For the rural areas of Shandong, winter is the season of agricultural leisure, but the so-called "idle" is only relative. Hard-working rural people will still find many things to do, such as making some "snacks" with local specialties, and many families have their own skills. The protagonist of this group of pictures is a farmer in Qixia, Yantai, whose mastery is to make preserved apples, a process that is completely manual, and the main tool used is the rural cauldron.
The owner of this family is named Lin Dianchen, and the family lives in Jingzibu Village in Qixia Tao Village. Like most Qixia farmers, Uncle Lin's family is also mainly apple growers. Friends who understand the apple market should know that apples should be graded according to the appearance when they sell in the market. Uncle Lin said that apples with small heads or bumps in appearance are not easy to sell at high prices, and they can't eat them at home, so in recent years, he and his wife have been thinking about making some preserved fruits, keeping them for the children of the younger generations to eat during the New Year. To make preserved fruit, the apple is first peeled and pitted, and then cut into pieces. The apple in the picture can only be cut into three pieces.
Sliced apples are placed in a large rural cauldron and steamed through a "grate curtain", which is a relatively simple step. Freshly cut apple slices are generally white and turn golden after steaming. This is the contrast between an unpeated apple and a cooked apple slice.
A key step in turning steamed apple slices into preserved fruit is dehydration and drying. There is no dryer in the countryside, but the soil method is used, which is heated on the cage drawer.
The picture shows Uncle Lin's wife placing steamed apple slices in a cage drawer.
After the arrangement is this scene, can you see how many pounds of apple slices in the cage drawer are cut? Uncle Lin said that it was a bucket of apples, about 30 pounds, and finally less than 2 pounds of preserved fruit, an average of more than 10 pounds of fresh fruit to produce 1 pound of preserved fruit.
After the apple slices are placed in the pot, all that's left is to add wood to the bottom of the pot and burn it.
The wood used for the Fire in qixia rural cauldrons is generally apple wood in his own orchard (old trees are replaced), and Uncle Lin said that to make a pot of preserved fruit, at least three baskets of apple wood are needed.
When the moisture in the apple slices is almost baked, take it on the kang to bask in the sun, even if it is finished, take a bite to taste, not the general sweetness, the farmer's spiritual ingenuity is really admirable.