01

In the evening, I met some friends to have porridge.

They are all people who have stepped into their fifties. Their digestive function has declined, and they gradually like to eat and drink in conversation. They are no different from when they were young. When they see chicken, duck, fish and meat, their eyes light up and they rush towards them. .

As always, the friends excitedly picked out corn, potato and barley grits porridge.

As always, I lingered over and over again in front of the rice eight-treasure porridge.

They are daughters born and raised in the city, and I am a village girl born and raised in the city.

I told them about the days when I was eating barley grits as a child.

02

In the countryside in the 1970s, it was quite difficult for ordinary people to have enough to eat. Rice and white noodles were rarely available except for a few major festivals throughout the year.

There is not enough refined food, so coarse grains are needed. Barley, which even pigs don’t eat, has become the main product.

The so-called barley grits are made from barley that has been stone ground, pounded, and peeled. It is purely manual and extremely rough. When baked into cakes, it's like black coal piercing the mouth; when cooked into porridge, it's like pebbles piercing the mouth.

Even though I was hungry, it was still hard to swallow.

The man next door works in a commune and his economic conditions are much better than mine. Every time when the smoke was curling up, I would stand in the corner of the house and often breathe in the aroma of rice wafting from his house.

As long as his little daughter comes out with a rice bowl, I will step forward, stare greedily at the snow-white rice, and swallow my saliva.

I would follow her wherever she went. When she jumped stones across the room (a childhood game), I rushed to bring her her rice bowl, hoping that she would drop some food into my bowl.

03

I don’t remember how old I was, one winter morning, my mother was carrying a hoe. Before going out, she repeatedly told her sister: Da Ya, hold the baby up well, be careful not to drop it. Go down to the river. Go early, otherwise there will be no food or meat to eat.

Then, around noon, my sister, who has always been naughty, would carefully hold my hand and take me to the production team canteen.

When I grew up, I asked my mother how old I was at that time. My mother said, you two sisters are only about five or six years old!

My sister is only two years older than me. To walk to the production team’s pig farm, we have to cross a ditch and a bridge. The road is a foot wide and connected to the river. How can you feel relieved, Mom?

The mother sighed, there was nothing we could do, life was poor at that time. The production team kills pigs once a year and eats in the canteen together. There are fragrant rice and steamed buns, as well as pork that makes you covered in oil. Who wouldn’t want to take a bite?

Those who earn work points can eat in person, but they are not allowed to take it home secretly. What’s the point of eating alone? I wish you could go and be greedy.

When I grew up, I realized that my sister and I had eaten our mother's share.

04

I went to elementary school, and my eldest brother became the production team leader.

Sometimes the team members held meetings at my house and discussed until late at night. Everyone was so hungry that their chests were pressed against their backs, so we all made a "fighting party", which was to get some food at short notice.

It was also late at night in winter. I was sleeping in a daze. My elder brother hugged me and sat up. Then I stuffed a bowl of hot broth with rice into my hands.

The kerosene lamp is not lit, the eyes are not opened, and the mouth is sizzling. Is there anything more delicious than this in the world?

Therefore, whenever my eldest brother holds a meeting at home, I will be very excited. I will walk through the crowd like a loach and refuse to go to bed for fear that they will forget when they are "working together". Call me.

I was so tired that I either sat on my elder brother's lap and staggered around, or collapsed on the firewood curtain, before my mother took me to bed.

The next morning, my mother always laughed at me for being greedy and gave a bowl of rice to you two girls, never to the three brothers above.

So far, I have not asked my eldest brother, where did they get vegetables, rice and pork in the pitch-black cold weather?

05

He must be ten years old. Life at home is getting better, but his three meals a day are still mainly composed of whole grains.

After eating barley grits rice for several days, I got goosebumps all over my body just by looking at it.

When the lid of the pot was lifted, there was another black whole-grain rice. I frowned and stomped away, as if I had been stung by a wasp.

I was so hungry that I begged my mother, could she make some rice?

Seeing that I was sallow and thin, my mother used a white cloth to nest a ball of rice and placed it in the pot between the grits. The grains and rice were clearly distinguishable. After the meal was finished, my mother opened the lid of the pot, picked up the white cloth bag, and poured out half a bowl of rice.

I eat my white rice, and my parents and brothers and sisters eat their cereals.

Food was scarce, I was naughty, and I was so skinny that I was only a handful, so my parents, brothers, and sisters favored me.

Growing up, I have been malnourished, with a thin head and slender penis. During the physical examination in the third grade of junior high school, I weighed less than 75 pounds.

Go to the county town to study in a high school and work as a dormitory student, paying rice to the cafeteria to lead the staff. My parents brought me the best rice at home, and from then on I really said goodbye to the days of eating barley grits and whole grains.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my branches finally fully bloomed.

So much so that when I went home during the holidays, my neighbor's sister-in-law would praise me once: My sister-in-law is fair and fat, and she really looks like a city girl.

06

Over the past forty years, life has become extremely rich. There is nothing that we think about day and night but cannot eat.

To this day, I still retain the habit of making rice with broth, and I still refuse to eat barley grits and other grains, no matter how finely ground it is, it will help reduce the three highs.

Nowadays, sitting at home, there is a dazzling array of delicious food from all over the world. It has become a daily routine to buy food online from the sky at the touch of a button.

However, the mother's words, "Hold the baby well, be careful not to fall into the river" are still engraved in my heart; the man with braids was standing by the pot, eagerly waiting for a handful of white rice in the middle of the pot. The anxiety is still imprinted in my mind; in the middle of the night, in my sleepy state, I closed my eyes and held my rice bowl and devoured it, and the smell of meat still lingered in my mouth.

The longer time goes by, the more clear the memories of childhood that are engraved in my heart, imprinted in my mind, and remain in my mouth, as if they have never left.