At this time, bees and people began to get busy. Bees are flying among the blooming flowers, busy collecting honey. The honey produced is water-white, yellowish, moderate in consistency and not easy to crystallize. There is a touch of Sophora japonica honey at the entrance. People prefer acacia flowers that will bloom but not bloom. Tie a sickle with a long bamboo pole and directly cut off the dense branches of the flowers to take their ears. Or tie an iron hook on the bamboo pole, hook the branch, bend the branch, and take off the flower head where people can reach it. In the era of material poverty, this scene is very common in northern China, especially in the North China Plain. At that time, Robinia pseudoacacia became people's life-saving food. If it weren't for/kloc-the locust was introduced into China from North America in the second half of the 9th century, how many people would have left in despair when the famine came. In recent years, although life has improved, many elderly people have never forgotten the taste of acacia flowers in their diet.
As a post-80s generation, I lived in the countryside when I was a child. Every spring, the fragrance of Sophora japonica permeates every corner of the village. The children beat Sophora japonica with dustpans, sieves and bamboo poles with sickles. In the evening, they mix Sophora japonica with flour and steam vegetables in a steamer. After the water is boiled, steam emerges from the steamer, with the elegant fragrance of Sophora japonica. I often lie beside the pot, waiting for the moment when I open the steamer and enjoy the joy.
When I grew up, I left the countryside. For a long time, I didn't taste Sophora japonica. Occasionally, I saw it on the restaurant menu, and my friends at the same table never had a good impression on it. That winter, a dormitory colleague Xiao Wang brought a bag of fried dumplings from home and invited me to taste it. The moment I bit it, I found the taste of childhood. The fragrance of Sophora japonica is accompanied by the taste of eggs, which makes people feel fragrant. It turned out that Xiao Wang's mother picked Sophora japonica in spring, cooked it and dried it, and kept it for a long time until the cold winter. When fried, jiaozi smells like spring.
After that winter, I fell in love with the smell of Sophora japonica. In April and May, when winter went and spring came, I rode my bike along the valley road around the town to find traces of Sophora japonica, and competed with my uncles and aunts to pick the head of Sophora japonica. Last spring, when the acacia flowers around my father's factory were about to open, I drove my family to pick them all afternoon and came back with a full load. My mother steamed some fresh Sophora japonica into steamed vegetables like when I was a child, and dipped them in garlic juice to eat. After blanching, the rest can be either air-dried or frozen in the refrigerator after water control. Four seasons change, bloom flowers fall, and the frozen acacia flowers are still like spring after soaking in water. Calyx is bell-shaped and yellow-green. Scrambled eggs in the oil pan are golden and light green, with good color and fragrance.
In this life, no matter where you go, no matter when you arrive, the fragrance of acacia flowers and its taste in food are still fresh in your memory.