here, I have to talk about the background of that poor life first. Now, there are many children in our family, four. I have 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 our brother and sister, 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, my grandmother would take me on foot for more than ten miles to send her clothes every few days; After my brother was born, the family was fined for many years. Needless to say, the furniture was almost completely moved by the "squad", and even the double wooden bed in my parents' room was taken away by a tricycle ... But my father told my brother and me, "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 in the fields. The prosperity of the population is not only related to the labor force, but also a symbol of family power. Families with thin children will be bullied badly if they have no money and no power. When our family came to my father's generation, it was almost a "single-family" in the village: my grandfather drifted around 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 were no uncles to rely on, so it goes without saying how much unspeakable bitterness such a father had. Another very important reason is that as my brother and father's eldest son grow up slowly, his "very sincere and honest" temperament revealed since childhood makes his father more and more disappointed. What the father at that time urgently needed was a strong and even domineering son to act as the guardian of our family with him. So, later, my brother was born with great expectations-the last straw that overwhelmed my family's economy. I can't evaluate the right or wrong of my father's practice. It's just that not only my younger brother and I, but also my brothers and sisters, have been suffering from the humiliation from poverty and all kinds of complicated eyes since childhood, as well as the inferiority burned into their bones in such growth experiences. If nothing else, only three meals a day, let me begin to realize the hard work of the world.
In the poorest days, my honest father had to go out to work. Except for my brother and sister who were studying in middle school in the county, there were only my mother, brother and me at home. And that long, mostly "three whites a day" days: eating white buns and drinking white noodles and clear soup in the morning; Eat white noodles with chopped green onion at noon; In the evening, I still eat white steamed buns and drink clear soup with white flour, which makes me unbearable and miserable. Only when my brother and sister go home on holiday will my mother go to the market to cut some meat for the first time and come back to give us a rare treat. At that time, the desire for cooking almost became my obsession. I really wanted to eat hot and oily dishes. I remember that every time I go to my friends' house to play, what I admire most is the stir-fried dishes they eat, even if it's just a plate of fried shredded potatoes and fried bean sprouts, which makes me try to restrain myself from swallowing saliva and not being discovered by others.
at one time, my mother took my grandmother to help take care of my brother and me. Although grandma is good at cooking, there are no ingredients at home for her to clean up. It is "a clever woman can't cook without rice". I still remember, once I came home from morning reading and saw the usual breakfast: dry steamed buns and clear soup. I couldn't help feeling wronged any longer, and choked up and asked my grandmother, "Grandma, why do we eat steamed buns and drink soup every day?" When grandma heard this, her sallow eyes turned red, then she wiped her eyes with a headscarf and turned away. That morning, grandma cried, mother cried, and I was crying.
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 the white flour steamed bread, then sprinkle a little salt into this "steamed bread pit", and then drop a few drops of sesame oil, so that when we eat steamed bread, we can grab the steamed bread and dip it in some oil and salt, so as not to choke.
However, what impressed me the most was the spring, when our family would eat more vegetables, because abundant ingredients would grow on trees and fields, such as Sophora japonica, elm, gray vegetables ... My mother would often pick these fresh vegetables and steam them for us. I remember that on many cold mornings, I went home after studying by myself, and I was happy when I saw the white smoke slowly drifting from my chimney. Such smoke indicates that this day's breakfast must be more than just plain 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 the vinegar sauce and garlic paste that has already been mixed with the taste. In a short time, a pot of delicious steamed vegetables was prepared, and my mother would give my brother and me a full bowl, and then the three of us sat in the small yard with the fragrance of spring and ate very happily.
But after spring leaves in a hurry, the days when there is food will disappear again. However, when the cicadas and frogs are noisy, our food will be different, because at this time, mother will use "crawling grasshopper" and amaranth salty soup to adjust the light three meals a day. "Crawling grasshoppers" are what they look like before they shed their shells. Every day after sunset, they arch out of the ground and climb to the tree to prepare for "transformation". At this time, the meat quality is the freshest. Therefore, after dinner, all the people in the village will patrol every tree inside and outside the village with flashlights, long bamboo poles and a big plastic bucket, that is, "touch the grasshopper". Some people can touch hundreds of them in one night.
The crawled grasshopper must be soaked in salt water for one night to vomit. When it is eaten, whether it is fried, fried or kang, it is a small meat dish with a fragrant smell. Mother loves to give us the crawling grasshopper to eat: after pouring a little oil into the pot, pour the cleaned crawling grasshopper into it, then press the spoon with a shovel in the hot dry pot, and finally sprinkle some salt ... It's called a mouthful of incense when you eat it.
Of course, my favorite is the bowl of amaranth salty soup in hot summer, and we call amaranth "Jade Fruit Vegetable" there. The vigorous vitality of summer brings countless jade fruits and vegetables to the fields and Woods, and no matter how people pinch its tender leaves, it can grow back, which is called inexhaustible. I still remember that in one noisy and hot noon after another, looking at our hungry and expectant eyes, my sad-faced mother would go out to the Woods and fields for a long time, and then bring back a large handful of newly pinched jade fruit and vegetables to prepare salty soup.
Generally, she will find a tomato and cut it into pieces and fry it. Then she will add several bowls of water to the pot. After the pot boils, she will pour in a bowl of batter that was stirred before. After the second pot boiling, she will press the washed leaves of jade, fruit and vegetables into the pot. After the third pot boiling, she will punch a small hole in an egg, "throw" the egg liquid into the pot one by one, and then sprinkle with seasonings such as salt and thirteen spices. Naturally growing tomatoes add a little bit of sour taste to the vegetable soup, while wild jade and fruit vegetables are fresh and refreshing, and I can drink three bowls of salty soup with delicious acidity by myself. At this time, I will temporarily forget the hardships and bitterness of life, because the delicious salty soup of jade, fruit and vegetables is enough to make me feel the splendor and beauty of the world.
in autumn, there is still no food in the pot. The atmosphere at home has also dropped with the temperature, and my mother can't find food for us to eat. Occasionally, she will go to town to wholesale some cheap spicy strips and let my brother and I eat with steamed buns. Hot steamed bread with spicy strips is better than dry steamed bread or "oil steamed bread salt".
in winter, we still seldom eat stir-fried dishes. Maybe it's because we save money on food and oil, or maybe it's because we just use the well water that we have to carry back at home. It's inconvenient to stir-fry and cook soup. Anyway, the most common thing in the kitchen is cold radish. White radishes in winter in the countryside are too cheap. My mother always cuts the bought radishes into white and tender filaments, and then mixes them with salt, sesame oil and vinegar in a bowl to give us steamed dishes. Hot steamed buns with sour and salty shredded radish are also very refreshing. I was growing up at that time, and I could swallow two or three buns with this little food.
Of course, when it's freezing in the cold, my mother occasionally cooks a pot of "Chili paste" for us: chop and stir-fry dried Chili, then pour water, add a handful of shrimp skin, then stir in the thick batter and boil it into a pot, add an egg when boiling, stir it up in the pot, and finally mix it with seasoning ... In the cold winter, that spoonful of Chili paste is quickly sent into your mouth.
In addition to the cold shredded radish and the occasional Chili paste, in the boring winter, the mother will cook "eggs and garlic" for the children who are in urgent need of nutrition. Garlic in winter in the countryside is also very cheap. My mother always asks us to help her peel a lot of garlic cloves 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 then drop two drops of sesame oil ... So a nutritious, salty, spicy and delicious "egg garlic" is done. I like to eat steamed buns with a layer of eggs and garlic, but in the end, I will often be so spicy that I will drink soup.
As for my mother's recipes for the Chinese New Year, it depends on how much money my father brought home years ago. However, there is often not much money after paying back the bill. In this case, when we start buying new year's goods at the end of the twelfth lunar month, what my father bought from the market can only be a piece of pork with many bones. So my mother had to buy a lot of dried kelp home to cook pig bones.
It's really hard to eat kelp. Mother has to drill a well water in a stone trough in the yard first, then soak the dried kelp slices in the water, wash them over and over again, and fetch water again. Until the kelp is soft and rinsed clean, mother will fish them out and drain them, then fold them into rolls and cut them into filaments, stew them in a big pot on the burning firewood with pig bones and a lot of aniseed, and then put them in a big iron pot. Just pick out some when you want to eat, and just slurp a little ... This pot of pork bone kelp dish is the meat dish we prepared for our family during the Chinese New Year. Because there are lard-fixed vegetables, and the temperature is almost below zero, we can eat this big pot of vegetables for several days. But when I was a child, I was so guilty that I didn't like to eat these ugly kelp at all, which made my mother very nervous. In recent years, I suddenly changed my temper and liked to eat stewed kelp. I begged my mother to do it, but she refused to do anything. It's a pity.
Actually, my mother likes studying 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 in the kitchen for his mother to watch. 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 the stove with firewood and lit it at the edge of the kitchen door. Then she put the salted sheep bones and a lot of aniseed into a steel pot, filled with a lot of water and boiled it on the stove all afternoon.
I still remember that it suddenly snowed heavily that day. I sat at the door of the main room and watched the swirling snowflakes turn the world into white little by little. What I was thinking about was when the pot of meat sticks in the kitchen could be eaten, and 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. " When I heard my mother's call, I immediately got up and quickly stepped through the snow in the yard and rushed into the kitchen. No matter the white fog in the pot blocked my view, I persistently picked out the best and fleshy bone in the pot, and then sat back at the door of the main room, regardless of the hot hands, contentedly holding it. I was very uncomfortable while watching the snow fall.
Another summer, in the small workshop where my mother worked, she overheard someone talking about the practice of noodles with kang peppers, saying that it was similar to the taste of fried green peppers with eggs, and it could save a lot of money on eggs. She tried to do it when she got home. But I don't know if it's because it's the first time or the noodles are not well mixed. The noodles she made became sticky pepper circles. Of course, the picky children left the food behind, and my mother felt very embarrassed. Since then, she has never cooked this dish again ... < P > After many years, we grew up, and the life at home finally got better and better. The hard time has gone, but the taste of "mom's food" is always imprinted in my heart. And when I look back, I find that those gloomy experiences and the mutual harm between those family members were 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 who is tortured by life and tries to make simple and delicious food for her children; But when we are enduring poverty and oppression, the warmth of everyone living alone silently ... turns out to be beautiful.