Southerners eat rice, northerners eat noodles, it seems to be an eternal habit of life, in the week of Qingyang, Gansu, taste the famous local lamb, eat different pasta, so that the southern companions frowned: "Don't you northerners eat?" ”
When I say rice, it is naturally rice.
Huan County, Qingyang City, once a famous northwest frontier land, is also the country's advanced grain production county, in the water-scarce Loess Plateau hilly and gully area, Huan County residents of the staple food is naturally pasta.
In Wei Palm Village, Hongde Town, Huan County, Uncle Wei Zongfu, the inheritor of Daoqing Shadow Puppet Theatre, knew that we were going to visit, and summoned the brothers and family members early to give us travelers from Tiannanhaibei a wonderful performance, and of course, the best lamb dumplings for guests here.
Uncle Wei's life is legendary, above: Westward Journey to Find a Shadow II: I have not seen my father's widow, followed by four generations of heirloom drama classes, the new form of development has been said, in fact, in the "Xingsheng Class" for everyone to perform in the gap, the author found that the kitchen across the wall, has risen cooking smoke.
Working in the kitchen were Wei Zongfu's wife, Wang Xiuying, and the neighbor's sister-in-law who came to help. There is a tradition in the countryside, once there are more guests in the family, the hostess accompanies the guests, the hostess will call a good sister-in-law, younger sister, cook for the guests, today what they have to do, is the authentic Ring County Dumpling Brand.
Perhaps usually, they will not bother like this, Wang Xiuying prepared a few kinds of kimchi a day in advance, put them on different plates, and prepared wine. This is the number of gifts for distinguished guests, and it is a great honor for us.
The kitchen, which is common in the northwestern earth stove, burns wood and can also burn crop straw. For the vast number of rural areas, it is simply unrealistic to change all to electricity or gas, "iron pot cooking is more fragrant" Although there is no corresponding scientific basis, people from the countryside seem to think so.
What intrigued the author was the bed on the window sill, made of pig iron, and the wooden pressure rods already had a thick paste.
"This is handed down from the ancestors, my grandfather bought this piece of land, this bed is the grandfather gave him grandpa, his grandfather gave him again, there are a hundred years ..."
I have seen heirloom jade and antiques, and the heirloom iron knot is really the first time.
When the performance next door came to an end, Wei Zongfu's sister-in-law began to warm the water and noodles. The author asked her whether the noodles were white or soba noodles, and the eldest lady hesitated: "White noodles, there are also soba noodles in the house, I'm afraid you can't eat them." ”
The eldest lady told the author: Before the electricity, here is still dependent on the sky to eat, compared to wheat, barley, buckwheat will be more drought-tolerant, now good, after the power can dig a deep well, in the particularly dry time can also pump water, so wheat planted more, buckwheat planted naturally less.
According to the Huanxian Dao love story, the origin of the noodles can be traced back to the ancient times: "Guangchengzi lived in the stone chamber of Kuntong Mountain (in present-day Pingliang City, Gansu Province), and the Yellow Emperor had long heard of his name, so he went to visit to explore the way to govern the country and maintain health. The Yellow Emperor asked Guangchengzi, "You have reached the peak in your study of the Tao of all things in the world, can you please teach me the true meaning of this aspect?" ”
At that time, Guang chengzi taught a volume of the Yellow Emperor's "Natural Classic", and invited the Yellow Emperor to eat together, Guang Chengzi swung his sword, cut a thick peach tree at the mouth of the bowl, hollowed out the straightest section in the middle of the trunk to leave the bottom, and used the brass master knife to drill a lot of small holes, holes the size of thick twine threads. The peach wood is then placed on the stove table pottery, and the dough is squeezed downward with a mallet to form a strip of strips, which fall into a pot of boiling water and cook. ”
He also suggested that the Yellow Emperor eat regularly to "reconcile the five elements and activate the tendons and connect the network", which is of great benefit to prolonging life and longevity, and the Yellow Emperor praised its unique flavor. The original meaning of "饸饸" should be "heluo", and with the passage of time, it has also derived the northwest flavor and the different characteristics of Henan Yu County, Hebei Jin County, Inner Mongolia Wulanchabu, Shanxi Quwo and other different characteristics of the dumpling noodles.
It is very laborious to press the noodles, and the kneaded dough is placed in an iron cylinder, covered with round iron sheets, and squeezed out the noodles by brute force by pressing down on the wooden pole. In order to save effort, the household baking bed needs to be equipped with a one-meter-long afterburner rod, and even two bricks need to be placed on the side of the pot to support the stable baking bed.
For the people of Huanxian County, who are mainly pasta, pressing the noodles seems to be a simpler thing than operating an electric noodle press.
Wang Xiuying told the author: "Generally speaking, when there are fewer people in the family, they will press the dumplings, do it fast, and use the noodle rolling machine when there are more people." "They're not used to rolling noodles by hand.
In the round iron barrel the size of an enamel teacup, two small bowls of noodles can be pressed out at a time. If you have a large amount of food, you may also eat it all at once.
Under the pretext of taking a life photo of their brothers, a large group of children sat together and ate the dumplings. Wei Zongfu was a little too careless to go: "What is this called?" We eat it often, and you come from afar, and it's made for you. I'm in a poor and remote area, the teachers come over, there's nothing to entertain, eat bowl noodles, you see this..."
After another push, the brothers were embarrassed to eat the noodles.
When we left, these simple northwestern men said goodbye to us in their own way.
We all know that in such a remote place, we don't know if there is a chance to come again in this life, and the people here don't know if they will have a chance to see each other again in this life.
Wei Zongfu and his "Xingsheng Class" division brothers specially picked out a wonderful shadow puppet play and performed it for us hurried passers-by, Wang Xiuying and her sister-in-law in the village, using this stick that has been used for hundreds of years to make lamb dumpling noodles for us, for them who rely on shadow puppet performances, whose monthly income is not more than a thousand yuan, they all melt hospitality and enthusiasm into this bowl of noodles with a strong mutton flavor...