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A few days ago, Typhoon Kappa hit. After many delays, my parents-in-law took their daughter's flight against the wind and finally arrived in Hong Kong at night.

As usual, my parents-in-law brought a lot of ingredients. My hometown Shaoxing produces bamboo shoots, shrimp, yellow wine and so on. Half of their heavy suitcases are full of these things. Due to the restrictions of entry-exit inspection and quarantine, live animals and semi-finished products cannot be carried. The ingredients of fish and shrimp can only be made into dried fish and dried shrimp. Open the package, full of the breath of Qiantang River estuary, with the taste of hometown.

Making shrimp skin is time-consuming and laborious. First, buy fresh prawns in the vegetable market, cook them and expose them to the sun for a month. You won't get caught in the rain or bask in the sun. Every day, you have to go through the process of spreading them out and putting them in. The final product weight is one-third of that of fresh shrimp, that is, if you buy 10 kg of live shrimp, the final shrimp skin is only a little more than 3 kg.

Yellow rice wine is more difficult to carry. My father-in-law bought ten or eight years of Thai tunes, a catty of wine, usually eight bottles in a box. If you take it to Beijing, you can take as much as you want. But you can only take two bottles to Hong Kong. These wines, which the old people are reluctant to drink themselves, are specially brought for our friends. Later, I said that dad worked too hard, so don't bring it in the future. Let's enjoy it ourselves. So he ate a table full of big meals, ginger and yellow wine, and Weng Xu drank a cup, which made him happy.

Every time the elderly take care of the baby in shifts, it is a migration of ingredients. Those local products in the suitcase need three months to brew and prepare. Three months with a baby is hard, and three months without a baby is not idle. They are all around the lives of their children and grandchildren, worrying and working hard, day after day, year after year.

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There are two delicious things in my hometown, one is dry tea and the other is beef. My mother brings a lot every time she comes, and she can eat for more than a month. Fried leek beef vermicelli with dry tea can taste like when I was a child.

Mother often comes from her hometown alone, traveling thousands of miles with big bags and small bags. There is no direct transportation to Hong Kong in my hometown, so I need to get up early to take a long-distance bus to Shanghai, and then fly from Shanghai to Hong Kong. The ingredients from those hometowns came along with my mother, from the town in northern Jiangsu in the morning to the Pearl of the Orient in the evening, coming across the sea, which is the taste of hometown and the love of boxing.

As a gourmet paradise, Hong Kong is not short of delicious and delicious ingredients, but even the best things can't compare with the hometown flavor brought by mom. I always think that the most delicious food in the world is the taste and memory of childhood. It can be an fried egg, a bowl of soy sauce noodles, fried tea with garlic and a simple meal that can give you the most wonderful feeling. This taste and feeling will accompany you all your life and you will never forget it.

In the summer evening, my mother soaked the Tuo powder (broad bean powder) with her in water, then put it in a pot and stirred it, adding water constantly, and finally formed a large piece of Tuo powder, which was white and tender. She sliced it into thin strips with a special plane, put it in a bowl and mixed it with soy sauce, sesame oil, dried radish and mashed garlic. The aroma is overflowing, and it is delicious to tears.

Just like the summer of childhood, we sat by the Wang Jia bean jelly stand in the west of the city and ate a bowl of bean jelly until we licked the bowl. Now, my mother brought this delicious food to Hong Kong intact from her hometown thousands of miles away. Watching her granddaughter finish eating and licking the bowl like her son, the old man smiled happily, as if time had stopped. She went back to 30 years ago.

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Parents in the northeast bring mushrooms, parents in the northwest bring beef and mutton, and parents in Yunguichuan bring all kinds of peppers. These ingredients locked in the feeling of our childhood taste buds, took the time machine, shuttled through Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong in our parents' bags, and shuttled through the homes of ordinary people. It runs in the family and even four generations live under one roof. These ingredients, which are not far from Wan Li and even come across the sea, closely link the blood and feelings of a family.

The dining table is an important gathering place. Tired middle-aged people go out early and return late. At the end of the day, only at the dining table can a family sit around, talk about their families and enjoy delicious food.

Chen Xiaoqing, the director of China on the Tip of the Tongue, said, "What we want to shoot is not the dishes of famous chefs, but ordinary people's home cooking", which shows the life of ordinary China people, the story between people and food, and the society through food. Because of this, this documentary will often make people cry. And those ingredients that come across the ocean are an important part of China on the tip of the tongue. They are about the migration of people, the inheritance of love and everything.

Ingredients bring warmth and mutual care among family members. Children grow up and old people get old, which is a natural law and irresistible. We are grateful for growing up and reluctant to accept the fact that our parents are getting old. We will grow old, generation after generation.

Writer Liu Yong said: "Old people will feel more and more useless and insecure because of their physical decline. So when the old man doesn't arrive for dinner, even if he has come, he should deliberately shout to make him feel valued. In addition, in public places, we should always mention the old people's former good. For example, if it weren't for my mother's help, I couldn't concentrate on going out and I couldn't have achieved today. If my grandparents hadn't brought me, I wouldn't have grown so well. The old man will be very warm. "

This passage is deeply rooted in people's hearts and is an eternal topic about ingredients, food and love. I often think, when my daughter grows up, will we have a component migration like this? She grew up in a big city. Do you remember the taste of her hometown? What is certain is that no matter where she goes, she will never forget the land where she was born and her relatives.

Sometimes I think we should thank our children, because of her, three generations can live under one roof, care for each other and live together. We don't have to go all the way home to visit our parents, but we can also be filial in time. Of course, we should be grateful to our parents, who have taken the trouble to leave their hometown and come to a strange city to stay with us, and continue to contribute their energy to future generations with no regrets.

Among the ingredients that cross the ocean, it is taste, breath and love.

Love is a trip across the ocean. We are all travelers, always on the road.

Brief introduction of the author

Nan, a native of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, is a post-80s young writer who pays attention to the workplace and life stories. He has published a book "The Scale of Discipline: 72 Micro-stories of Integrity", sometimes serious and sometimes meaningless. Personal name: drunken fragrant stone (ID: xiaozhizhiheng).