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During the epidemic period, the whole people stayed at home, and many mothers after the 70s and 80s posted on their own baking and dishes in the group and circle of friends.
Making food for children and loved ones seems to be a household chore that mothers of different eras enjoy tirelessly.
The 80-year-old mother looked at the delicacies made by her granddaughter-in-law with a bread machine and an oven, and praised them one after another.
However, in my eyes, my mother's generation was more intelligent and capable, more remarkable, and in the mid-1980s, when they were not rich in materials, they used a pair of skillful hands and the wisdom of life to make a lot of delicious food that has always made my heart miss. (Want to see the wonderful article written by the author of this article, Teacher Lilu, last time?) Welcome to click on the following links: 1. Warm heart: the songs that grandma sang and the nonsense that I spoke have melted into my life early; 2. A Post-90s Zhengzhou Flood Rescue Record of Xuchang: Ordinary as you, but also a hero)
The first thing that is recalled must be the change of egg.
I remember that the raw materials used by my mother to make eggs can be obtained from local materials outside my hometown. Many kilns for mining lime in Beishan, rice bran or sawdust, yellow clay, etc., are available everywhere.
At that time, my grandmother kept a hundred and ten layer chickens in captivity with wire cages behind the family home of the party school, and in addition to accumulating them and selling them to the food company, the eggs collected by the family every day were also piled up into hills.
The virtuous and intelligent mother of the family learns to change eggs with the master who sells eggs in the market, one can be stored for a long time to eat at home, and then it can be given to relatives and friends to enjoy, and the excess is sold to a small restaurant nearby, which can sell a better price than fresh eggs.
When my mother became an egg, I became her little helper.
First, wash the eggs one by one and set aside to dry.
The lump of quicklime is then blanched with a small amount of water to turn into a powdered slaked lime, followed by a screening of rice bran or sawdust.
Finally, after mixing the yellow clay dug up from the northern suburbs of the city with water, the hydrated lime powder, chaff or sawdust, each of which is divided into three equal parts, stacked together with a little salt and alkali noodles, with water and mud paste.
Next, with a good mud paste, the washed fresh eggs are wrapped one by one, layer by layer in a thick porcelain jar with a deep belly and round belly, covered with sacks or straw, and then sealed the cylinder mouth with a lid.
If you want to change the number of eggs, you want to speed up the production, you can also add lime soaking water to the yellow clay and mix it into a paste, use the fence to put the eggs into the batch to dip it, fish out and then put it in the chaff to roll, so that the eggs are covered with chaff and stored in the tank.
If it's summer, the egg turns out after a week of high temperatures.
Take out the eggs in the jar, knock off the mud grain bran shell wrapped on the outside, wash and peel off the eggshell, a fragrance is seductive, the egg white inside is transparent golden yellow, amber-like, crystal clear, soft fragrance Q bomb, smooth and tender, with wisps of beautiful pine flower pattern, bite can see the egg yolk into a fragrant egg juice, flowing honey-like mellow.
Egg changing is a local specialty created by Henan people. The most refreshing thing is to cut the cucumber into pieces, peel the egg and use a knife to cut everything into two or four cloves of platter, dot the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic paste, small ground sesame oil, cut some green onions and sprinkle it on it, which is both appetizing and cool.
If it is winter, it is enough for the egg to become ten days and a half months.
On a cold morning, cut the eggs into cubes, put them in glutinous rice to make a bowl of skinned egg lean porridge, and drink a mouthful of which is both fragrant and nourishing, and the nutrition is still very rich.
Southerners love to eat peel eggs and pine flower eggs, not only the taste is not as good as the Henan people to do the eggs, in the production process because of the addition of yellow dan powder, will make the eggs and pine blossom eggs leaded, peeled there is a pungent smell of stinky lime, not pure green pollution-free health food, only the mother herself with the soil method to make eggs, after peeling the golden brown clear, the color is attractive, absolutely zero added assured food.
Now many merchants in order to save time and reduce costs, the use of lead-free egg powder, compared to the previous home mother soil processing, less than a little taste.
In addition to changing eggs, the wheat harvest season is commonly known as the "wheat mouth period" in those days, the mother will also pickle salted duck eggs.
The yellow glue mud with water, salt stirred into mud wrapped duck eggs, put on the lid of the jar to seal for about ten days, take out the mud and wash it, steam it in the basket or add water to the pot to cook, it has become a delicacy that nourishes the yin and moisturizes the lungs, replenishes the blood and strengthens the bones.
At that time, I was in middle school, I was growing up, and the strongest feeling every day was hunger, and after coming home from school at noon, I broke open a freshly steamed white steamed bun, sandwiched the peeled salted duck eggs into it, and ate it soft and fragrant, that picture of a roaring, choking throat, really like a tiger like a wolf.
When I was a child, my spleen and stomach were not good, and I had no appetite when the weather was hot, so I just liked to eat tomato and egg noodles that looked like appetite and easy to digest after eating.
At that time, there was no greenhouse cultivation, so that I could eat tomatoes in winter, my mother did not know from whom, learned to make homemade ketchup.
In the summer, when the teacher's mother is on summer vacation, one morning she will go to the market, buy a large basket of fresh tomatoes, wash and dry when she returns, and then take out dozens of glass bottles used for hospital infusion, brush the inside with a small brush, steam on the cage for 20 minutes to disinfect, and wipe the water with dry gauze one by one.
The tomatoes are cut into small cubes one by one, and put into steamed empty glass bottles little by little, this process is more time-consuming and laborious, because the bottle mouth is as small as a bean, and the diced tomatoes are not easy to stuff into, and you need to use bamboo chopsticks to pound the bottles one by one.
Fill the bottle with diced tomatoes, arrange it neatly in the pot, steam it for 30 to 40 minutes, remove it and close the rubber lid on the glass bottle while it is hot, insert it with a needle into the rubber cap to deflate, and then place it in a cool and dry place to store. I remember that at that time, there was no refrigerator in the county town, and my mother placed the glass bottles containing ketchup on the windowsill of the shade of the north window. When you eat it, you open a bottle and use it to scramble eggs for cooking or making noodles, or even dip steamed buns to eat, which is the original tomato sauce without any additives, which perfectly preserves the fresh taste of summer tomatoes.
Earlier saw a short video of sharing handmade homemade tomato sauce, is to wash and peel the tomatoes, cut into cubes into a wall breaker and stir into a juice, pour into the pot to make a sauce, add rock sugar, salt, white vinegar in the process of boiling, boil into the sauce and pour into a glass bottle to seal, at that time, how did the mothers not think of making it this way, but also saved me from returning from school, helping her to fill the diced tomatoes in the infusion bottle with a small belly, the bamboo chopsticks worked hard to pound, poke and poke, and make me upset.
My mother woke me up with a sentence: "At that time, who had ever seen a wall-breaking machine, even the juicer was a foreign thing, very rare." ”
Yes, the living standards and quality of ordinary people for more than thirty years have really changed dramatically, no matter how rich material they are today, the way of living and working is diverse, we must not forget the past, forget those in the hard years, the hardships and love of our relatives for us.
When my sister first got married, I liked to go to her house because her mother-in-law, Aunt Fengying, was hospitable and had a good cooking skill.
The kelp meat noodles made by Aunt Feng Ying are the most fragrant and sharp noodles I have ever eaten in the world.
Not only does she cook delicious food, but she also has a secret weapon that can help her appetite and relieve her stomach and help digestion. That is the sugar garlic cloves that Feng Ying Aunt pickled by hand.
Every time I went to my sister's house as a guest, I would eat Feng Ying's pickled sugar garlic. Whenever she smiled and squinted to open the lid of the pickled sugar garlic, a rich aroma penetrated her nose, and the aroma was mixed with the aroma of sauce and wine, vinegar and garlic, mellow and delicate, and the sweet silk of sugar, which made people feel appetizing.
Look at the plate of sugar garlic that Aunt Feng Ying used the bamboo chopsticks that do not stick in the water to fish out of the sugar garlic tank, one by one, full like red peonies with buds, the crystal garlic skin is white with some sauce red, smelling seductively, eating to the mouth is extremely crisp, completely without the pungency of raw garlic, but through the slightly fermented kind of fruit sweetness.
Once, when I went to my sister's house, I saw That Aunt Feng Ying was picking a large basket of new garlic that she had just bought from the market, and in the kitchen was a large celadon vat for cleaning and preparing pickled sugar and garlic, which was larger than the bucket on the water dispenser now.
I asked her why she pickled so much garlic every year, knowing that there were only four or five people in their family, and she smiled and did not speak, only caring about the work in her busy hands.
My sister said: "This is not enough for the family to eat every year, my mother has to give it to the old neighbors, old colleagues and relatives every year after the pickle." ”
After the death of Aunt Feng Ying, who was almost ninety years old, I first felt extremely sad that I would never be able to eat her old man's pickled sugar garlic again.
There is no such wonderful taste in the world, and there is no longer the intimacy and warmth of holding a bowl and walking a few steps to give food to your neighbors.
Now, when I get together for dinner with my sister's family during the New Year's Festival, I often regret that I didn't use dim sum before, and learned from Aunt Feng Ying how to pickle sugar and garlic.
I only remember that she said that the things used in pickled sugar garlic are very exquisite, and the new garlic unearthed and harvested three days before the summer solstice should be used as the material, and the pickled sugar garlic is not early or late, not tender and not old, and the taste is the most crisp and sweet.
Although I did not learn to pickle sugar garlic, but every year in early summer, I like to buy back a few large handfuls of garlic from the market, put them in the jar, add salt and vinegar to marinate, two sticks before each meal, cut into inch-long small pieces with a knife, both seasoned and degreased, which year does not eat for a month in succession, I feel that summer has a lot less taste.
When my grandparents were alive, they often pickled a few jars of snow, sour cucumbers, and sour yellow cabbage every autumn, and they didn't worry about eating vegetables all winter.
Especially the sour yellow cabbage pickled with cabbage, used to make soup noodles, taste sour and refreshing appetizers, wake up the spleen and refresh, especially suitable for cold and cold when there is no appetite to eat, even soup with noodles whirring to eat a bowl, cover the quilt to sleep a sweat, wake up light and healthy, eat Ma Ma xiang, illness all disappeared.
After marriage, my husband likes to eat capers. I bought a large glass jar with a large belly and a wide mouth and a cover at the local product shop at the door, according to the practice of authentic Sichuan sour cowpea on the recipe, the long bean horn bought back was washed, dried with water, the roots were removed, salted in the water, peppercorns were boiled on high heat and opened for cold use, the cowpea was put into the altar, poured into the boiled juice, added high liquor, covered with a lid, and the edge of the lid could be sealed with cold boiling water, so that the inside of the jar was completely insulated from the external air, ensuring sterility, and could be eaten after half a month of pickling.
Capers are chopped and then add sesame oil, which can be eaten raw alone, or diced red peppers can be fried as pickles, especially with capers cut into diced stir-fried minced meat, whether it is with steamed buns or rice, or made with brine poured on the noodles, all are sour and appetizing, delicious to the chopsticks.
In this way, you can also wash the cabbage, peel it into pieces and make pickled cabbage. Before each meal, two slices are cut into slices and eaten raw with sesame oil, which is convenient and delicious.
At that time, there was a colleague in the family courtyard of the unit, the old family was from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the army was assigned to Zhengzhou after the transfer of jobs, very good at life, every year pickled a variety of vegetables, her pickled sour cabbage, comparable to Korean kimchi, on weekends often come to my house to give me to taste. Later I asked her how to make it, and she also taught me how to pickle old leeks.
Pick and wash the leeks, dry the water, add water, white vinegar, rock sugar, peppercorns in the pot, boil over high heat and let it cool, cut off the part of the leek head, cut the leek into inch segments, the back leaves are not used, the millet pepper is diced, the washed ginger is cut into ginger shreds, add leeks, add salt, stir well and marinate for two hours, put into a dry glass jar, add the cool seasoning water, add a little high liquor into it, after ten days it is pickled with crisp and tender taste, very under rice, add soy sauce and sesame oil when eating, it is estimated that the Central Plains and northerners Rarely eaten, she said that in the south this dish is very common.
I remember when I was a child, my grandmother and I lived in the countryside of Yuxi, my grandmother was a hard-working person, the yard planted a lot of vegetables, my impression is that the wall is crawling with eyebrow bean vines, summer blooming full of pink or pure white flowers, a cluster of flowers, like a small butterfly fluttering wings, after the flower is full of bulging pods, like a curved and beautiful crescent.
Every year in late autumn, the family can harvest a lot of eyebrow beans and crisp raw green radish. Grandma would process them and save them for winter eating.
The way to preserve the beans is to blanch them in boiling water, dry them, store them, and soak them in water when eating, the taste is comparable to fresh. Preservation of white radish is to slice or cut radish, with needle and thread skewered up to hang on the clothesline, or thin spread on the mat, dry water, the original crisp raw radish slices or radish strips, it shrinks and curls up, at this time it is placed in a bamboo basket, it has become the proverbial radish willow, when eating in winter, first foam with water, a bit similar to the appearance and taste of dried southern bamboo shoots, whether it is fried with large meat or peppers, or added to the stewed vegetables, very strong, into the taste, both plant unique fragrance, There is also the taste and temperament of the meat slices.
Nowadays, all kinds of fresh vegetables are available throughout the year, but Grandma and grandparents and Aunt Feng Ying are long gone. Every time I think of them, I think of the delicious food I have eaten, maybe this is the original intention of parenting, the people of the previous generation always hide the unspoken love in three meals a day, one meal and one vegetable...
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