Ruthless years have plowed through dozens of spring and autumn in my heart, from ignorant teenagers to lush teenagers, and then to the vicissitudes of the year. In countless stormy days, I was tired on the road to catch my breath. I can't remember how many times I suddenly looked back, and the footprints engraved in my mind always brought my eyes and memories back to my village in the deep mountains and forests in the late 1960s.
The black land with four distinct seasons beyond the Great Wall is pregnant with the wisdom of the mountain people. My parents have helped me learn to walk since I was a baby. My little feet are wearing embroidered nest shoes sewn by my mother, and my malnourished big head is wearing a black silk forged tiger skin hat made by my mother's manual needle and thread.
In those years when the production team was a large collective, it actively responded to the call of the great leader Chairman Mao: dig deep pits and accumulate grain widely. In the yard after the autumn harvest, rice grains piled up like mountains. In order to ensure that there is enough war-ready food at any time, the horse's neck jingles, and the wagons full of sacks of food are sent to the people's commune grain depot day and night. The production team of Dehegong Village is rated as "the advanced production team of public grain" by its superiors almost every year.
All high-quality grain is handed over to the state, and the remaining "unqualified" withered grain is distributed to the members of the production team as rations. Food is not enough. Great and intelligent people want to supply nature. They shaved elm bark, dried it, crushed it, sieved it into powder, mixed it with buckwheat flour and kneaded it with boiling water.
Put the Helan bed made of elm on a big wooden basin. After the water in the pot boiled, my father cooperated with my mother to press the Helan bed pole. With the creaking sound of Helan bed, wisps of wild vegetable mixed dough are pressed into Helan noodles, supplemented by sauerkraut and marinade. Liu Liu, the Little Chef of Hippo, wolfed down the noodles, the chirping of house birds on the old apricot tree outside the window, the sound of wind and rain, and played into the most beautiful original mountain village music. With our skinny stomachs when we were young, we put down our rice bowls and chopsticks and made a "jingle" sound. The days of that era were so tasteful.
The elm bark made by my mother is kneaded with my parents' feelings, made of flat millet flour and baked into "pot stickers" to support our growth. There are many brothers at home, but I have never met my sister and brother. I died when I was young. My mother often talks about it, and my eyes are full of tears. I listened quietly, thought, and imagined the appearance of big brother and big sister.
When I was as tall as a stove, my mother sewed me a big schoolbag with old clothes, rags and colorful miscellaneous cloth, sold ten eggs, earned sixty cents, and happily sent me to the primary school in the village.
When I came home from school, I never left my mother's side and watched her make a fire and cook. My little hand, covered with black chapped hair, was lying on the earthen stove, watching intently as my mother branded "the pot was about to slip". While adding firewood to the stove chamber, my mother stirred it in a big pottery jar with a wooden spoon. The wooden spoon was full of batter and fell down evenly along the edge of the big pottery jar, making the stove chamber "crackle".
My mother has good food and is famous in Shiliba Village. No matter what dry miscellaneous grains, or all kinds of wild vegetables planted in the field, fresh poplar leaves in early spring, elm money, wild mushrooms in the mountains and elm bark, they have all been skillfully processed by my mother and become "delicious" that we can't finish. Mother cooked the most famous bitter potato, and ate it while it was hot. It was delicious. We two brothers had to eat all the Quma dishes, mother-in-law and wheel-wheel dishes soaked in strong salt water in our throats.
Mother has a unique "research" on wild vegetables, making all kinds of wild vegetables, poplar leaves, elm leaves and elm money. That set of exquisite cooking skills has become a minor celebrity in Shiliba Village.
Every night in the mountain village, there are stories that I will never forget. Members lined up in the order of first come, first served, and took turns to crush all the edible things in the big stone mill in the village, racking their brains to crush all the things that were born in the ground, grew on the mountain and might be eaten into powder. Hungry people can't wait to grind the stones in the big Hetao into stone powder to satisfy their hunger.
It's crisp in autumn and windy in dark months. There is a big mill next to a century-old well in the village. In the lamp nest on the earth wall of the mill, my mother twisted and pulled the sesame oil lamp on, and baskets of potatoes were washed and chopped from the stone trough next to the old well. In the mill, the donkey was pushed by people, and the whole family went into battle together, taking turns to push the mill to help the donkey, and buckets of potatoes were dismissive. Under the command of their parents, the brothers worked in full swing. When I was a child, I held my younger brother who was still walking unsteadily in one hand and a hemp rope whip made of a small stick in the other. I watched quietly, thought quietly, and deeply remembered every year and every charming night.
Mashing potatoes, air drying, mixing with buckwheat flour or naked oats flour, and storing.
Autumn is a fascinating season. There is endless delicious food in the big wood pot. Fill a big wooden basin with beans and potatoes, pour a bucket of cold water into the well, put a bowl of indigo salt, and dilute the crushed sesame seeds with water. A layer of yellow sesame oil beads will appear in the big wooden pot, and a circle of potato cakes will be stuck on the wall of the pot. The taste is thick and dry, and there is a golden yellow layer under the cake.
Mom's stew of salted mustard pimples is also a must. Salted mustard knot in one's heart was cut into strips, a few pieces of old bacon skin, homemade potato vermicelli, steamed a bowl of rice with mud tiles, and the family sat around the kang table for dinner, listening to the cheerful laughter from the neighbors outside the window. I had a happy childhood.
In those years, people were dissatisfied with food. Wild vegetables, elm bark, elm kernel, Queena Ding, poplar leaves and acorn powder were vividly interpreted by the people's Committee members in the hot years, which basically solved the problem of food and clothing under the background of the big environment at that time.
Decades have passed, and it is unforgettable that our parents raised us with sad blood and tears. Father loves us like a mountain, and mother loves us like the sea. Our brother didn't starve to death in a special time. Under the careful cultivation of their parents, they thrive on simple meals and wild elm bark. They are grateful that their parents raised their kindness, remembered the happiness and sourness of childhood, knew how to be a grateful good person, and knew how to repay their parents' kindness.
The party's good policy of benefiting the people and enriching the people has enriched the poor and backward mountain villages that used to eat from the same pot. But no matter how the days change, the childhood memories left in the depths of the brain will never be forgotten; No matter how many times the times have changed, the big mill next to the old well in the village, the kerosene lamp nest on the earth wall of the mill, and the hard-working kindness of parents are unforgettable.
March, 20265438 19 Finalization of Jizhou District, Tianjin.
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