Snails are very common in our Jiangnan water town. Where there is water, there are snails. When we were young, we seldom ate meat once. Although the fish has been eaten several times, fishing needs tools and takes time. Snails are a minority as long as they are touched by bare hands in the water. Therefore, snails are the most common meat dishes. I think I can grow into such a strong skeleton and such strong muscles, and this snail deserves credit. My hometown has been eating snails since Qingming, commonly known as "Qingming snails, racing geese", which shows that snails at this time are delicious and nutritious. Although there are many snails in summer and autumn, they are childless and taste the best in Qingming period. Eat snails in the Qingming night, and throw the leftover snail shells on your roof for the safety of your family. On the silent spring night, a string of snail shells rolled down from the roof on the corrugated surface, crisp and pleasant, with the charm of falling pearls and jade plates.
I remember when I was a child, I was annoyed to see my parents and sister skillfully eating snails and enjoying the delicious snails, but they couldn't suck the snail meat inside. My mother gave me a sewing needle to pick out the snail meat with. It was not until I learned to suck snail meat that I realized that the real taste of eating snails should be sucked out with my mouth. Sucking snails, practice makes perfect, and talk about talent. For example, my grandmother is an expert on eating snails. While talking, she drank the wine and sent the snail to her mouth with chopsticks. After two bursts, the snail meat was sucked in, and then gently squeezed it to spit out the tail of the snail. The whole action is done in one go. My grandfather also likes to eat screws, but his craft is not so good. He picked up the snail with chopsticks, gave it to his left hand, held it in his left hand, and sucked it again, not as clean as my grandmother's. Like most people, my grandfather spread snail shells flat on the table, but my grandmother likes to fold them up deliberately to make hills, which is in line with her unique personality. More unique is my uncle next door. He often catches snails with his left hand instead of chopsticks. With a bang, the snail meat was sucked in and eaten. Then he held the snail shell in his hand, sipped the yellow wine, continued to speak his words, and gestured in the air with his left hand at any time. Speaking of the point, he threw it with a bang! The size of the action is related to the degree he needs to emphasize. You see, this snail shell has simply become a prop in the hands of storytellers.
Snails are so delicious that people can't put them down, but they don't serve on the table and are rarely used to entertain guests. It can be inferred from the ancient recipes such as Suiyuan Food List written by Yuan Mei in the Qing Dynasty that snails have always been "cheap". In the history of China literature, there are countless poems praising flowers, birds, insects and fish, but there is not a song praising snails. Only Wang Zengqi, a contemporary writer, wrote an antique novel "Snail Girl" based on folk stories, expressing his praise for snails. The novel naturally has another meaning, but from a certain point of view, its tragic ending implies that people have not paid enough "respect" to this cheap food that is readily available for a long time. Zheng, an expert in literature and history, also said one thing in his essay "Snails": "My friend Tao said that his cousin is a teacher in the countryside and his family is very poor. He also eats his own food. Every morning, he goes to the stream to touch snails as a companion. For a long time, the villagers laughed and called Mr. Mo Luo. At the beginning of the Book of Filial Piety, my father gave me a poem saying,' Xiaofeng walked slowly to the shore, holding a basket of water. Laugh at the fisherman girl, your husband learned to touch snails. "Poetry became a laughing stock for a while." The teacher's touching snail has become a laughing stock, which shows that the snail is humble. Imagine if this gentleman picked chrysanthemums to plow the fields after preaching and dispelling doubts, it would be poetic and without a laughing stock.
Nowadays, snails, with their wild and delicious characteristics, are no longer confined to home, but have begun to sit in the hall, and they can be seen in restaurants of all sizes. Speaking of its wildness, there is a joke that a group of Shanghainese travel to Wuzhen. In the hotel, they pointed to the snails in the bucket and asked, "Are these snails wild?" The shrewd hotel owner was stunned at first, and then conveniently replied: "Of course! They are all wild! " "Oh, that's a wild snail. Ok, a plate of wild snails! " In fact, snails in my hometown are wild, so there is no need to breed them. Here, the hotel owner didn't bully customers. He just cleverly took advantage of Shanghai's misunderstanding of snails. Nowadays, my hometown often uses "wild snails" to ridicule the ignorance of rural life in big cities.
It is true that small restaurants and food stalls are snails' favorite places to go. At this time, the sound of sucking snails came and went, adding a lively atmosphere to the banquet. In the food stalls on summer nights, the boys are eating in full swing, simply taking off their shirts, shirtless, showing off a strong muscle, eating snails, drinking wine, chatting and gesturing, which is quite enlightening; The girls show their slender arms like snow lotus roots, hold the snail with orchid fingers, send it to the cherry mouth, pursed their bright red lips and suck it. It looks and sounds charming.
Snails often sit at luxurious banquets in Gaotang Hall. At this time, it often forms a "Sanxian River" with the fish and crabs in the river, but it is often ignored. However, some people know the goods and specialize in picking up snails sunk in soup. Because this snail has absorbed enough delicious fish and crabs at this time, it is really alive!