My father loves noodles the most. According to my father, this is an ancestral hobby, and my grandfather also loves noodles. At that time, my grandfather was studying in the rainy weather, and would sit on a stilted building near the creek to drink tea and read in his spare time. He often ate noodles to satisfy his hunger, inheriting the legacy of "farming and reading are the foundation, and loyalty and filial piety are passed down to the family".

I have lived in the county for a long time, and I haven’t tasted the wheat-scented handmade noodles in my hometown for a long time, so I often miss the scene of eating handmade noodles in my childhood.

Vermicelli is one of the most common traditional noodles in my country. It has a long history and is famous all over the world. According to historical records, the earliest noodles can be traced back to the Eastern Han Dynasty more than 1,900 years ago. Noodles are also called boiled cakes, soup cakes, shuiyin, cold noodles, warm noodles, etc. They are modern cold noodles or boiled noodles. Huang Tingjian's "Guo Tu Shanzhai": "The south wind supports me day by day, and sometimes the north wind carries me along. A cup of soup cakes has silver threads, and there are many bamboo hairpins and jade hairpins." A vivid image depicts the Song Dynasty people's love for noodles.

Traditional handmade noodles are delicate, round and delicious, with no knots, no muddy soup, and a strong aroma of wheat. They are unique in craftsmanship and rich in nutrients. They are a famous snack loved by Chinese people. In particular, Chongqing’s spicy noodles are well-known at home and abroad. They have been with Chongqing people throughout their lives. They are an indispensable local delicacy in the fast-paced life and have become a popular delicacy for Chongqing people. Folks often regard noodles as a symbol of longevity. They eat "longevity noodles" every time they celebrate their birthdays. Women in Tujia villages will send noodles to congratulate them when they have a baby, which predicts "longevity" and has become a strong folk custom in the past dynasties.

With the development of the times, traditional handmade noodles are becoming less and less popular, and the market is full of machine-made noodles. The wheat flavor can no longer be tasted, so I recall the past of going to a noodle shop to process noodles when I was a child.

My hometown is located in Jianfeng Village, Zhongyi Township, at the foot of Dafengbao Mountain, Shizhu Autonomous County, Wuling Mountain District, southeastern Chongqing. It has a lot of land but little farmland. Every year when the wheat is harvested, it has to be transported manually to the Baiguoba Noodle House, more than 20 kilometers away from home, for processing of noodles. In those days, collective production was carried out by earning a living, and each family could only be allocated about a hundred catties of wheat. The adults worked with the collective during the day, and the burden of going to the noodle shop to process the noodles fell on my shoulders. I am the eldest among four brothers and sisters, so naturally a child of a poor man is the head of the family. At that time, my hometown was more than 20 kilometers away from the noodle shop on a mountain road, which was the ancient salt transportation road from Sichuan to Hubei. The uneven bluestone slabs had been stepped on by predecessors to make them smooth and smooth, and were full of vicissitudes of life.

Carrying more than 50 kilograms of wheat on my back, I walked along the Bayan Ancient Road and down the river for more than 3 hours to reach Baiguoba. This is a mountain village with a long history of more than 100 years, facing the Long River. With the mountains at its back, it is a village that must pass through on the Bayan Ancient Road. It is also the "Yodianzi" (inn) for these back-footers. It is a popular village where the Tan family gathers. The noodle maker's surname was Yang. When he saw that I was sweating, he helped me put down the wheat bag. Then he told the nearby folks who came to process the noodles that I had a long way to go and he was a child. It was not safe to walk at night when it was late, so he asked me to process them first. When the folks saw that Master Yang was so sympathetic to me, they all gave in to me.

At that time, noodle processing was semi-mechanized. From wheat to noodles, it had to go through processes such as grinding, kneading, pressing, stripping, drying, cutting, and packaging. It is the foundation, and kneading the dough and pressing the skin are the key. Powered by a roaring diesel engine. The dough is made by hand, and the dough needs to be pressed five or six times repeatedly to form a thin dough. Then, thick and thin noodle gears are installed, such as "belt noodles" and "leek leaves". , "thin noodles" and several other varieties. After the noodles are rolled out, Master Yang hangs the freshly rolled wet noodles on a bamboo stick with his left hand, and with scissors in his right hand, cuts the long noodles into 1.5-meter-long knots, and then places them on the wooden rack for drying noodles to dry. On sunny days, it can be dried, cut into strips and packaged in two to three hours. The whole noodle shop is filled with a strong aroma of wheat.

The sun was in the west. I carried the freshly processed noodles on my back and hurried back home. My mother had already boiled the water for cooking the noodles, and the whole family was eating the freshly processed handmade noodles. , eating with relish, eating noodles processed from wheat grown by myself, with the smell of sweat, earth, sunshine, wheat, and a faint fragrance floating in the bowl.

In the famine years, when you are hungry, you can only eat noodles when guests come. It is the best food to entertain guests. I remember when I was in high school at Qiaotou Middle School, the student cafeteria was adjacent to the teachers’ cafeteria. Whenever the teacher eats noodles for dinner, the intoxicating fragrance of wheat and noodles comes, making people salivate and longing for a bowl of noodles. At the material exchange conference held every year in Qiaotou District, every noodle restaurant is full of diners, all rushing to eat a bowl of fragrant noodles. Later, the student cafeteria also began to exchange rice for small noodles. At that time, my family was so poor that it was difficult to raise the 7 yuan monthly living expenses.

A classmate from a better-off family exchanged rice for two taels of small noodles. The classmate was tall and tall, and he squeezed into a bowl of noodles without oil stars in the huge crowd. However, the smell of wheat was very strong, and we both Gobble it all up, even drink the noodle soup...

Nowadays, when buying goods in the supermarket and buying vegetables in the farmer's market, the noodles sold in the market are all machine-made electric dryers. There is no wheat aroma at all. The handmade noodles with the wheat aroma in my childhood can only be recalled...