Xuanwei is close to Guizhou. In my memory, there will be frost in autumn, heavy snow in winter, and knees at the deepest time. When I go to school in the morning of deep winter, I can't resist the biting wind blowing from my face. Such a climatic environment has made Xuanwei ham. In the cold period, the hind legs of pigs can be pickled thoroughly without spoilage. The killing of pigs was carried out in the twelfth lunar month. One is that there is less farming and someone helps. The other is that the climate is just right.
On the selected day, I began to get busy early in the morning. The host family got up early, and my mother prepared breakfast for those who had invited helpers in advance. You can have breakfast when the helper comes. After that, everyone went to work according to the division of labor. Two or three people will build a stove. There were no ready-made stoves before, but they were all used temporarily by the river. First, dig a hole in the ground, and then build a stove with a few big stones. After the completion, a large iron pot was built to boil water with firewood.
My dad took another wave to the pigsty to catch pigs. When everyone drives the pigs to the stove, they are upside down. They first tied the front and rear feet separately, and then tied them with ropes to prevent the pigs from struggling to hurt people. I'm afraid they can't hold it down, and the pigs have run away. Everyone Qi Xin held the pig's front and back feet together, and the butcher killed the pig. Before the pig can move, no one can let go and must hold it down with all his strength. This is an unwritten tradition and mutual understanding and trust. Followed by cleaning and cutting meat, as we come to help, the happiest thing is to carry the meat cut by the pig butcher home in batches, and then run tirelessly on the way back and forth, which not only satisfies the vanity of hard work, but also gains the sense of accomplishment of labor.
Mom and other aunts prepare lunch and fresh vegetables are in season, just like today's protagonist. Although many years have passed, the delicious food in my memory always makes my mouth water. Especially those classic dishes, are still fresh in my memory.
When collecting pig blood, put some salt in the basin to keep it fresh all the time. As a secret recipe, this is the exclusive experience of the pig butcher, and this dish was also the favorite of our pig butcher at that time. Cut the slightly solidified blood clot into small pieces and put it in a pot filled with water, and heat it slightly. Before long, sprinkle with salt and a little chopped green onion. The blood clot made in this way is tender and fresh, which is very different from the pig blood you see in the vegetable market.
As the essence of pork and the focus of the audience, tenderloin, as the first choice for the host to thank relatives and friends, must contribute its own strength. Small fried meat in other places is mostly supplemented by green onions. Xuanwei's small fried meat, supplemented by garlic sprouts and turmeric. The local turmeric meat is thick and delicious. First, mix the sliced meat with a little powder, add dried chili in hot oil, stir-fry until crispy, add turmeric to make it fragrant, then stir-fry the sliced meat, add garlic sprouts when the sliced meat becomes discolored, stir-fry for a while, and add salt to the pan, so that a small fried meat with good color and fragrance will be fine.
Camellia is a local dialect, and the method of making camel meat is actually very simple. As the name implies, pork belly is cut into cubes (lumps) of about three centimeters and stewed with clear water. The soul of this dish is dipped in water, and it is composed of soy sauce, vinegar, salt, coriander, local shallots and roasted peppers. As the finishing touch, put the burnt pepper under the stove until the fragrance overflows, and then knead it into a bowl dipped in water. This is how Xuanwei's dip in water and peppers are treated. When eating, put a piece of meat in it, roll it in the water, and put it in your mouth for a bite. It is oily and oily, and the smell of meat is accompanied by the smell of water. Don't have experience.
Xuanwei's practice here is to cut the pork liver into small pieces, stir-fry the dried Chili, pepper and ginger in boiling oil, and then stir-fry the pork liver when the fragrance is overflowing, and stir-fry the scallions for a while when the color changes, and add salt to the pan. The key to frying pork liver is not to over-fry, nor to over-fry. What you want is just right.
Cooking bitter vegetables with clear water is a unique practice. You can eat them like this or soak them in water. At that time, I always thought this practice was very common. It was not until many years later that I went to Shanxi and Beijing that I found their soup. The usual practice is to thicken it and make it into a paste. This is the soup they approved. It is not as dull as boiling bitter vegetables, so that only water and the bitter taste of vegetables are mixed together. There is nothing wrong with other methods, but in my mind, vegetable soup should be like this, and I have always liked this refreshing taste. Food is regional, and once people get used to the initial taste, they will be preconceived. This understanding is hard to change.
There are many other dishes. By the time my mother was almost busy, it was already lunch time. Friends and relatives who didn't come to help began to come over for dinner. When they came, they all brought gifts to share with you, either champagne drinks, oranges, their own eggs or rice. There are so many people running water mats, serving dishes, washing dishes and chopsticks. It was a busy scene, but there was no panic.
I was busy until the guests left, and my mother, the helping adults and our children sat down to eat. I couldn't help looking at the cooked pig blood, small fried meat, meat pieces, fried pork liver, bitter vegetable soup and those dishes whose names I can't remember now. Adults will raise their glasses to celebrate, and children will follow with drinks. Laughter and sound will float far away, it is a heartfelt smile.
After hard work, food always looks particularly delicious, which is a kind of "harvest" joy. The hard work of cutting pig grass in the flowering corn field in the hot summer vacation and the difficulty of stumbling on the muddy road with a basket on your back in the heavy rain have all become the current food, and the labor has gained its due harvest, and everything is worth it.
After lunch, my mother was busy refining lard. When it's over, it's almost time for dinner. More people come in the evening than at noon. Those who couldn't come at noon are all here now. After dinner, my mother will give the pork prepared in advance as a gift to those who come to congratulate, so that everyone can share the fruits of the harvest. It's past eight o'clock in the evening, but the adults' business is not over yet, and the rest of the pork and leg meat should be preserved.
Pickling ham is the most laborious. After spraying hard liquor, wipe it with salt until water seeps out. In the meantime, our happy things are to play around, eat oranges and feed the peeled oranges to busy adults. The adults haven't finished yet, and we have fallen asleep. The marinated meat is put in a big pot and left for about a week, then it can be taken out and hung on the beam, and the rest is completely given to time.
Future time will test your efforts. If you don't knead it enough or leave it for too long in the curing process, the leg meat will go bad, and only enough efforts can bring delicious ham. You can cheat life, but life won't cheat you. Time is the judge.
With the improvement of living standards and the rising cost of raising pigs, fewer and fewer people raise pigs themselves, and later our family stopped raising them. But the habit of curing pork in the twelfth lunar month is still there, just buying meat. Killing pig rice has come out of my life. With the progress of study and work, it is getting farther and farther away from me, but the past days are printed in my memory. Later, in my life, I tried to cook those dishes. Although the practice has not changed, the appearance of the dishes has not changed, but the taste is different. I always feel that something is missing, maybe the meat is not so pure, or maybe the atmosphere is lacking.
Later, I gradually learned that killing pig rice is widespread in rural areas of China. Although the styles of cooking vary from place to place, they all have their own specialties. Banquet is the inheritance of farming civilization, the blessing of harvest and the hope for the future, the epitome of mutual cooperation, and an important way to maintain and promote the relationship between relatives and friends. It is a culture.
However, with the rapid economic development and rich material life in China, some excellent traditional cultures and delicacies are disappearing from our lives. Nowadays, people pursue a fast-paced lifestyle and a healthy diet. Pickled products are not healthy from the health point of view, fresh meat can be eaten at any time, but you will always miss the pickled food that makes you remember deeply.
Now Xuanwei's pig-killing rice has entered the restaurant and become a series of dishes. Perhaps this is a good way to experience eating or comforting the souls of homeless people. But in this sense, killing pig rice is only a formal existence, lacking the culture as the soul, and has lost its original connotation.
I have also asked many people what they think of food. Most of them only recognize the food in memory. The same dishes are mostly in form now, always lacking the taste in memory.