Author: Wu Zhao
Reluctant, can't put down, dare not love the hometown "small dish"
Hefei people like to eat small dishes. When eating in a restaurant, when serving staple food, it is customary to ask the waiter in the restaurant to serve one or several small dishes. A few years ago, in the development of the division of investment, often go to the field on business, once in the south of the business trip, during dinner, colleagues asked the waiter whether there are small dishes, the waiter does not understand what is called "small dishes", after explaining clearly, the waiter replied "no".
The "small dish" in Hefei dialect is pickles. There are many kinds of small dishes in Xiaoxu Village, which can be roughly divided into three categories according to the method of production.
The first category is pickled side dishes. Garlic, garlic seedlings, shallots, beans, radishes, knife beans, lentils, winter mustard, sherry, leeks, peppers, ginger, lettuce, vegetable melons and other leafy and rhizome vegetables are commonly used materials for making small dishes.
Each house has several terracotta altars, varying in size, for pickling side dishes. The big altar pickled winter mustard greens, snow lily, small altar pickled beans, leeks and other dishes. Toon is also pickled, a toon produced on one's own toon tree. There is a wild garlic, known to the people of Xiaoxu Village as "small garlic", which grows in the field, digs up the roots, and is also delicious after washing and pickling. Too fine, too small garlic, a little trouble when picking and washing.
The second category is sauces and pickles. There are two kinds of sauces, one is fava bean paste, the other is water-ground chili sauce, and there is no soybean sauce that many places have. Fava bean paste, known as "sauce" in Xiaoxu Village, used to be more homemade. Fava beans are dried fava beans that need to be peeled, and although they have been soaked in water for a long time, the shell is still difficult to peel. When I lived in Xiaoxu Village, I peeled the broad beans used to make sauce with my cousins every year, and my hands hurt. In the summer of 1981, I went to Dingyuan Zhangqiao with my father, and I heard that Zhangqiao people used soybeans to make sauce, which was strange, but in fact, it was rare and strange.
The people of Xiaoxu Village call chili peppers "big peppers" and water-ground chili sauce "big pepper sauce". "Big pepper sauce" mostly uses fresh red peppers collected by their own families, grinds them in a processing plant, makes a paste, and adds salt. There are also a few people who make fresh green peppers. "Big pepper sauce" is eaten directly, and it is also used as a condiment for cooking, stir-frying, and cold mixing, and few people use water to grind chili sauce and other dishes.
Pickles, made with fava bean paste, and are fava bean paste that is specially used for pickles. The sauce that you eat directly at home is separated from the sauce used for pickles, and each serves its own purpose. The dishes of the sauce are radish, onion, ginger, lettuce, knife beans, lentils, cucumbers, etc., all of which are non-leafy dishes, easy to fish, do not drag mud with water. Now some people do not make sauce, they use soy sauce pickles, it is also delicious.
The third is a small dish that is dried or half dried and then processed. The most representative is the dried radish, which is called "radish ringing" in Xiaoxu Village. "Radish Ringing" is divided into two types, one is made of slightly larger radish, after washing, it needs to be cut open and dried; the other is a small radish variety, called "small radish head", directly washed and dried.
There are vegetables such as vegetable melons, cucumbers, lettuce and other vegetables with relatively large water content such as rhizomes and fruits, and there is also a dish similar to squeezed vegetables, known as "moss", which is also dried and semi-dried, and then salted or sauced, which is more crisp to eat.
The side dishes are ready, according to personal preferences and habits, eat the way to go.
Pickles and pickles, some are suitable for eating directly, such as dried radish, pickled garlic, pickled chili flakes, sauce ginger and so on. Some are suitable for stir-frying, such as pickled sherry, stir-fried with shredded meat is more delicious, shredded sherry is a famous dish in Hefei area, now also known as "snow vegetable shredded meat". Some can be eaten directly or fried, and from the taste point of view, it may feel better to eat directly; from a hygienic point of view, it is better to heat and stir-fry.
Fava bean paste is eaten directly as a side dish, you can add chopped red pepper slices or green pepper slices, mixed the first night, and eaten the next morning. Stir-fry and eat, add diced meat or white rice shrimp from Chaohu Lake, make meat sauce or shrimp paste, put it in a glass bottle, and eat it for a long time. "Fried sauce", "fried sauce", "diced meat sauce", "chicken diced fried sauce", "edamame fried sauce" with many ingredients such as soybeans and diced meat are a famous dish in Hefei. Fava bean paste can also be placed in a bowl or dish with tofu, mashed tofu, add a little chives, and steamed on a pot.
Mom and Dad's small dishes are well done, and the small dishes at home are continuous. Dad is best at pickled winter mustards, Dad said that his hands are good, and the winter mustards that have been pickled by his hands never stink. When my father worked in Nianjiagang Commune in Dingyuan County from 1978 to 1980, my mother took us to live in my hometown in Feidong. During the Spring Festival, my mother took us to play at home last year, and my mother and I like to eat my father's own pickled winter mustard vegetables, which do not need to be fried, washed and chopped, and eaten directly, crisp and refreshing, at least there is a feeling. Dad also likes to cut carrots into cubes, put garlic in them, and eat them in soy sauce; he likes to chop up the toon and eat them in soy sauce. Mom will cook more side dishes.
For many years, the family made fava bean paste every year, and the sauce was put outside after the sauce tank. In the summer of 1985, our family lived in the social house of the sunbathing field north of the Zhangqiao Power Supply Station in Dingyuan. Mom and Dad made two large vats of sauce, deliberately put a table in the drying field, and the sauce jar was placed on the table to dry. I herded pigs in the afternoon, and my mother reminded me not to let the pigs knock down the sauce jar. I promised to be fine, or careless, and the pig really flipped the table upside down. The sauce jar landed on the ground, shattered, and the sauce flowed to the ground, and it could not be asked for. Mom's heart hurts the sauce, and it hurts me even more. Dad came back from work, and Mom took the initiative to say that as soon as the pig pen door was opened, the pig jumped out and jumped under the table to knock it down. Dad didn't believe it, angrily opened the pigsty door, and said angrily, "I'll see how the pig jumped out and knocked the table down!" ”
I like to eat small dishes, I like to eat small dishes made by my parents. After joining the work, almost every meal is inseparable from small dishes. Now because of health considerations, I dare not eat more, but I am reluctant not to eat, and sometimes when I encounter my favorite small dishes, I still can't help but eat more, and my wife can't stop it. Eating out, every time I can't forget to ask the waiter to serve small dishes, and sometimes I take the initiative to ask the waiter what delicious small dishes are in their restaurant.
In terms of my preference for side dishes, between pickles and pickles, I prefer pickles and like the strong sauce flavor. In terms of varieties, I prefer pickled garlic, pickled pepper slices, pickled toon, sauce ginger, "radish sound", sauce onion, sauce lettuce, sauce knife beans and so on. There is a kind of stinky beans that are not from the Hefei area, and I also like it. For the squeezed vegetables and tofu milk that can be bought everywhere, it is general. In terms of eating method, I prefer to eat directly and not stir-fry. Cut side dishes, whether pickled or pickled, with a little sesame oil, feel better.
The small dish that I am least interested in is Xuelihong, because when I was a child in Xiaoxu Village, I ate too much, got tired of eating, and ate scared. At that time, there were few vegetables, and small dishes were not only eaten in the morning and late, but also at noon. Probably because of the high yield of snow in the village, our family, like other families in the village, every year to pickle a large altar of snow, eat pickled snow in the longest time, and not the kind of meat fried, less oil, sometimes may put a little thousand pieces of silk into the stir-fry together. Especially in winter, I often eat snow lily, lack of fresh vegetables, and many children in my village and I have sores on the corners of their mouths.
The water in the pickle jar, the pickle has been pickled for a long time, and there is a faint smelly taste. In the eyes of some people, this is a good thing. Sanhe Town, Feixi County, a national 5A-level scenic spot, is the place where the "Three Rivers Victory" occurred during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, with the former residence of Nobel Prize winner Yang Zhenning and the former residence of Sun Liren, a famous anti-war general, and is also the most representative place of Hefei regional cuisine, "Three Rivers Rice Dumplings", "Three Rivers Stir-fry" and other dishes are well-known in Hefei. There are restaurants on Sanhe Street, using pickle water in the pickle jar, steaming stinky tofu, giving a very elegant name, "thousand miles of drifting incense", smelling smelly, eating fragrant, very popular.
In our hometown, when there are few dishes, my mother often mixes the flour into a paste, steams it with pickle water, and steames it into a "noodle mess", the color is slightly green, there is a slight pickle water taste, salty. The young mother told us that she had bad teeth and liked to eat the "noodles" of the fish, and when we were old, we just needed the "noodles" for her to eat. The living conditions now are not as imaginable as at that time, and where does my mother still have to eat "fish noodles".
When my mother was in good health, according to different seasons, she had to do a lot of small dishes every year, and brought them to Hefei to eat, and now her body was inconvenient, and she still dried turnips and made a small number of small dishes for me to take away. I also learned to cut the garlic into small pieces and eat it as soon as it is pickled; to cut or chop fresh peppers into slices or chops and marinate them; to cut the onions into strips and marinate them; to cut the carrots into cubes and marinate them. I also learned to make Sichuan kimchi, made with cabbage, plus ginger slices, carrot slices or shredded, red pepper slices or green pepper slices, garlic, I feel that the taste is also good.
In addition to the small dishes mentioned above, Xiao Xucun also has the saying that he will eat something "as a small dish". Such a thing is also a dish, but it is not in the scope of what is usually called a small dish. In the minds of the people of Xiaoxu Village, these dishes that can be eaten as small dishes are more advanced than ordinary small dishes. For example, salted duck eggs, roasted soybeans, stinky dried seeds, fish jelly in winter, and congratulatory dishes made during the Spring Festival can be eaten as small dishes, but they are not the usual small dishes. There are also salted fish, salted duck, etc. eaten at dinner, the meal is not finished, breakfast, dinner is brought out, can also be eaten as a small dish, but a little grievance them, they are big dishes.
"Small dishes" are small, small insignificant, not precious, not rare, everyone will do it, every family can do it, therefore, the word "small dish" has also been extended to "small things", "insignificant things" and so on. If there is something to ask an acquaintance to help, the acquaintance is very sure, and agrees very crisply: "Small dish!" Sometimes, a sentence of "one dish" is added after "small dishes" as "a piece of cake". Praising others for their ability and many ways to solve problems, sometimes saying: "You are not doing this thing, it is not a piece of cake'." In such a context, "small dishes" is equivalent to "small things", and "small dishes" are equivalent to "small things".
Small dishes are salty, compared to the next rice, and there is a title of "next rice small dish". Praising people's small dishes is delicious, he will say: "His family's 'small dishes' are delicious." Due to the characteristics of small dishes "under rice", and not precious, too ordinary, Xiaoxu Village and many areas in Hefei have also extended the meaning of the word "small dish" to "gas bags" and "gas cylinders" that are not valued and respected by people. For example, the wife accuses her husband of disrespecting himself: "He when I am a 'small dish', every day to show me a face", "You think I am a 'small dish', ah? Give me a look every day."
Small dishes are delicious, can not eat more, eat more affect health. For those of us who have poor living conditions since childhood and cannot eat without small dishes, eating small vegetables has become a eating habit and hobby, knowing that it is not right, but it is difficult to control their mouths, and they can't stop.
Small dishes, small dishes, reluctant, can't put down, dare not love.
The most memorable is Chaozhou