Here, I have to talk about the background of that poor life first. Now, there are many children in our family, four. There is a sister and a brother above, and I am the third, and there is a younger brother below. Over the years, someone has asked me more than once: "Your parents already have a pair of children, why do you want you and your brother?" What's more, when we have brothers and sisters, it is the most severe time for family planning! The "squad" in charge of related affairs in the village is almost every family's nightmare. For example, because of my birth, my mother was taken away by the "squad" and locked up for a long time. At that time, grandma would take me on foot for more than ten miles every few days to send her clothes; After my brother was born, my family was fined for many years. Needless to say, almost all the furniture was moved away by the "squad", and even the double wooden beds in my parents' rooms were taken away by tricycles ... but my father told me and my brother, "This is something that can't be helped."
Because before going out to work in those years, almost all the people in the village made a living by farming. The prosperity of population is not only related to the labor force, but also a symbol of family strength. Families with thin children will be bullied badly if they have no money and no potential. When our family came to my father's generation, it was almost a "single-family" in the village: my grandfather drifted in other towns all the year round to do odd jobs, my uncle just grew up and went out to make a living, and there was no uncle to rely on. How much bitterness such a father had is self-evident. Another important reason is that as my brother and father's eldest son grow up slowly, his "very sincere and honest" temperament from childhood makes his father more and more disappointed. What the father at that time urgently needed was a strong and even overbearing son to act as the guardian of our family with him. So, later, my brother was born with great expectations-the last straw that crushed my family's economy. I can't judge whether my father is right or wrong. It's just that not only my brother and I, but also my brothers and sisters, have suffered humiliation from poverty and all kinds of complicated eyes since childhood, as well as the inferiority complex that burned to the bone in such growth experience. If nothing else, just for three meals a day, let me begin to realize the hardships of this world.
In the poorest days, my honest father had to go out to work. In addition to my brothers and sisters who are in middle school in the county, there are only my mother and my brother at home. There is also the long, mostly "three whites a day" days: eating white buns and drinking white noodle soup in the morning; Eat chopped green onion and white flour at noon; I still eat white steamed bread and drink clear soup with white flour at night, which makes me feel terrible. Only when my brother and sister go home on holiday will my mother go to the market for the first time to cut some meat and give us a rare treat. At that time, the desire for cooking almost became my obsession. I really want to eat spicy and oily food. I remember that every time I go to a friend's house to play, what I admire most is the stir-fry they eat, even if it's just a plate of fried potatoes and fried bean sprouts, which makes me try to restrain myself from being discovered by others.
For a while, my mother took my grandmother to help take care of my brother and me. Although grandma is a good cook, there is no food for her to clean up at home. A clever woman can't cook without rice. I still remember that once I came home from reading in the morning and saw the usual breakfast: dry steamed bread and clear soup. I couldn't help being wronged any longer. I sobbed and asked my grandmother, "Grandma, why do we have to eat steamed buns and drink soup every day?" Grandma heard this, her sallow eyes turned red, then wiped her eyes with a headscarf and turned away. That morning, grandma cried, mom cried, and I cried.
Later, in order to help us cook, my mother began to teach us to eat "oil steamed bread salt", that is, first dig a piece in the middle of white steamed bread, then sprinkle a little salt in this "steamed bread pit" and then drop a few drops of sesame oil, so that when we eat steamed bread, we can catch it and dip it in some oil and salt so as not to choke.
However, what impressed me the most was spring, when our family would eat more vegetables, because rich ingredients would grow on trees and fields, such as locust trees, elms and gray vegetables ... My mother often picked these fresh vegetables and steamed them for us. I remember many cold mornings, when I went home from study, I was very happy to see the white smoke slowly drifting out of the chimney. Such smoke shows that the breakfast of this day must be more than clear soup and steamed bread. Sure enough, as soon as I entered the yard, I smelled the fragrance of steamed vegetables. In the smoky kitchen, I saw my mother take out a pot full of steamed Sophora japonica or other vegetables, pour them into a big pottery basin, and then mix them with vinegar sauce and garlic paste that have already been seasoned. In a short time, a pot of fragrant steamed vegetables is ready, and my mother will fill a bowl for my brother and me, and then the three of us will sit in the small yard and have a good time with the smell of spring.
But after the spring leaves in a hurry, the days when there are vegetables to eat will disappear again. However, when cicadas and frogs quarrel, our food is different, because at this time, mother will use "crawling grasshopper" and amaranth salty soup to adjust the lightness of three meals a day. "Crawling grasshoppers" are what they look like before they shed their shells. Every day after the sun goes down, they arch out of the ground and climb up the tree to prepare for "transformation" The meat is freshest at this time. So after dinner, all the people in the village will patrol every tree outside the village with flashlights, long bamboo poles and a big plastic bucket, that is, "touch the grasshopper" Some people can touch hundreds in one night.
The "crawling grasshopper" that has been touched back must be soaked in salt water for one night before vomiting. When eating, whether fried or fried, it is a small fresh meat dish with a fragrant smell. Mother loves to give us the crawling grasshopper: after pouring a little oil into the pot, pour the cleaned crawling grasshopper in, then press the spoon with a shovel in the hot dry pot, and finally sprinkle some salt ... It tastes delicious.
Of course, my favorite is the bowl of amaranth salty soup in hot summer. We call amaranth "emerald fruit and vegetable" there. The vigorous vitality of summer has brought countless jade fruits and vegetables to fields and Woods. No matter how people pinch its tender leaves, it can grow back, which is inexhaustible. I still remember that in one noisy and hot noon after another, looking at our hungry and expecting eyes, my sad mother would go out for a long time in the Woods and fields, and then bring back a handful of newly picked jade fruits and vegetables to prepare salty soup.
Generally, she will first find a tomato and cut it into pieces, then add a few bowls of water to the pot, and then pour a bowl of batter when the pot is boiling. After the second pot is boiled, she will put the washed jade leaves, fruits and vegetables into the pot, then make a small hole in the pot for the third time, "throw" the egg liquid into the pot one by one, and then sprinkle with spices such as salt and thirteen incense, so that the pot will be delicious. Naturally growing tomatoes add a little acidity to vegetable soup, while wild jade and fruits and vegetables are fresh and refreshing. I can drink three bowls of salty soup with sour taste by myself. At this time, I will temporarily forget the hardships and bitterness of life, because the delicious salty soup of jade and vegetables is enough to make me feel the glory and beauty of the world.
It's autumn, and there is still no food in the pot. The atmosphere at home has also dropped with the temperature, and mother can't find food for us to eat. Occasionally, she will go to town to wholesale some cheap spicy strips for my brother and me to eat with steamed buns. Hot steamed bread with spicy strips is better than dry steamed bread or "oily steamed bread salt".
We still seldom eat stir-fry in winter. Maybe it's because we save money on food and oil, or maybe it's because we just use well water that we have to bring back at home. It is not convenient to stir-fry and cook soup. Anyway, the most common thing in the kitchen is cold radish. White radish in winter in rural areas is too cheap. My mother always cuts the radish into white and tender filaments, and then mixes it with salt, sesame oil and vinegar to make steamed vegetables for us. Hot steamed bread with sour and salty shredded radish is also very refreshing. I was growing up at that time, and I could swallow two or three steamed stuffed buns with this food.
Of course, when it's freezing, my mother occasionally cooks a pot of "Chili sauce" for us: chop the dried peppers and stir fry them, then pour water, add a handful of shrimp skin, then mix in the thick batter and cook them in the pot. When cooking, add an egg, stir it in the pot, and finally mix it with seasoning ... In the cold winter, the spoonful of Chili sauce was quickly sent into the mouth, and the spicy and delicious taste contributed.
In addition to cold shredded radish and occasional Chili sauce, in boring winter, mothers will cook "eggs and garlic" for children in urgent need of nutrition. Garlic in winter in rural areas is also very cheap. My mother always asks us to peel a lot of garlic cloves for her first, then mash these white garlic cloves in a garlic mortar, pour some water, vinegar and salt and mix well, then peel a cooked egg and mash it in a garlic mortar, mix it with garlic paste and drop two drops of sesame oil ... so a nutritious, salty and delicious "egg garlic" is ready. I like to eat steamed stuffed bun with eggs and garlic, but it is often spicy enough to drink soup in the end.
As for mom's recipe for the New Year, it depends on how much money dad brought home years ago. However, there is often not much money after paying off the account. In this case, at the end of the twelfth lunar month, I began to buy new year's goods. What my father bought from the market was only a bony piece of pork. So my mother had to buy a lot of dried kelp and go home to cook pig bones.
Kelp tastes really bad. Mother should first drill a well water in the stone trough in the yard, then soak the dried kelp slices in the water, wash them repeatedly, and then fetch water. Until the kelp becomes soft and washed clean, mother will take them out and drain them, then fold them into rolls and cut them into filaments, put them on the burning firewood, stew them with pig bones and a lot of aniseed, and then put them in a big iron pot. When you want to eat, pick some out and eat a little ... this pot of pork bone kelp is a meat dish we prepared for our family during the Chinese New Year. Because there are dishes with fixed lard and the temperature is almost below zero, this cauldron can be eaten for several days. But when I was a child, I felt guilty. I didn't like eating these ugly kelp at all, which made my mother very nervous. My temper has suddenly changed in recent years, and I like to eat stewed kelp. I begged my mother to do it, but she wouldn't do anything. What a pity.
Actually, my mother likes to learn cooking, but it depends on what ingredients are available at home. Once before the Chinese New Year, my father was a little loose. When he was happy, he bought some cheap sheep bones from somewhere and threw them into the kitchen for his mother to see. Mother thought about it, so she had to pick up a rotten briquette stove that had not been used for many years from the grocery pile in the wing, and then filled it with firewood and lit it by the kitchen door. Then she put the salted sheep bones and a lot of aniseed into a steel pot, filled it with water and cooked it on the stove all afternoon.
I still remember that it suddenly snowed heavily that day. I sat at the door of the main house and watched the falling snow turn the world a little white. What I was thinking was when I could eat the pot of meat sticks in the kitchen. I was not afraid of the cold at all. The cold wind wrapped in a thick smell of meat rushed into my nose again and again, and I greedily sucked them into my stomach. Wait and wait, wait and wait, the snow in front of the door is getting thicker and thicker, and the puppy can be branded with deep plum blossom marks. My mother finally gave me instructions in the kitchen: "All right! Niu Niu, come and eat meat. " Hearing my mother's call, I immediately got up, quickly stepped over the snow in the yard and rushed into the kitchen. No matter the white fog in the pot blocked my view, I persistently picked the most delicious fleshy bones in the pot, and then sat back at the door of the main room, holding them contentedly regardless of the hot hands. Looking at the snow, I feel uncomfortable.
Another summer, when my mother was working in a small workshop, she overheard someone talking about the practice of Kang Chili noodles, saying that it was similar to the taste of fried green peppers with eggs, which saved a lot of money on eggs. She tried to do it when she got home. But I don't know if it's because the noodles were not mixed well for the first time. The noodles she made turned into sticky Chili rings. Of course, mother felt embarrassed when the picky children left the plate. Since then, she has never cooked this dish. ...
Many years have passed, we have all grown up, and the life at home is finally getting better. The bitter days have passed, but the taste of "mom's cooking" is always imprinted in my heart. And when I look back, I find that those gloomy experiences and the mutual harm among family members are blurred by the hand of time. What we recall is the fireworks that we are still trying to grab in the dark; Is a mother tortured by life, trying to cook simple and delicious meals for her children; But when we endure poverty and oppression, everyone lives alone in silence ... it turned out to be beautiful.