This seasonal dish in Hangzhou is new! It was all picked by the "Lady of Warblers" and tasted the best during this time

Zhejiang Daily

The word "pure" is preceded by a cursive prefix, and the word "chun" is obtained, and "chún" is pronounced. When you see it, you feel a hint of the fragrance of grass and trees from ancient times, along with the soft wind at the turn of spring and summer.

In China, since ancient times, every grass and tree, every vegetable and one fruit has pinned on the ancestors' most sensitive awareness of the season and their gratitude to nature. This kind of love can be seen as early as in the "Book of Poetry"--"Si Le Pan Shui, Thin Picking Its Mao." "Lettuce, that is, lettuce."

Lettuce is a delicate plant commonly found in ponds and moorlands, prefers warmth, and is suitable for growing in clear ponds. The clearer the water, the higher the quality; the earlier and more tender it is harvested, the more valuable it is.

Lettuce has a long history of growing lettuce in West Lake. The Ming Dynasty's "West Lake Tour" records that the Wangshan Bridge of the West Lake Su Causeway was planted with lettuce. Today's West Lake lettuce is mostly produced in Shuangpu Town and surrounding areas in Hangzhou's Xihu District, which is also one of the few producing areas of lettuce now.

"Lettuce in the West Lake wins over Dongwu, and in March the spring waves are full of green lakes." Lettuce is not so much a delicacy as it is a sustenance. The "New Language of the World" records that Zhang Han, a literary scholar of the Western Jin Dynasty, was an official outside the country, and because he thought "Wuzhong lettuce, lettuce soup, sea bass", he abandoned the official and returned to his hometown, after which lettuce had the meaning of homesickness.

Lettuce has a fragrant flavor and rich nutrition, and can be used to make Hangzhou famous dishes such as West Lake lettuce soup, lettuce yellow fish soup, shrimp mixed with lettuce and so on. In particular, lettuce from mid-May to mid-July has fat stems and leaves, abundant protein, the best quality and the best taste.

The lettuce fields in Hubu Village, Shuangpu Town, are not much in size, and the narrow and long land is "long" in the mountain hollow, and is divided into irregular blocks by the vertical and horizontal fields.

Almost every lettuce field is lined with a simple wooden boat, waiting for the spring breeze to blow and grow again, and then waiting for the lettuce ladies to carry buckets of water and pick them up.

At the end of April and the beginning of May, lettuce is the season when the pickles begin and continue until the end of October. The more precious the ingredients, the harder it is to pick. Picking lettuce is a hard job —

Leaving the house at 4 o'clock in the morning, ending at 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a wooden boat, a bucket, a hat, a lunch box, the lettuce pickers must lie on the boat, paddling the water with their hands as oars, while picking up the curled young leaves from the water and throwing them into the cabin. "Floating" on the water for more than 10 hours a day, doing the same action countless times. At the end of the day, the hands soaked in the water will turn white and wrinkled.

The quality of lettuce is divided into three grades according to the leaves, the best is the newly grown young shoots, less than 1 cm of buds are wrapped in thick liquid; the second is the 2-3 cm long curly leaves, the young leaves have not yet opened; the lowest leaves have basically opened.

Curled shoots, unfolded young leaves, the purchase price is not the same. After returning home after a hard day's work, the lettuce girls also need to screen the lettuce again, divide the young shoots and leaves, and then pull them to the market to sell.

High-quality lettuce, which is rarely eaten by locals, is mostly processed and exported to Countries such as Japan and South Korea.

But this year's situation is somewhat special, affected by the epidemic, some villagers who earn their income from picking lettuce have an unexpected crisis:

The export belt does not move, the market can rarely see the owner who comes to buy lettuce, hard work to plant a few acres of land, pick a small half a year, barrel by bucket to pick home "hard leaves" but face the embarrassing situation of no one to buy. Pull the lettuce to the market and sell it scattered, helplessly oversupply.

Lettuce has just been new, if you see lettuce soup in the restaurant, it is better to order a bowl to taste the early, if you have more needs, you may wish to go to the local villagers to find a few villagers, with their own efforts to help the villagers export to "domestic sales".

After all, one leaf and one core is not easy to come by.

Source: Hangzhou Net

Statement: This article has indicated the source of the reprint, if there is any infringement, please contact us to delete! Contact email: [email protected]