As soon as the little cold passed, the fire in the village of Wuyuan Mountain in Jiangxi Province was booming.
Even more powerful than the fire is the stove fire in the villagers' kitchen, and the pots and pans of each household begin to smell the new year.
The days of boiling rice candy in the winter in the village are the best days in the minds of the villagers. Mother's boiling rice candy spatula was taken from Grandma's hand, and the rice candy she carefully boiled was white and sweet. The sweetness of rice candy is not comparable to sugar cane, sweet cane, sweet potato, or dates and persimmons.
In the village, rice sugar is commonly known as sugar seeds, or maltose. Together with pumpkin seeds, wheat crisps, fried rice flakes, snowballs, and vegetable kway teow, it enriches the kunzi box for the Spring Festival of the farmhouse over the years. When my mother was ready to boil rice candy, she had already bred malt with rice, and then she started to brew rice and steam rice. As for how malt and glutinous rice are fermented into syrup, it must be the mystery of time and physics. When boiling sugar, the mother generally uses a high fire, once the stirring spatula is held in her hand, as if by magic, first slowly, not hurriedly, and later, as the temperature in the pot rises, and the syrup is bubbling, the speed of stirring is getting faster and faster, and the circle is clockwise. The mother put down the spatula, the right hand used chopsticks to pick up the syrup, and the left hand immediately used the thumb and index finger to pinch, to determine the thickness of the syrup by the degree of silk. As soon as the syrup comes out of the pot, pull the sugar strips, cut the sugar seeds, shovel the sugar seeds, stir-fry the rice noodles, mix and stir-fry the rice... All procedures became orderly in the hands of the mother. When paying attention, the mother also takes advantage of the heat of the pot, kneads the stir-fried sesame seeds and peanut crushed, then pulls the long strips, and then uses a kitchen knife to cut them into grains, about half an inch long, which is very tempting.
In my memory, the first to smell the smell of rice candy was always the neighbor's teenage companions, who came like a gust of wind and sat by the stove in front of the hall. When my mother saw me, she asked me to bring the rice candy that had been hung on the bamboo plaque. Before her mother could finish speaking, she turned around and picked up the fried rice and sesame seeds, and she went to the kitchen to make fried rice slices by boiling sugar in a hot pot on the hot stove. One by one, the teenage partners grabbed the rice candy in their hands, ran and made a fuss, and scattered at once. Suddenly, the village air seemed to be filled with joyful laughter, and of course, the sweet smell of rice candy. Think about it, which country boy will have less of a handful of rice candy in his memory?
At this time, the snow on the summit of Mount Dayan and Tianma Mountain had not yet melted, and the wind was blowing cold on the face. Looking at the sky, it seems that another winter snow is brewing. As soon as I arrived in the village, I was stopped by Aunt Plum Blossom at the entrance of the alley. She told me that the old man called yesterday and said that the unit was busy with work, and he couldn't get out of his body at the end of the year, and he might not be able to go home for the New Year.
The old man that Aunt Meihua said, that is, her young son, was also the young companion I grew up with. After graduating from university, he went to a northern provincial capital to start a family and worked as a doctor in a public hospital.
Aunt Meihua rubbed her apron with her hands and said, "No, I hurriedly boiled a pot of rice candy, and I want you to take it to the county town to help send it." ”
I advised: "Auntie, now the city is full of supermarkets, there are many candies all over the country, there is no need to send it back and forth, it costs postage." ”
Aunt Meihua took a grain of rice candy from the pocket of her apron and stuffed it into my hand, saying, "You taste it, my craftsmanship is no worse than your mother's." Besides, this is the clay dumplings I made by myself, can I buy it in the supermarket in the city? ”
Aunt Meihua actually asked me a question. I quickly put the rice candy in my mouth, still the thick taste of the teenager Tatsumi—sweet but not greasy, crunchy, wrapped in the fragrance of glutinous rice.
Back in the county seat of The Stinging House, I quickly handed Aunt Meihua's rice candy to the courier brother. Seeing the small box electric car marked with the word express gradually drifting away, I seemed to see a bag of rice candy with the taste of Wuyuan countryside, following the courier brother to run in the streets and alleys of the city, destined to meet the deceased in a corner of his hometown.
Source: Guangming Daily
Editor-in-charge: Jiang Ganquan, Zhou Ying