Hometown people often drink "sticky porridge", which is the paste of corn flour or corn seeds. The villagers call this kind of porridge "tea (sound ca)", and they say "tea pot sticks to porridge" instead of "boiling a pot of porridge". New corn, sometimes with sweet potatoes, and two bowls after meals. One can replenish the stomach that has not been fully enriched, one can provide the water that needs to be ingested when eating (at that time, we didn't have any drinks when eating-no beer cola, no ice water and mineral water), and the third can replace the fruit dessert ice cream, wrap up the rice and make it salty, fishy, greasy, sour and spicy (if any).
When you drink gruel, you usually just want some pickles like old pickled radishes. It goes without saying that salty porridge enhances the taste of each other, promotes each other and complements each other. I'm used to eating this kind of collocation. Even if I eat white rice porridge, glutinous rice porridge, milk porridge, bird's nest porridge and seafood porridge, as I was lucky enough to eat later, I often can't forget the old pickled radish, Yunnan kohlrabi or Sichuan mustard tuber. There are also famous brand pickles such as Tianyuan Sauce Garden, Liubiju and Baoding, which are not old in spring. Kimchi is also constantly developing and enriching. Whether you often eat porridge and pickles or not, you don't have to be discouraged.
There are also desserts: red bean soup, eight-treasure lotus porridge, chestnuts, almonds, peanut soup and so on. It's not just pickles, it's just not regular.
If you drink too much porridge for a long time, you will naturally feel it. Porridge is easy to digest. When you are sick, you want to drink porridge, especially rice porridge. The smell of fresh rice seems to mean a kind of recuperation, a kind of leisure, a kind of calmness in weakness, and a kind of calm expectation and confidence in restoring health. The smell of fresh rice porridge seems to mean comfort and gentleness to the sick stomach. Simply put, rice porridge itself conveys a sentimental warmth, a childhood memory, an understanding and sympathy for human youth and weakness, and a goodwill concession to peace and uncontested. Rice porridge is also a kind of medicine, which can dispel plague, replenish vitality, soothe the liver and strengthen the spleen, soothe the nerves and stop spasms, prevent wind and fire, and clear the heart. Big fish, big meat, prawns, big cakes, big songs and old pits are sometimes boring and don't want to eat. However, rice porridge can stand the test and last forever.
Another kind of porridge that is most often drunk is "sticky porridge". Holding a big bowl, "kicking around" and sucking the thick, warm and sticky porridge of corn flour really has a sureness and clarity of being with the earth, breathing with the plowman and blending with the grains. Corn porridge makes people simple and practical, and even gives people a feeling of local culture. Bitterness and happiness means hard work, worrying about the world first, and enjoying the world later. I won't change my happiness. It is true that corn porridge can remind people of poverty and difficulties. In the difficult period of three years, the author had the experience of drinking only two meals of porridge a day. I drank too much corn porridge and swayed in my stomach, making my eyes straight. Because of this, the author sincerely cheers for the remarkable achievements of reform and opening up, economic prosperity and people's life improvement since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee. At the same time, corn food is associated with the diversification, modernization and life choice of nutrition. For example, in the United States, some children think that the moon is rounder than China, fried cornflakes and crushed cornflowers are popular popular foods, and a small amount of corn paste can also be eaten as a side dish with the main course to add color and fragrance to western-style dishes. In recent years, domestic corn instant improved food is also in the ascendant. Alas, the corn porridge in my hometown is also cheap and humble, so don't abandon it. There is no doubt about mountains and rivers, and there is a bright village. Its vitality is still far away!
As for the "Laba porridge" which is generally cooked in the northern rural areas on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, I think it is the king of porridge and the master of porridge. As the saying goes, "whose chimney smokes first, whose grain piles up into a tip." So on Laba day, every family started cooking Laba porridge at five o'clock. Laba porridge is eclectic, including all kinds of rice, millet, glutinous rice, black rice, purple rice, millet (also called yellow rice, which is slightly bigger and sticky than millet), chicken head rice, coix seed, red beans, kidney beans, mung beans, bean sprouts, raw beans, chestnuts, walnuts, dates, raisins, melons, preserved apricots and lotus seeds. They are all dissolved in a pot. When they are made, they are full of warmth and fragrance. When they are imported, they are full of whole grains. By the next day, 890 million of our billion people are in the countryside. To forget this is to forget our roots and who we are.
There is a batch of very high-grade porridge in the diet of Fujian and Guangdong, which contains minced meat, seafood, preserved eggs and even bird's nest and shark's fin. Food is rich, nutritious and exotic. Food is like touching a lady covered with jewels. She yearns for praise but never feels close. This probably reflects my bumpkin side.
Of course, I don't mean porridge is supreme. With the improvement of living standards and the broadening of horizons, we should add a lot of fresh and nutritious diets to our table, and the conservatism in eating habits is not worth taking. In fact, when it comes to eating, I am very receptive to new things, including all kinds of eastern and western indigenous and even special foods. For example, Japanese sashimi, American raw beef, French cheese (including those that are green, black and smelly), Russian raw roe, all kinds of mutton and sheep fat in Islamic countries, raw pig liver and pig skin that China Bai people like to eat, as well as oyster, shellfish and cinnamon-flavored ice cream apple chops, as well as all kinds of cold and hot drinks, natural and artificial liquid foods containing alcohol and caffeine or not, are among the benefits of a small appetite. This makes me deeply proud, which sometimes makes me boast that my taste is full of openness and compatibility. I like trying new experiences, including eating and drinking. Isn't it more interesting to be alive? Isn't it better for your health?
However, I still seem to have special feelings for porridge and pickles. When the continuous banquets make my stomach unbearable, when too much seafood makes me a northerner with blisters on my mouth and urticaria on my body, when the special diet loses its initial stimulation and attraction, it finally makes me unbearable, and when my visiting life abroad makes my stomach restless, I will yearn for porridge and pickles, and I will apply for "drinking a bowl of porridge". You will be surprised to see shredded mustard and potherb. No matter what delicacies, wines and delicacies, wherever I go, I will never forget porridge and pickles while constantly trying new experiences and supplementing new nutrition. I will never forget my ancestors, my past, my way of life, and the mountains and rivers and simple people who raised me. I believe that we will all eat better, richer, more nutritious, more civilized and happier.