(1)
At the "Xiang Gathering" gathering, one of the dishes was "Yuhe". Just looking at the menu is mouth-watering: the vegetable stems are dark green, like emeralds, served with red pepper and tempeh. The dishes are exquisite, and the aroma and taste are also noticeable. Looking at the a la carte menu, there are Youxian dried tofu, farm-style stir-fried pork, fish head with chopped pepper, and of course, the "Yuhe'er" that I just found on the menu to be rare and tempting.
When the food was served and tasted, I realized that the jade grain looked familiar. Slightly astringent, a little sweet, creamy, but chewy, I recalled thinking: Could it be "taro"? Only after tasting it again can I be sure that this "jade grass" is indeed "taro grass". In layman's terms, it is the leaves and stems of taro. It's just a word difference, but there is a huge difference. Jade is stained with fairy spirit, while taro is indeed a vulgar thing dug out of the soil. "Taro", a common food that even pigs didn't eat in the countryside in the old days, has become a bit more cultural after being hyped by merchants and given a new name.
Taro is widely planted in Jianghan Plain in my hometown, just like sweet potatoes and potatoes are widely planted in Shandong and Henan. It is common and common. Like potatoes and sweet potatoes, taro has high starch content, is easy to grow, harvest well, and can be stored well. In times of famine, taro can replace the functions of rice and wheat. It has been widely planted in hometowns in the Jianghan Plain and deserves its reputation. Wherever you go to the paddy fields and dry land and look up, you can see a large area of ??green taro with thick leaves and thick stems. Standing in the paddy fields and dry land, lined up in rows, they are particularly conspicuous and dazzling.
March to May is the time to plant taro. The "seed" of taro is actually its tubers buried underground. One month before planting, you need to bury it in the sand. After watering and germinating, wait for the taro to sprout green buds like emeralds before planting it. The land where taro is grown is by no means a good and fertile land. The corners of vegetable gardens and paddy fields are humid and close to water. Other delicate vegetables are disgusted, but taro likes it. This is about water taro, and there is also dry taro, which is not picky either. Sandy soil is a good place for it to grow. The taro grown in the sandy soil is delicious, smooth and powdery. It is the best for steaming ribs and lean meat.
Other vegetables are delicate and need to be cared for all day long, watering, loosening the soil, and applying pesticides, but taro is planted without any care. It grows like that, when the wind comes, the leaves rustle, and when the rain comes, the dew is shaken off, collecting the morning wind and rain, bathing in the morning glow and sunset, growing silently in the countryside fields. Like a silent old farmer in the countryside, dull but determined. But its roots are slowly gestating and expanding. From the tubers, small tubers branch out, one, two, three... these are all babies born from the mother stem. We have no way of understanding what is happening on the earth, but it happens all the time.
It took three months for taro to grow from a low plant to a complete seedling. In May, it stops the growth of leaf stems and supplies main nutrients to the tubers underground, because this season is the best time for the tubers to grow excessively. Farmers who know how to plant will ridge the taro plant with soil at this time, shovel a thin layer of soil, cover its roots, and then trample it firmly to cover its roots tightly. Under the abundant sunshine in May, the unruly "taro cubs" on the taro heads grow bigger and bigger. Some naughty taro cubs will even break through the barriers of the soil and emerge. At this time, the farmers will grab a handful of soil and cover it - because the taro seeds cannot see the sun. When exposed to the sun, the "taro boys" will turn green and hard, and finally become incorrigible. Taro.
In June, the taro in the fields can be dug out and eaten. Few people sell the first crop of taro. They usually dig it up themselves and fry, boil, or steam it at home. They are the first to taste it at home. Those who dig taro are often children of half-year-old age. They are eager for the taro and greedy for the taro. They don't wait for their parents to tell them - be careful when digging the melon seeds. The taro stems are "big", so beware of itchy hands! He put on his bamboo basket and shovel and headed into the fields to dig out taro. One person grabbed the whole taro seedling, and the other person held the shovel, stepped on the back of the shovel, and dug it down. With a violent tug, the entire taro plant was uprooted. "There are so many taros!" "Enough for a bowl!" "Do you want to dig more?" "Dig more, and you can eat more." While talking, they dug the taro, and after a while, the bamboo The basket was filled with taro, and scattered around were taro cubs. On the blue side of the bamboo, there were taro seedlings lying on them. They couldn’t be thrown away. There was a big taro attached to the taro seedlings. This was the taro boy’s “ Mother". Don’t throw away the taro leaves. When you get home, your parents can make it into a dish.
When digging taro, I completely forgot about my parents’ instructions. At this time, I realized that my whole body was itching. My hands, arms, face, feet, any exposed place, there was no place that was not itchy. I scratched it with my hands. The more I scratched it, the more itchy it became. The more itchy I was, the more I scratched it. The place that was not itchy became itchy. He was so anxious that he stamped his feet, but accidentally, he fell down from the field ridge and fell into the paddy field, turning into a clay figure. The little friends next to me were about to laugh, but they were laughed at by the little friend who had just crawled out of the paddy field - it turned out that his face was also covered with mud, with one patch of red and one patch of black, which looked extremely funny. . There's nothing you can do about it, everyone is a greedy person. Just like that, carrying the bamboo basket, facing the sunset, and scratching my itch, I returned home.
Parents have a special trick to relieve itching. They call their children to the stove and heat them up, and the itch on their bodies miraculously disappears. Of course it’s uncomfortable to be on the fire in the summer. Of course our parents know that. They throw a taro into the stove and let us roast the taro while warming the fire. When the taro is cooked, the itch disappears, and you can still eat the delicious roasted taro. We are all willing to do such good things, even if the sweat flows down our faces like rivers and we are willing to twist and crawl like earthworms. Dinner was quickly prepared. It was a bowl of fried taro. The milky white taro was cut into slices and lay on a thick plate, steaming and fragrant. Tables and chairs were set up in the yard, and we ate in the open air. The sunset dyed the sky red, the cicadas on the newly planted trees were chirping noisily, and the evening breeze was blowing. Everything was so beautiful.
In June and July, the taro cubs grew bigger. At this time, taro had been eaten several times on the farm's dining table, and it was nothing new. My parents made taro in different ways. Stir-fried, steamed, grilled, simmered in rice, grilled, they all tempt us one day at a time. It is indeed delicious when fried, but tastes bland after eating for a long time. When steamed, the taro is much pinker and tenderer, but when eaten, it feels tasteless. Stewed in rice, we never get tired of eating it: Pour the oil into a hot pot, wait until the oil is heated through, then put the washed and cut taro into the pot, stir-fry over high heat until the taro is eighty-cooked ,add water. At this time, pour the medium-cooked rice that has been cooked in the pot and filtered rice soup into the pot to cover the taro. Cover the pot and cook over high heat for about half an hour. At this time, the braised taro rice is done. The whole pot of rice, soaked in the aroma of taro and oil, suddenly became soft and delicious. When making taro stewed rice, we don’t cook at home. We finished one bowl and then added another, and we didn’t stop until our stomachs couldn’t hold it anymore.
Actually, it’s not that fried and steamed taro are not delicious, it’s just that these fried and steamed taro lack the blending and moistening of the meat slices. If there are meat stars in the taro, we can dry up the entire plate of taro without even leaving any soup. Unfortunately, the living conditions at that time were poor. We could not eat meat or see meat or meat a few times a year.
Roasting taro is best done in winter. At that time, the trees were desolate, the grass was withered and yellow, and the Jianghan Plain was dry and cold. The most favorite thing for children to do is to guard the stove - it is called adding wood to the stove to add fire to the stove, but in fact it is to warm the fire. In winter like this, squatting by the stove, the fire in the stove is blazing, reflecting on your face, making you feel extra warm and comfortable. The most comfortable thing is not this - go to the cellar to get a few potatoes or taro, and throw it on the fire in the stove. Roast the potatoes or taro with tongs while inserting rice straw and cotton stalks into the stove. The rice was cooked, and the roasted taro was also cooked. I found a piece of paper to wrap the taro, hurriedly hid in a corner, peeled off the burnt skin, and started eating hungrily, regardless of the burning pain in my mouth. Originally, one should not be impatient when eating taro, as it is hot on the one hand and easy to choke on the other. However, this roasted taro is also an easy-to-fly duck. If you are not careful, it will become the food in the mouths of your younger brothers and sisters, so devouring it has become a habit. It was natural at the time.
What about the “stem” of taro? It was not thrown away. It was made into a dish by my parents when they were digging taro. Peel off the green skin, cut into sections, then add salt and chili pepper, press it in a ceramic jar, wait until the green and yellow are gone, take it out and eat it, it is a good dish for rice, sour and smooth. This dish is called "pickled taro" by us. There were so many taro stems that it was impossible to use them all for "pickling", so my parents soaked the taro stems in water and dried them in the hot June sun. This is also a good dish in winter. After it is soaked, you can stir-fry the meat slices, or stir-fry it with black bean and chili pepper. It tastes crispy and crispy.
There are so many taro leaves and stems that they are also used to feed pigs. In fact, even if you eat too much, the pig won’t eat it. I always thought that pigs are ticklish! Think about it, when digging and washing taro, people’s hands are extremely itchy? When I eat this leaf, my mouth is full of hair. How uncomfortable is this?
(2)
The reform and opening up in the 1980s and the economic boom in the 1990s. There are three old vegetables and three new ones growing in the ground. The taro is still at the edge of the fields, green and dazzling. However, there are still fewer people planting. On the dining table, the taro gradually disappeared, replaced by chicken, duck and fish. Taro is delicious, but in the end it cannot withstand the change of time and the rotation of years. It cannot compete with the fresh vegetables popping up like bamboo shoots in spring, and "thousands of pear trees are blooming".
It will still appear on the dining table during the Chinese New Year and holidays. It's not stir-fried or stewed, but "steamed taro meat". Cut the fresh meat into sections, evenly fat and lean, mix it with the special steamed meat powder, and cover it on the "taro". Steam in a steamer or pressure cooker for half an hour. Out of the cage, it is a bowl of delicious food suitable for all ages. The fatness of the meat penetrates into the taro, and the fragrance of the taro touches the meat of the knife. The two are suitable and the taste is just right. The meat tastes soft and thick, and the taro tastes pink, tender, chewy, smooth, and melts in your mouth when you take a bite. The taste should be something that can only be found in heaven and rarely seen on earth.
Both my parents are masters at making "steamed taro meat". In the early 1990s, I was studying abroad and had free time at home during the holidays. My parents rewarded me with this "steamed pork with taro". A big bowl of taro, I can eat it all.
After eating, I asked my parents stupidly: "Why don't you eat?" I looked at the plate that I had eaten all over, and smiled sheepishly. Seeing my embarrassment, they comforted me: "We often eat at home. If you don't come back, eat more." In fact, I know that they eat there so often that a steel hoe would make me want to break it in half and use it. , to secretly save it for us to study, how can they be willing to eat it?
How many holidays are there like this, and how many times do you eat "steamed meat with taro"? I don’t remember clearly, I just remember that while eating like this, I graduated, and then ran all the way from the Jianghan Plain to the south along the coast.
The south has more rain and more taro. However, this taro is still very different from the taro in the Jianghan Plain - it has smooth skin and is big, weighing three to five kilograms each; it is fleshy and the white flesh is mixed with red silk threads, which are clearly visible, like exquisite embroidery. The first time I bought taro in a vegetable market, I didn't recognize it. When the vegetable seller told me it was taro, I couldn't believe my eyes - was this taro a real taro? Why are they completely different from the taro in Jianghan Plain? Taro is still taro, tangerine in the south and tangerine in the north. The water and soil support the people, the scenery and the taro.
I bought it home, but I don’t know how to make it. For such a big taro, should it be stir-fried, steamed, or steamed? I recalled eating taro with pickled vegetables and meat in a restaurant. It was delicious and I wanted to try it again. Unfortunately, I was single at that time, so I couldn’t find all the oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea in the kitchen, and there was pickled vegetables there. In desperation, I sliced ??the taro into slices and made fried taro. The taro was finally made into a dish, which was indeed not served to the table. The sliced ??taro turned out to be wilted and soft after being stirred in the hot pot for a few times, and finally turned into taro soup. The first time I fried taro from the south, what I ate was not taro slices, but taro soup.
The taro in the south is actually more delicious than the taro in the Jianghan Plain. Taro can be divided into red taro (also known as red bud taro), white taro (also known as white bud taro), nine-head taro (dog claw taro), betel nut taro (called Lipu taro in Guangxi), etc. The Jianghan Plain in the Yangtze River Basin mainly cultivates "nine-headed taro", but it is the betel nut taro that can really be used for royal banquets. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi in the Pearl River Basin, and Taiwan adjacent to Fujian, are the "betel nut taro". The main producing area of ??taro. The world-famous "Lipu taro" is "Pelang taro", which is produced in "Lipu County" in Guilin, Guangxi. For hundreds of years, it has been paid tribute to the royal family, especially during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, it reached its peak Sheng. This shows how delicious Lipu taro is.
In the TV series "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo", there is a scene about Lipu taro - Luoguo hurriedly held the taro and gnawed it, experiencing the pleasure of the people's delicacies; Emperor Qianlong also had a huge appetite after seeing it If you want more, you should also try the "Lipu Taro". The attendant cut a piece with cotton thread and sent it to Emperor Qianlong. The emperor kept shouting, "It's delicious! It's delicious!" What does Lipu taro look like when it's steamed? The skin falls off as soon as it is peeled off, revealing the white and soft taro meat inside. Cut it open with cotton thread, and you can see the red inner core. Just looking at it makes people salivate. If you eat it, it will definitely be a royal enjoyment.
All food should be natural.
The method of "Lipu Taro" follows nature. No seasonings added, pure steaming, and steaming with water. The farther away the surface of the boiling water is from the taro, the better. It will taste very pink, soft, sweet and delicious. Looking at its unique light purple color, my heart feels as soft as stepping on clouds. After steaming, do not use a knife to cut, but use cotton thread. This is also very particular: a contestant who once participated in a cooking competition never uses a knife or other sharp tools to cut vegetables. All vegetables that can be torn or peeled by hand are used. She said: "If you use a knife to cut vegetables, the vegetables will be stained with the smell of rust, and they will no longer be original. Their hometown is very particular about this." This undoubtedly adds a certain Zen feel to the food, which is fascinating.
Taro is abundant in the south. Of course, there are more ways to eat taro than in my hometown in Jianghan Plain.
The most common one is "Lipu Taro Stewed Pork". The taro is cut into thin slices, evenly sized, fried in a pan, then sandwiched in the pork, with a layer of "plumb vegetables" placed underneath, and steamed in a steamer, a bit like the "taro steamed pork" recipe from home. The "Lipu Taro Braised Pork" made in this way has a special flavor and the meat is not greasy. This is a typical Hakka Meizhou way of eating taro. In the south, you can see and eat this dish in Meizhou restaurants of all sizes. The Guangzhou people's "sago and taro sugar water" is delicious, creamy and sweet, especially in summer. It is a good drink to relieve the heat. The main ingredient is taro. Chaozhou people also promote the way of eating taro. Boil the taro and peel it, put it in a hot pot, add lard, sugar, and a small amount of milk powder, and press it into "milk taro". It tastes sweet, soft, and is a Chaozhou specialty. Famous snacks.
There are more ways to eat it. Mix it with fish, meat, chicken, winter bamboo shoots, and mushrooms, and fry it to make "taro crisp", which is crispy and refreshing. Boiled or stewed with meat, it can also be sliced ??and eaten in a hot pot to make taro balls, braised taro pork, stir-fried taro slices, taro ribs, and so on.
There is a saying in my hometown: Those who like delicious food must know how to cook it. What it means is that people who like to eat, who eat a lot, see a lot and eat a lot, can also cook by themselves. In restaurants in the South, after slowly eating "Taro with Meat and Chops" and "Taro with Pork Ribs", I will also try to make some dishes related to "Taro" to soothe my homesick stomach. Although, this taro is not that taro.
What I remember most is the "Casserole Pot with Taro Pork Ribs". Buy fresh ribs and taro from the market, cut the "taro" into pieces, chop the ribs into small pieces, and prepare some garlic and ginger. Heat oil in a pan, put the ribs in the pan, add salt, soy sauce and vinegar, stir-fry over high heat until medium cooked, turn off the heat, then place the fried ribs at the bottom of the casserole, cover the ribs with diced taro, add water, and cover , cook over low heat. The casserole is singing on the fire, and the aroma is overflowing. With little effort, a pot of soft, sweet casserole with pork ribs and taro is freshly baked. Open the lid of the casserole, the delicious aroma is mouth-watering.
First of all, I don’t know how to cook this dish. The person who taught me how to make this dish was my girlfriend, who eventually became my wife. In the books I read, the love between a man and a woman starts from borrowing a book, one borrows it and the other returns it, and then the affection grows and the affection grows. This borrowed book is good, elegant, and has some cultural connotations, but if you think about it carefully, it has a somewhat otherworldly flavor. In fact, the best love is still found in the mortal world, a porridge, a meal, a thread, for example: it catches a person's stomach just right, and then catches a person's heart. The best love comes from trivial things like firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, companionship and warmth, a cup of tea, a mouthful of rice, a dish, for a lifetime.
I have seen so many taros and eaten so many taros, but what I miss most is the bowl of taro from Jianghan Plain. That bowl of "taro" called "Taro Steamed Pork" is the best delicacy made with taro that I have ever eaten.
At that time, I was in the south, and the bowl of taro was in the north. Fortunately, my parents are still in my hometown. I have a hometown to return to and a home to return to. During the Spring Festival, when I rush home from a thousand miles away, I will definitely see this plate of "steamed taro meat" on the dining table. I have traveled through many sights, met many people, and eaten different delicacies from different places, but I still have a soft spot for this ordinary bowl of "steamed taro meat". Pick it up piece by piece and put it in your mouth. It melts in your mouth and still tastes the same. The parents sat aside, squinting, watching and talking. Outside the window, thousands of lights and sporadic fireworks bloomed and rose in the night sky, still as warm as before.
A person's nostalgia is not just limited to space and time. Sometimes, it will specifically point to a certain thing, or a taste, or a kind of food. Only these specific objects and things can constitute memories, either beautiful or sad. A bowl of taro has appropriately become a link, linking me to my growing "hometown", and connecting me to my ever-growing family ties. It has traveled across time, space and geography, comforting the stomach of a wanderer and comforting my family. The heart of a wanderer.
At this time, I am still in the south, but the bowl of taro is not in the north.
In 2008, my parents moved to the south with us. And our hometown is completely separated from us. A bowl of "steamed taro meat" was also completely separated from me.
(3)
Don’t you know that human eating is genetic? For example, children in the north love pasta since birth. Children in the South love to eat rice when they are born. For example, most of the children born to Hunan girls who love spicy food will also like chili peppers in the future. I always believe that a place of water and soil will support a person. Dragon begets dragon, phoenix begets phoenix. Children who eat noodles will also eat noodles.
In 10 years, my daughter was born. She likes to eat all starchy foods, including potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro, and yam. This is similar to my grandfather and me. This may be a strong inheritance. When I was a kid, I was a starch lover—as long as there were potatoes, sweet potatoes, and taro on the table, I could always eat a few more bowls of rice. I ate less Huaishan when I was a child. It is said that Henan is its main production area. At that time, the circulation of goods was not good, so I couldn't eat it even if I wanted to. My parents cooked these foods in different ways - frying, stewing, frying, frying, frying, and frying potatoes and sweet potatoes into slices, some like the potato chips from McDonald's and KFC, which were our snacks during the Spring Festival.
If you want to eat easily, this is not a problem for grandpa, and he will take turns cooking for you.
If you are younger, cook porridge and eat it. Add sweet potatoes, yam, or taro to the white porridge to give it a unique flavor. Grow up a little and make sweet potato chips. I bought fresh sweet potatoes, cooked them, sliced ??them, fried them in a pan, and sealed them in a ziplock bag. When my daughter wanted to eat them, she took out a piece and chewed them. Sometimes, after finishing the meal not long after it was cooked, I would say: "Grandpa, it tastes better than McDonald's potato chips! You should make more." Every now and then, I would make "steamed taro meat", and the pink meat would pile up on the white background. The taro sprouts are beautiful and delicious, and my daughter also likes them.
For a while, my daughter really wanted to eat "steamed taro meat". When my grandparents heard about it, they rushed straight to the market. I ran from one vegetable market to that vegetable market, from a small vegetable market to a large agricultural wholesale market, only to come back empty-handed. The steamed meat taro used by my parents is the "nine-headed taro" from their hometown. They have always stubbornly believed that only such taro is delicious, has the taste of "taro steamed meat", and has the taste of hometown.
They have been so stubborn for many years. I went to Guangzhou in 2008 to take care of my newly pregnant wife. Then take care of the newborn child. During the holidays, they will still make a pot of "lotus root soup" and steam a bowl of "steamed taro meat".
They are not very particular about eating, but they are very particular about eating. When buying lotus roots, they have to choose lotus roots sold from Hubei to Guangzhou, and if they are produced in lakes, they say: Only when the lotus root soup is simmered like this can it be cooked well and delicious. The taste of hometown. When they make "taro steamed meat", they must use taro from their hometown. They think the "betel nut taro" from the south is too powdery and does not have the texture of "nine-headed taro".
Of course my daughter doesn’t understand this. She only knew about "eating taro". She never knew that taro is also divided into places of origin, and taro also has its own ownership. Some taros belong to foreign lands, and some taros belong to hometown. She never knew that her generation no longer had a hometown. No, perhaps the South and Guangzhou will become her hometown in the future. This is somewhat helpless, but it has become an indisputable fact.
I joked with my parents: "How about we open up some wasteland and plant some taro at the foot of Baiyun Mountain?"
My parents were silent for a while. "This taro is grown in my hometown and is authentic! Otherwise, you can let us go back."
They want to go back. But they can't let go of both sides. On one side, there are children and grandchildren, and on the other side, there is the hometown that haunts them. In the end, family affection defeated nostalgia, and they chose to stay in this noisy city. Although the two old people are accompanied by their children and have grandchildren on their knees, they are still lonely and lonely. After all, in a foreign land, it is difficult to hear the local accent and difficult to see old friends. Having grown up in the countryside all my life, I can chat and chat freely when I go out, but these are difficult to achieve in the city.
And in cities, there are many old people like this who lived in vast rural areas for the first half of their lives, and had no choice but to follow their children in other places for the second half of their lives. It seems that they are decent, but they are alienated and fragile in their hearts. The hometown rooted in their hearts has been stripped away from them alive. This kind of depression and nostalgia cannot be explained clearly in a few words. .
We can never go back. This "we" includes at least three generations. One generation is the real us. The young ones left home and the old ones came back. Their local accent has not changed and their hair on their temples has not changed. We want to go back but have no home to go back to. The first generation, our parents, followed us and took root in a foreign country. They reluctantly regarded this foreign country as their hometown. They had a home but could not return. And our next generation, this generation, no longer has a precise concept of their hometown, and where we are, their hometown is also there. Time changes, years reincarnate, and society changes. If we cannot go back, it will become an unbreakable truth. It's sad, helpless, and irresistible.
One day, my father said: If I die, burn me and scatter me anywhere.
In the past few years, he never talked about life and death. However, I know that he has reached the age where he can talk about life and death. I hope he lives a long life, but people always have to face life and death, and they cannot escape life and death.
"Aren't you going back to your hometown?" I asked.
"I want to go back, where are those people? Even if they are dead, I can chat with them. But it's troublesome! It will cause trouble for you." He was afraid of causing trouble to us.
"It's better to go back! It's better to go back, not lonely, not lonely."
After saying that, I turned my head and secretly wiped away my tears.