In the early morning, the air in Dongqian Lake after the rain is particularly fresh. An old man from Yueyang, Hunan Province, used the old method of "lowering" snails from palm leaves of Dongqian Lake people to catch snails.
Ningbo people are used to calling snails snails. Snails are a specialty of Dongqian Lake and a delicacy on the daily tables of locals. Snails and blue fish throwing water, fish, lake shrimp together are known as the "four treasures of Qianhu Lake" on the tip of the tongue. The biggest feature of dongqian lake snails is that they are not muddy. This is due to the fact that there are many mountain streams flowing into the lake next to Dongqian Lake, and various lakes are free to be tuna here and grow happily.
There are many ways to burn snails, in addition to steamed snails in snow sauce, steamed snails in water, fried snails in soy sauce, braised snails, sauce fried snails, as well as salt baked snails and drunken snails, different methods of cooking snails have their own flavors. "Shochu injection, snail hiss", this is the Ningbo people's yearning and satisfaction for ordinary life. The little snail not only awakens people's attachment to ordinary food, but also satisfies the comfort of nostalgia.
Dongqian Lake people have a variety of ways to catch snails: one is to drive a boat "rake", with two wooden boards made of "rake", the bottom of the lake snail "rake" up, but this kind of grasping law is more tired, but also have a certain skill, if there is no experience, will fall a "person on horse". Another method of grasping is called "touching", people carry buckets, one hand along the port or stone by the lake to touch the water, if there is a snail moving on the stone, it is directly grabbed and put into the bucket.
The old man threw palm leaves into the lake
There is also a kind of "down" snail with palm leaves, which is the old method that the people of Dongqian Lake have continued, and this method of "under" snails is neither physical nor skilled, but the harvest is often surprising.
Care must be taken when lifting leaves
Every year, starting from the Qingming Dynasty, Dongqian Lakers will cut down a few palm leaves to "lower" the snail. They first tied a 10-meter-long line or plastic rope to a pole of the palm leaf they had cut, and when the sun set, they threw the palm leaf into the lake, and the other end of the rope was wrapped around the root of the tree or fixed to the shore with stones.
The harvest was a pleasant surprise
The next morning, untie the knot and carefully lift the palm leaves, which have dense snails on them. After pulling ashore, with a shake of his hand, the snails leaning on the leaves scattered on the ground. When you get home, pick the big good snails and fry them, and feed the rest of the snails to the ducks. It is said that ducks are especially good at laying eggs when they eat snails, and they often produce double yolk eggs.
The old man shook the snail leaning on the leaf to the ground
According to the locals, the method of "lowering" snails with palm leaves seems simple, but it is also exquisite. The leaves that are thrown down are preferable to be fresh, because the fresh palm leaves have a grassy smell, and the snails like to lean on them. There are also tricks to choosing a place, experienced people will throw leaves at the bottom of the lake where there are stones or harder places, because the snails mostly lean here. If you throw the leaves at the bottom of a silt-filled lake, the harvest is not great.
Dense snails on the leaves
A palm leaf shook down so many lion snails
Reporter Hu Longzhao