Luminous cup canned conch

After nearly 50 years of searching for that kind of canned conch, I finally thought it was time to stop.

Today, I'm probably going to stop searching for a canned conch for almost 50 years.

In the 1960s and 1970s, canned meat was probably more delicious than restaurant chefs cooking in the classroom, especially in the western desert of Inner Mongolia, where I spent my youth.

In 1971, I left Shanghai and came to Ulanbu and Desert in Inner Mongolia to become a zhiqing of the construction corps, with a monthly allowance of 5 yuan for the first year, and an annual monthly allowance of 1 yuan for the next two years.

At that time, there was a shortage of meat, and the Zhiqing who worked all day especially wanted to eat meat, but the meat in the company's room was as scarce as the stars in the sky, so they had to use the allowance to buy it themselves. But in the regimental commissary, the only one kind of canned pork is 1.8 yuan, and I can't buy 3 of them on a monthly allowance. Fortunately, there is no invincible road, here is a kind of tinplate conch canned by Shanghai Meilin Canning Factory, 5 dimes 1. Pulled open, there were two pieces of dark red whole conch meat inside, very crispy, soft and hard to chew like duck gizzard, but completely seafood flavor. I buy one a week, taste the taste of the mountains and the sea in the midst of hunger, and also free up a little balance for scheduling. Unfortunately, this canned food became extinct a year later, and I never tasted conch again in the next ten years.

Ten years later, I was already working in Beijing, and my first business trip was to Yantai, Shandong, walked into the farmers' market, and saw fresh conch at a glance. At that time, I was very excited, bought a net pocket for several pounds, brought it back to Beijing to put boiling water, and made up my mind to eat a full meal to solve the regret of ten years of acacia!

Cooking failed completely, and the cooked conch was so tough that my teeth could handle it. Then go to the restaurant and see the chef's craftsmanship. After tasting it around the capital, I learned that cooking conch is a sharp blade to challenge seafood chefs. In the decades since, I have often looked for restaurants to cook conch, but unfortunately there is nothing softer and more delicious than the Merlin factory.

Now that we have entered the Internet era, we have recently discovered the list of goods from Merlin Canning Factory on the Internet, but unfortunately there is no conch figure. However, a conch can trademark finally popped up on the screen, and it looked like it belonged to Yantai Canning Factory. Think about the right way, immediately issue an order to the next can.

Yantai's canned conch arrived in two days, and it was immediately opened for tasting. Full of chili oil, half of the canned chili peppers, made into a spicy raw dish, as if from Sichuan. What pains me is that the snail meat is tough and chewed with acid. A few days ago, I had reluctantly tasted conch on the beidaihe waterfront, but still failed.

After searching for nearly half a century, I finally thought it was time to stop.

Everything is changing, from the masseter muscles to the teeth, to the taste buds, and from the "food environment" of the year to the present, it is good to have been looking for 50 years.

What should be done now is to record this search. Instead of looking for that taste, it is better to get on the train, return to Ulaanbuhe, go to the great desert that sprinkled my youth, stand on the land that was cultivated, and pay tribute to the youth that has passed away! (Qianjiang)