Old Han told a story: sweet old things

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a great scarcity of materials. Not only is the ration of white sugar and brown sugar, but even cuban sugar, which looks like cow dung, is also very tight for four or five cents a pound. Ordinary people want to eat more sweets, but there is not enough sugar, so they have to spend a dime to buy a small package of saccharin in a small shop, add it in water and flour to add sweetness.

For saccharin, I thought it was amazing at the time. Just put one or two fine salt grains in the bowl and fill a bowl of water. It's just that the sweetness is weird, not as sweet as the sugar water, which is pure and seductively sweet. But whoever can marry a wife, who will buy a sex doll!

In the early 1960s, although it was difficult for the people to eat sugar, the central government had food subsidies for high-level cadres, and supplied meat, eggs, sugar, beans, etc. in varying quantities according to levels, which the people called "meat and egg cadres" or "jelly bean cadres". Officials eat white sugar brown sugar, and ordinary people eat saccharin. I remember that the news always said: Our life is sweeter than honey! Yes, saccharin is the main theme, and saccharin is the star that sets the plate.

At that time, there were only two cuban sugars per person per month. Usually, my mother locked up Cuban sugar. Because, in the kitchen, we will use chopsticks to dip the tip of the chopsticks from time to time to eat, too addictive. But how can that little bit of Cuban sugar stop us from getting addicted?

We know where my mother put saccharin, a small bottle hidden in the kitchen cupboard, which has some white crystals in it, that is, saccharin. Once our brother and sister pinched a few and licked them on the edge of their lips, and the sweetness was abnormal. When the mother knew, she was shocked: "Saccharin is a chemical thing, and if you eat too much, you will be poisoned!" ”

I remember that the Mid-Autumn Festival of that year was coming, and for families like us, we were worried about three meals every day. That day, my mother said, "We can't afford to buy mooncakes. "Our brothers and sisters rejoiced.

When you make mooncakes and don't put sugar, there is no sweetness, but it is unrealistic to put more. What to do? Fortunately, in the days of suffering, people also have a way to make themselves sweet, that is, saccharin. I remember my mother pinching a little saccharin with her thumb and putting it in a bowl, and after the saccharin slowly melted in the water, she poured the water into the flour.

Since there is no oven, our "mooncakes" are baked in a pan. Strictly speaking, it is no different from a flatbread, but even so, we are satisfied.

At that time, the small vendors around the primary and secondary schools sold ice cream, plums and other cheap snacks, neither manufacturers, nor standards, labels, and basically contained saccharin. Even popsicles for five cents are made with saccharin. It is characterized by high sweetness, bitter taste and easy crystallization. People with weak gastrointestinal function will feel very uncomfortable.

There are also some smart-witted hawkers who take water from deep wells, add saccharin, sour plum essence, flavor, and finally put a little baking soda and color into a colorful drink. The famous "three essences" are sold on the table at the entrance of the school. Inspired by these vendors, we started making rustic water ourselves. I don't know who first invented it, but after that, almost everyone on campus held a medical saline bottle with a long straw inserted in it. Conditionally filled with cool white, more is directly from the pressurized well, put a few grains of saccharin, a bottle of cool "Coca-Cola" is ready.

That kind of colorful straw school commissary has to sell, for a penny. The commissary owner, a grandfather with two white sideburns, happily measured it with a wooden ruler and then cut it for us with scissors.

At that time, we often secretly drank saccharin water during class. In order not to let the teacher find out, drill a hole in the table with a pencil knife or nail. Choose the right place to use the book block and drink it with your head down, and start drilling. The hole is drilled, the bottle is placed in the table hole, the straw is inserted through the drilled hole, and everything is under control. Once, when I was in math class, I just looked down and took a sip when I was discovered by the teacher. The teacher punched me viciously in the back of the head, causing me to look straight into Venus, then grabbed me by the hair. I was so devastated that I couldn't say anything.

I have a classmate whose mother is from the countryside. There are five or six brothers and sisters, and only the father earns money alone. The family could not live on, so my mother had to come out and sell saccharin to earn money. Reluctant to buy food color at first, I swept some sand fruit leaves from the seller, dried and fried in a large iron pot. Then pour it into the bucket with water thickly, and the color is much better. Pigments are very expensive, can not afford to buy, with this substitution can also be more effective.

His mother sells saccharin water without washing the cup, and puts an aluminum basin with water at her feet. In the 1970s, the exquisite talents sprinkled a few grains of potassium permanganate in the aluminum basin, which was purple and slightly shabu-

I remember saying at that time that he could make a dime by selling saccharin water in an afternoon, enough money for a day's vegetables. Wait until you can earn two cents in the afternoon, his mother will not fry sand fruit leaves, go to buy yellow, green, red.

Every summer vacation, he and his big brother and sister go to the park gate to sell saccharin water. Carrying the family dining table, carrying several stools of different sizes and three or four enamel teapots of different sizes. At noon, the stalls were sold, penny by minute, and when it was almost dark, they sold for more than fifty cents, and everyone was very excited. At that time, there was no city management, and everyone was very comfortable.

At that time, a large enamel jar in his house leaked out of porcelain, and he spent 5 cents on the stall at the north gate of the old city to patch it with white iron, and plaster paste was smeared on the gap.

One day, when the stall was closed, the two cups of saccharin left in the bucket were given to the old lady who was collecting the rags to drink. The old lady estimated that she would wait for this sentence, took the jar and gulped down the drink.

In my snack-starved childhood, popcorn was naturally my favorite. "Crash popcorn!" Crash popcorn! "Whenever I heard this shout, I was so itchy that I always pestered my parents to grind out a dime, put some corn in a small pot, and then rushed out of the door. The popcorn device looks really crude now, but at the time I thought it was so magical! The black pot resembles an elongated gourd, and resembles an alchemy furnace in a mythological story. One end is the mouth of the pot with a lid, and the other end is a rounded crank. The master of the popcorn first poured the corn into the mouth of the pot, and then felt a paper bag from his arms and sprinkled the white particles inside into the pot, which were saccharin. The children always asked the master to put more, but at that time, this thing was also scarce, so the master was like Kong Yiji, who was protecting the fennel bean, who refused to give in easily.

Saccharin can not eat more, I have a deep memory of this. At that time, there were 10-year-old and 8-year-old brothers and sisters in our hospital, and because they did not understand the difference between saccharin and sugar, they used the saccharin tablets at home as a snack for pastime. In a short period of time, the brothers and sisters took more than 80 oral saccharin tablets, and soon both of them were acutely poisoned, foaming and unconscious. After the rescue of the Inner Mongolia Hospital, it was found that the brain, heart, lungs and kidneys of the poisoned person were seriously damaged. Left heart failure, severe pulmonary edema, inability to urinate, the doctor said that it was caused by a large amount of saccharin in a short period of time.

It's natural for kids to love sweets. In 1963, when my 10-year-old cousin came from Shanxi, when he left, I wanted to give him a little gift, he didn't want anything, just said: "Brother, you will send me a bag of saccharin!" I don't know how he thought, such a small child, it was the best gift he could think of. We parted and never saw each other again. Later, I heard that the saccharin had been in his trouser pocket that time. Halfway down the road, he went to his trouser pocket and found it wet and saccharin all gone. He cried loudly, and the concubine could not be persuaded.

When my cousin worked as a private teacher at Baoziwan Primary School, she often went to students' homes to make up lessons. One day, she came to a student's house, and the student's mother paced the hall in embarrassment, not knowing what to do to entertain her. My cousin said no, drink the saliva and start talking wow. Suddenly, the student's mother slapped her head and said, "I'm so confused." Hurriedly stepping on the edge of the kang, enough to reach a bamboo basket." Half turned over, held up a glass bottle the thickness of a thumb, shook, knocked and sprinkled a little into the boiling bowl, stirred with chopsticks, and excitedly served it to the cousin.

It was a bowl of sweet saccharin water. However, the cousin only licked a small sip and could no longer drink it, because several of the children looked at her greedily and salivated. The cousin said that the small sip of saccharin had been sweet to the bottom of her heart, and with its sweetness, she had completed several students' homes that needed to make up lessons.

Many years later, my cousin was still obsessed with the bowl of saccharin. She said that my little knowledge can be called the only food that can be contributed spiritually; that little saccharin is also the only treasure in the student's family, and we all thank each other with all our hearts and minds, and it is saccharin that makes me understand what is love.

Stories of saccharin come and go on. Listening to my cousin, in the autumn of 1975, the victory brigade was rated as an advanced unit in Learning Dazhai, and the captain went to the commune to hold a commendation meeting, and the commune awarded them a toothpaste, a piece of soap, and a dollar of saccharin to the production team.

The captain said that the results are everyone's, and he can't swallow the prize alone. However, the whole brigade of fifty households and nearly three hundred people could not be distributed. He asked everyone to give an opinion, and everyone shouted for a while, and no one could think of a good way.

Later he said, then do as I advise Wow, toothpaste will belong to Zhiqing, anyway, poor and lower-middle peasants no one brushes their teeth; soap cut into fifty pieces, one for each household of the whole team, one person can wash his face in the New Year; as for saccharin, the amount is too small, it is really impossible to divide. In a few days, when the grain was cut, the saccharin was poured into it with cold water, and everyone came to drink it, and the care of the great leader was shared by everyone.

A few days later, the grain was harvested, and on that day the sun was scorching, and the members of the society were all sweating hot and crawling water, and smoke was coming from their throats. At noon, I saw the captain standing in the shade of the field shouting to everyone: "Come and drink the saccharin water..." So the people put down their scythes in their hands and rushed from the field to the ground.

It was an exciting time. The poor and lower-middle peasants surrounded two buckets of water on three outer three floors, and the buckets were swaying with cool and clear well water, and the captain solemnly and divinely opened the small paper package containing saccharin and gently trembled, and those shiny sand-like white crystals slid into the water with "rustle". At that moment, almost everyone held their breath and looked down at the tiny ripples that spread when the saccharin entered the water.

On that day, Grandpa Yang, the fifth household of Victory Fort, was also carried. He said that Chairman Mao and his old man gave me pensions, and chairman Mao gave us saccharin water for the poor and lower middle peasants, and I must drink it!

Outside the crowd, under the trees in the distance, sat alone an old man, who looked over to this side ghostly. He wanted to come over, but didn't have the courage. His name was Wang Sanegg, he was a landlord, and the good things in the team never belonged to him.

……

I often think that a small saccharin actually contains many great lessons: although it is called "saccharin", it is very bitter to eat directly, and only after it is dissolved in water and diluted can it be eaten sweet. Sweet to the extreme is actually bitter, and the bitterness is diluted and can return to sweetness, which can make people think of the philosophy of life of "happiness and sorrow" and "bitterness and sweetness". Also, although saccharin is very sweet, it does not have any nutrition for our body, but it just deceives our mouths, eats too much, and is harmful to the body. This in turn reminds us of such warnings as "honey-bellied sword" and "sugar-coated shells".

Now that no one uses saccharin except for the profiteers, we have finally crossed an era - the era of saccharin.

postscript:

In Li Yihao's writings, the most interesting is the "Journey to Food", which records his life's culinary experience. In one chapter, "Food on the Journey" expounds to the world the refreshing food affairs during the Long March. For example, he wrote: "On the march, it is difficult to find tea leaves, and tea leaves cannot be faked, so they are fake coffee." After the meal, get some wheat to fry in oil to nearly charcoal, the lower half of the water, a boil, the water turns yellow, with a bitter taste, sugar-free, add a little saccharin, a cup of coffee will come out. (Author Han Liming)