegetable farm is fresh and cheap, divided into several stalls according to the size, crushed ice in the board price tag. Mr. good at picking crabs, generally only pick mid-range sizes. Pinch the crab navel and open it, pinch the crab's feet and knock on the crab shell, and the crab is fat enough to burst out of the ointment. After learning many times, it was my turn to "practice operation", and the selection was not always fat. Life skills, always only love the diligent people in the day.
Fishing, the white crabs picked up in the sea are full of burdens, steamed, and can't eat - green vegetable crab soup, egg yolk fried crab stocks, salt-baked white crab, white crab fried rice cake... These eating methods focus on an "original taste", so that the saliva is dropped.
Ningbo people original "pickled ha". Take heavy salt whole or cut strands to marinate, 24 hours later put sugar, ginger mixed with MSG to eat, the meat is shiny Q bomb, the entrance is tender and soft, we call it "pressed rice hammer". Hospitality to not "choke ha", feel strange: lack of enthusiasm! Of course, the white crab is chopped up and salted, turning into "ha paste", and the crab meat is white and yellow, and the leather band is tied, which is slightly better than the "dish color" of the plastic bag. This "delicacy" borrows ten dare outsiders and dare not chopsticks - raw, eat bad stomachs!
Before and after the frost fell, the orange and yellow cinnamon fragrance, "Ha" is more violent. The crab meat blown by the west wind is exceptionally thick. There is a folk saying: the west wind rises, the crab feet itch. "Itching" is good, like seeing a crab holding up its long feet, crawling in and out of the busy, making people's hearts itch. Interestingly, frost has the custom of eating persimmon cakes, which cannot be eaten with crabs, which will cause gastrointestinal discomfort.
White crab is a saltwater crab, a type of sea crab. Inland crabs are called freshwater crabs, and green crab hairy crabs are freshwater crabs. After the frost falls, eat green crab hair crab mainly.
The green crab is about the same size as the pike crab, the shell is thick and solid, and there is a smell of mud to be used in vinegar, and it is better to pour some cooking wine. Bigfoot tongs are the best, whole pieces of meat, dipped in soy sauce, and swallowed with a mouthful of life. Hairy crabs have black and brown fine hairs on their feet, round heads, but the big ones are adult fists, and the price is high for many pike crabs. Ningbo people also call hairy crabs hairy crabs.
In the past, my father used a dragon net to circle the mouth of the rapidly flowing pond and put it in the morning at night. In addition to fish and shrimp, there will also be a few hairy crabs crawling among them, and the fierce gods with their teeth and claws are fierce. My father was a good crab catcher, with one hand holding a branch to tease the hairy crab bigfoot claws, the other hand opening his thumb index finger, and catching six or seven in two or three minutes. Tap water under the next flush, put the crab into the pot and steam, sprinkle some onion, ginger and garlic, fragrant uncle next door should "taste" come. I was small and didn't have the patience to eat crabs, but I just thought that the hairy crab bigfoot claws that my father peeled in the bowl tasted good.
In the autumn wind, there is a small round table in the courtyard, a small square stool, a defeated lotus in the pond, a crab fragrant crab yellow liang... After the father ate the crab foot and drank the yellow wine, his reddish face and the eyebrows that were gently provoked by pride... It has become the beauty of autumn.
There are many ways to eat hairy crabs - chili crabs, beer stewed crabs, hairy crab stewed chicken, sauce hairy crabs... Steamed is the best. In the past, eating hairy crabs had the saying of "nine females and ten males", it is said that the female crab crab yellow grows well in the ninth month of the lunar calendar, and the crab paste of the male crab in the tenth month of the lunar calendar is thicker. The female hairy crab yellow is soft and diluted, and the male is a piece of hard and hard, also called crab paste. All delicious.
Get a large pot with the right amount of water, put a plate on the soup hook rack in the pot, load three or four hairy crabs, cover with five or six slices of ginger, drop seven or eight drops of old wine, boil the water on high heat until it opens, the edge of the crab yellow drum out of the crab shell top, the crab is cooked. Without waiting for the adults to sit down, the child was busy picking up the feet of the hairy crab and whispering in his mouth: "Hurry up and eat while it is hot." "Eating crab really has to be hot, there will be a fishy smell when it is cold, and Ningbo people should be "fresh through the bones" in everything, and they will be intimidated when it is cold.
From the records of the "Zhou Li", it can be seen that the history of eating crabs in China is close to 2,700 years. Crab eating by ancient Chinese people is a very elegant thing. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the literati crab was the supreme enjoyment, enjoying the chrysanthemum poetry crab, everyone had a set of special tools, Su Huhang commonly known as "crab eight pieces", once also became one of the girl's dowry items. Unfortunately, this elegance has gradually disappeared, and can only be glimpsed in Cao Gong's "Dream of the Red Chamber". Nowadays, people eat crabs to open the lid first, and then sell the big foot tongs, and then, like the crab body, eat the crab body and like the crab feet to bite the crab feet... There was a clattering sound. Being able to eat a crab in small pieces is a very important work ethic of "eating guests".
I also saw that the barracuda crab made shallot oil, and some children expertly picked a thick crab shell. I teased him: "How to eat crab shells?" Eat too long and be careful that it is too late to work! ”
Toothless Dragon smiled: "Rice in the shell, add crab juice to pound, delicious, can eat fast." ”
As soon as the "frost falls" season arrives, the spring of crab eaters has arrived. The seasonal food is listed as well, with the festival as a nail-and-nail station, with oil, salt, sauce and vinegar as a seasoning, supplemented by time and affection, inject patience and wisdom, and the day will have rhythm and hope! Follow the seasons to live, every day like a poem.
-Ends-
Reader/SpecialLy Appointed Night Reading Columnist: Feng Zhijun
Image courtesy of Zhu Sipan