Text/Zhang Jiawei
Source/Reader Magazine Issue 4, 2020
You only look at Mr. Lao She's "Camel Xiangzi" and "Tea House", you may not be able to imagine that such an old Beijing-style gentleman actually stayed in the Ocean.
Some gentlemen may have been in China all their lives, but they are very Western-style in terms of throwing their hands and feet and making up sentences. Mr. Lao She has been to England in a serious way, but the authentic Beijing dialect has not been forgotten for a lifetime.
His pen eats food, too.
"I was born in Beiping, where the people, things, scenery, taste, and the sound of selling sour plum soup and apricot tea are all familiar to me. As soon as I closed my eyes, my Peiping was completely like a vividly colored picture floating in my heart. ”
Like in "Shoko the Camel", Shoko is the coachman. Shoko saved up money for three years and bought her first car; she was so happy that she made the car day her birthday.
In order to live this big day, the first trader must pull a decently dressed person, and then, should have a meal at the best rice stall, such as hot baked bread with fried lamb.
Shoko was captured and escaped back, and the description of eating old tofu at the head of the bridge was wonderful:
Vinegar, soy sauce, pepper oil, minced leeks, scalded by the hot snow-white tofu, emitted a fragrant taste, so fragrant that Shoko wanted to hold his breath; holding the bowl, looking at the dark green leek dust, his hand could not stop shivering. After taking a bite, the tofu boiled a path in his body; he added two small spoonfuls of chili oil to his own hands. After a bowl was eaten, his sweat was soaking through the waistband of his pants.
He half-closed his eyes and handed the bowl out: "Another bowl." This bowl of piping hot tofu saved Shoko' life.
Shoko started pulling the car again, still desperate. Houtou Xiangzi was calculated, lost his errands, and went to Lao Cheng's house to borrow. Lao Cheng invited him to breakfast, paid him to clean the yard, and brought two bowls of sweet porridge with an unknown number of horseshoe cakes and small tar fried ghosts - that is, today's fritters.
This specification is quite high: old Beijing pays attention to pancake dumplings with casserole japonica rice porridge. Sweet pulp porridge is porridge with soy milk and sugar added to it, which is more advanced. Horseshoe baked cake is very heavy, much more delicate than the usual coarse baked cake.
Later, Shoko was half forced to marry Tiger Lady and eat a serious meal. Tiger Lady made him a distilled steamed bun, boiled cabbage with meatballs, a plate of tiger skin jelly, a plate of sauce radish - boiled cabbage is very fragrant.
Such a meal, Shoko also admitted to eating delicious, hot, but "eating is not fragrant, eat can not sweat."
This sentence is very described.
Image source: Panorama view
When tiger girl died, Shoko fell for a while, and decided to rise up, or first eat the above to find an attitude: eat something that is not easy to swallow, as the beginning of a hard-working new life.
So he bought ten fried buns, all of which were cabbage gangs, and swallowed them. Later, to celebrate the beginning of a new life, he bought a frozen persimmon to eat— very simple, but very sweet.
At the end of the novel, Shoko falls and decides to ignore the future and only want to do it now. So he decided to wear a ragged coat and eat the flapjack roll sauce meat in his stomach - in the end, what made Shoko feel solid was also the flapjack roll sauce meat.
It starts with lamb in the hot pancake and ends with the flaky roll sauce. In the middle of the best time, you can eat tiger skin jelly, boiled cabbage, meatballs. This truth, which is close to the people's lives, is the most meticulous and remarkable place in Mr. Lao She's pen.
Mr. Wang Zengqi recalled several details of Mr. Lao She, which are quite interesting when combined.
He said that Mr. Lao She invited people to dinner, and he made his own side dishes, intending to let everyone taste the authentic Beijing flavor. The mustard mounds are excellent. Once, I also ordered a box dish: ham, duck, belly, mouth strips and other slices, but they were all exquisite.
The boiled cabbage was served, and Mr. Lao She raised his chopsticks: "Come here!" That's the really good stuff! ”
This sentence makes people feel like they are like seeing people and hearing their voices. If you remember the scene where Shoko eats boiled cabbage made by Tiger Girl, you must not help but laugh out loud.
The last story comes from Mr. Lao She's self-narration. This thing, and his novels, and his people, had to be put together to read.
It is said that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when Mr. Lao She was in Chongqing, he cared very much for a small flower pig raised by Mr. Wu Zuxuan. One day when he saw that the little flower pig was sick, Mr. Lao She cared for him and blindly came up with an idea: Feed quinine? Eat herbs? Finally, a veterinarian came and cured the pigs.
Mr. Lao She was very happy, and he declared to Mr. Wu: In winter, score a few pounds of bacon. I just don't know how the little flower pig feels? "You're obviously feeding my body!"
Author: Jiawei Zhang, Source: The Reader Magazine, No. 4, 2020.
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