The scenery in my hometown is not necessarily better than other places. Just because I was born and raised in Sri Lanka, I feel better than other places. Even the wild vegetables and wild flowers that can be seen everywhere on the roadside and hillside have become my homesickness after several years.

There are not many kinds of wild vegetables in my hometown, which are pitiful compared with those in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Wild onion, Toona sinensis, Artemisia annua and water spinach are things that people can always care about.

Wild onion, also called Allium mongolicum Regel, Allium mongolicum Regel and Allium Triticum, has different names because it grows in different places. We mulberry people often call it "Jiao", probably because its leaves are slender and drooping, like braids on a little girl's head. Its growth is extremely vigorous, not as expensive as crops in the field. As soon as the spring day shines and the warm wind blows, everyone seems to be ventilated in advance, and overnight, all directions are scattered. Villagers plow fields and plant grass, and when they wave down their hoes, they get a lot of them. When they wash the stream flowing through the ditch head, tie it up conveniently and take it back, it is an excellent condiment.

Some people dig a basket of wild onions, wash them and don't cut them. They just look for a clean jar, put it on a plate and put some water in it for ten days and a half. It will naturally become pickles. Take it out, cut it into pieces, make it into soup, or fry it with rice, which is unforgettable. Children born and raised in Sangzhi should have had the experience of eating "kimchi".

Maybe the wild onion is too slender, and it takes a lot of time to clean it. Therefore, most people who dig wild onions to make pickles are elderly women, who are idle, experienced and patient. Over time, it has become a must-have dish on grandma's table and a favorite of children. Once, my sister and I were eating out and saw a restaurant called Grandma's Private Kitchen. One dish on the menu is fried rice with wild onions, which I think is in line with the facts there.

Toona sinensis refers to the new buds on Toona sinensis. Meng Tong lives in the mountains. Before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, he often heard that he called a friend, an adult, and made an appointment to "pick a tree and go to heaven"! Selfishly speaking, I think this is the most poetic thing in the world. Where did Huang Tingjian sing in a low voice in Qing Ping Le? Wen Chun, looking for spring, and in my hometown, spring can not only be felt, but also "picked", which is really exciting. I learned later that this is not spring. However, the association caused by the sentence "take the sky and go away" and the various pleasures brought about by it are unforgettable.

The picking method of Toona sinensis is very simple. When I saw buds on the tip of Toona sinensis, I broke them off, threw them into the basket, brought them back, scalded them with boiling water, cut them into squares, and exposed them in the yard with a dustpan. Grab a handful when you want to eat, throw it into the pot, put some clear oil and fry it.

Although spring is delicious, it is not advisable to eat more for a long time. "Life Taste Diet Spectrum" said: "Eat more wind, people with chronic diseases should not eat." Therefore, once or twice, adults will no longer choose to eat. If you remember the sky, you will have to wait until next year to pick it.

Artemisia, like Toona sinensis, is eaten before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day. However, the manufacturing method is much more complicated. Take the tender buds of Artemisia annua, wash them, mash them with cymbals, take them out, wash them with clear water, wring them out, and remove the dark green juice. This method makes the steamed leaves of Artemisia annua not too dark. Then add 120% Artemisia annua and 890% glutinous rice flour, knead into a circle with warm water, wrap with grapefruit leaves, and steam in retort. The fresh wormwood leaves are full of breath and luster, just like the old jade. I can't wait to taste it. Soft and waxy, warm and moist, mixed with the natural fragrance of grapefruit leaves, wormwood leaves and glutinous rice, refreshing.

In the old society, it was rumored that there were dense forests and many poisonous snakes in Xiangxi Mountain, which often hurt people. In order to prevent snakes from biting, the older generation developed a medicine with mugwort as the main component, mixed with sweets, and plunged into snake holes to lure snakes to eat. Snakes will die if they eat it. This custom is called pricking snake eyes. At the same time, there are also nursery rhymes warning future generations: "On March 3, the snake came out of the mountain, and wormwood pierced the snake's eyes." Therefore, eating wormwood Baba also means traveling safely. Nowadays, many people still sing the nursery rhyme "On March 3rd, snakes come out of the mountain" and eat mugwort leaves, but few people know the story behind this custom.

Potamogeton crispus, alias broken rice dish and spicy rice dish, is divided into red and green, of which red Potamogeton crispus can be eaten. According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, "Southerners eat it without air conditioning, and their stomachs are cold for a long time, so they don't have to eat, which makes people edible." In summer, you can pick them in the garden and under the fence. When my grandfather was alive, he liked to pinch a few pieces and stir-fry them. They are odorless and tasteless. I don't like eating them, but I really like the color of its vegetable juice, that bright pink. I often squeeze vegetable juice into a bowl and dip the rice into pink when Grandpa is not looking, which is called "rouge rice".

I have picked wild vegetables very few times, only once or twice in my mind. Take a pickaxe and a bamboo basket and follow a group of experienced partners to dig wild onions. The sun shines brightly on all the buildings, and chickens and dogs listen to each other in the bamboo forest. In the distance, there are wild awns with silver flowers on the hillside, and there are clumps of Chinese milk vetch in the field. The villagers come and go in twos and threes, laughing and laughing, and the lotus hoes slowly return. Suddenly I thought of Fang Yurun's original book of songs: "On the plain, the wind is sunny, the songs are answered, and the echoes are lingering. If it is far away, it will stop suddenly. I don't know why it is moving and why the gods are open. " The world in The Book of Songs is still stable and continuous.

Amin writer Wang Pan wrote in Preface to Wild Vegetables: "Hungry people always use roads to pick wild vegetables as food, and many people depend on them for their livelihood." In famine years, wild vegetables are food and shelter for the hungry, but in rich years, wild vegetables become green food and healthy food. That faint fragrance is a bright spot on the dining table, a childhood memory, and a trip home on the tip of a tongue of a person who has been away from home for many years. The change in the status of wild vegetables is probably unexpected by the ancients, right?