Laiyang Focus: Rhubarb clams in the South China Sea
Text / Sun Rui
Laiyang Wulong River estuary, the sand soft tide flat, twice a day at low tide, can withdraw from thousands of acres of mudflats.
This beach at the confluence of the estuary and the Yellow Sea, rich in plankton, the abundant production of rhubarb clams, large, delicious taste, high quality, has become an old "business card" of T-shaped Bay, favored.
As the saying goes, cold water clams hot water clams. Around May Day, the sea heats up, and clams are also in the breeding season, so it is the fattest time. After the rain of the valley to the summer, the rhubarb clam meat tastes the most delicious, the shell is thin and the meat is more, the flesh is soft, the entrance is smooth, so the value is doubled.
At low tide, some professional clams near the beach, holding clams and carrying baskets, in accordance with the law of the tide, enthusiastically come to the beach to "treasure hunting" and collecting nature's free gifts.
Professional clam diggers are very hard, bending over, like peanuts, constantly waving shovels, about two or three hours a tide, you can dig a full load. When the tide rises, pick it up to the shore, where the buyers have been waiting for a long time.
Rhubarb clam scientific name clams, perennial Wulong River has a large amount of fresh water injection, the sea water is salty and suitable, the bait is rich, the coating is mainly based on sediment, so clams grow fast, the individual is large, the meat is tender and fat, the color is white and fresh, so it is named long clam. According to the "Laiyang County Chronicle" record: Yang County, Cave Fang thirty kilometers of coastline, grow a clam, mussel genus, narrow and long like the middle finger, flat, its shell is light egg yellow, long flat square shape, the flesh is tougher than the bamboo clam, although the hue is not as elegant as the bamboo clam, the taste is also delicious. Bamboo clam shells are long, thin, thin and brittle, inhabiting the sediment of shallow seas. Clams and clams belong to the bivalve family Bamboo clams, the shell is smooth and shiny, yellow-brown, the shell is very brittle and thin, because its shell is closed like a bamboo tube, hence the name.
I remember when I was a child in the countryside, there was a neighbor in my hometown, I called him the fourth brother, every time the production team stopped working on a rainy day, he would find a coat, wear a bucket hat, carry a clam basket, carry a special clam to the beach to pick clams.
The fourth brother's lift is the same as that used in the countryside, but it is very short, curved handle, like a small hoe, can be bent over and planed, once lifted down, it can be dug to the end, clams in the mud, dirty, out of the mud without staining, revealing the "true face of Lushan".
The fourth brother is not tall, simple and kind, and every time he picks clams back, the small basket is full. He was reluctant to eat it himself, and sent it from house to house for the neighbors to taste.
At that time, the rural areas were poor in materials, sweet potato cakes were mainly for rice, and no one's children were exceptions, and there was a serious lack of oil and water.
The first time I saw clams, flattened, yellowish, like fingers. I remember my mother washing a dozen clams, grabbing a handful of salt and putting them in the sink slowly, letting them spit out the dirt in their stomachs, soaking for about half a day, adding some water to the pot to boil, and waiting for clams to open the fan surface, revealing the white flesh. The mother was afraid of sand in the meat, so she pulled the clam meat away and washed it several times in a row with clam soup until it was not cooked. Ran instructed me to pick a handful of four season beans from my own place and use them to open the brine soup. After the beans are cut and fried, when it is about to come out of the pot, stir the clam meat and egg liquid that have been cut into sections and drizzle in the dish.
Then, put some sweet potato noodles in the noodle jar, knead them into a ball, beat them with vegetables into small noodle soup shreds, put them on a curtain and steam them in a pot, and then come out of the pot in about 20 minutes.
Sweet sweet potato noodle soup, sticky, soft, with a spoonful of brine, smooth and slippery, delicious taste, lips and teeth left fragrant. The clam meat was tender, white, slippery, fresh, and the meal was so sparse that the younger siblings drank one by one and sweated profusely.
I was the eldest in the family, my father worked in the county, and when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, I began to follow my fourth brother to the sea to learn to pick clams.
Clams are also very learned, growing deep in sludge, and the depth of latent varies from season to season: summers are warm and shallower, and winters are cold and lurk deeper.
Usually, the depth of latent is about 5 to 6 times the body length, and the deepest can reach 40 centimeters, which is about 10 times the body length. If you see two small holes on the beach that are not far apart, and you can spray a little sea water by touching it with a long hook, then there must be clams underneath. These two small holes have clams, where two water pipes protrude. The size of the clam can be deduced from the distance between the two small holes, and its body length is about 2.5 to 3 times the distance between the two holes. As long as you master some essentials, you will be very rewarded.
My cousin is the head chef of a super five-star hotel in Qingdao, and there is a program on CCTV on "China on the Tip of the Tongue", and my cousin shows the apricot abalone mushroom soy bean sprouts and clams. Directions: Choose apricot abalone mushrooms, soybean sprouts, clams, ginger slices, and a little green onion. Salt and cooking oil to taste. Cut the washed apricot abalone mushrooms into slices. Stir-fry in oil, add ginger slices, sauté until fragrant, add washed soybean sprouts and stir-fry well. Pour in the chopped apricot abalone mushrooms and sauté for a while. Pour some water into the pot, cover and bring to a boil. Uncover the lid, mix well with the processed clams, put it in a soup bowl and sprinkle with green onions. This dish is full of color and flavor, and the taste buds are on the verge of triggering.
Clam meat is delicious, thin shell, delicious, tender meat, rich in nutrition has become the best in the sea, and is welcomed by the majority of consumers. Every time I go to the hotel, I will order a clam with original juice, eat it tirelessly, and enjoy the "clam" for more than 40 years.
It's May Day again, and the hometown "clam friends" began to ask me to say that T-shaped Bay has opened its heart and welcomes "home".
This natural "treasure" of the South China Sea is like a magnet stone, attracting many sea-catchers to come here.
Whether it is clambing or touching crabs, in fact, everyone experiences the warm pulse feeling of the waves chasing the tiptoes, experiences the warmth of the love for the hometown, and tastes the hometown soul that cannot be discarded in the bones.
【About author:Sun Rui, a native of Laiyang, Shandong, graduated from secondary school.] He has been engaged in news and propaganda work for more than 20 years, and thousands of news articles and hundreds of prose works have been adopted by people's dailys, Qilu evening news, Yantai evening news, Qingdao morning post and other media. 】
[Laiyang Focus, original works, without permission, shall not be published, infringement must be investigated.] 】