I know that when you see this picture below, you must be reminiscing about the burnt wheat in the countryside when you were a child.
When I was a child, my father worked in a factory dozens of miles away from home, responsible for logistics. For some reason, my father did not have a double holiday, and worked in the factory almost every day, only occasionally taking a day off to go home.
So, every year during the wheat harvest season, my mother led me, my sister and my sister to harvest the wheat in the wheat field with a sickle. At that time, there was no such large wheat harvester as now, and the only thing that counted as mechanical equipment was a semi-automatic wheat beater. At that time, the wheat beating mechanism was simple to build, and the wheat with the rod that was artificially filled in by the wind leaf was broken, and then the broken wheat stalk, wheat leaf and other debris were blown out from one side by the strong wind, and the wheat stalk and wheat leaf were artificially piled into a wheat stack. Then we clean up the wheat scattered with various debris and dry it for storage.
Because harvesting wheat is a heavy agricultural task. In order to arouse the enthusiasm of my three brothers and sisters, my mother made a delicious dish for us before harvesting wheat - roasted wheat. The most suitable time to burn wheat is when the wheat is slightly yellow, too yellow to chew, too green to burn fragrant. Usually my sister and I go to the wheat field to pick ears of wheat, and the ears of wheat should have more than 20 centimeters of wheat stalks in case we hold them when burning wheat. A few of us usually bring our original pockets of fertilizer in order to eat more roasted wheat. My mother would also tell me not to pick too much before I went. But every time no matter how much our brother and sister picked, my mother smiled and said nothing. When it was time to make a fire to cook, we would open the lid on the coal stove that was still popular, and quietly stand in front of the coal stove to carefully cook wheat for us.
Before burning the wheat, the mother will first align the wheat ear with the root of the wheat ear, so that it can be burned evenly, and it is not easy to burn the wheat pole during the process of burning wheat. The mother then took the ear of wheat that had been divided into small bundles and sent it to the top of the fire, and with the sound of "silk", the thorns on the ears of wheat were ignited at once. At this time, the mother will blow out the flame on the ear of wheat, so that the fire will not burn the wheat too scorched. The ears of wheat that have no thorns are then sent to the fire and withdrawn when the ears of wheat are on fire. After firing so many times, when the ears of wheat are slightly charred, you can change to a new ear of wheat.
Because in the process of burning wheat, some ears of wheat are inevitably caused by uneven heat and the wheat stalk is broken, and these ears of wheat will be put aside separately. And these broken ears of wheat that have just been put aside are hot because of the high temperature, our hungry brothers and sisters will carefully rub these ears of wheat with their hands until the wheat husk and the wheat grain are separated. In the voice of his mother's "be careful not to get right", he took the first bite of roasted wheat of the year.
Finally, more ears of wheat were burned by the mother.
The mother put the burned ears of wheat into the prepared dustpan, holding the dustpan with one hand and rubbing the ear of wheat slightly harder with the other hand. And we squatted next to it and picked up the clean grains with our hands and put them in our mouths, chewing the caramelized grains with force. After a few tens of minutes, the mother kneaded the burned ears of wheat into wheat grains several times, and then found a clean place to dry these clean grains for a while. At this time, the mother, who had finally finished her busyness and paused, squeezed out the wheat grains that were sandwiched in the cracks of the dustpan with her hands and put them into her mouth, which was considered to be her own craftsmanship. After the temperature of the burned wheat grains has dropped, the mother will put them in the prepared plastic bag and store them. In the next few days, these black and mushy grains became the scorched delicacy shared by the three of us.
Now that I am a father, every year when the wheat is ripe, I will take time to go to the wheat field to pick some ears of wheat and eat them raw or burned. Although life is far beyond before, the fragrance of wheat grains and caramelization will instantly come to mind. The sons of various retailers who had only long been accustomed to tasting a few grains of wheat with anticipation shook their heads in disappointment and walked away.
And I can only helplessly taste my wheat grains and childhood behind my son's back.