What impressed me most in my childhood was eating. People's taste buds are often shaped in childhood, and the taste of childhood is often the taste of hometown, with different tastes and thoughts. Speaking of eating, there are too many things to say, so let's take a look at them in chronological order.
In spring, the most impressive thing is scrambled eggs with tender Toona sinensis buds. There is a tall Toona sinensis tree in the yard of the old house. Toona sinensis buds grow every spring, and we can pick them on the roof of the old house. After taking it home, my mother will wash the buds, cut them and fry them with eggs laid by domestic grass chickens. Because grass chickens are foraging in the wild and don't eat feed, the fried grass eggs are golden yellow. The mixture of light green and golden yellow is a visual impact, and the taste is wrapped in a breath of spring, which makes people want to stop. It is delicious to eat with steamed bread or in noodles. A plate of scrambled eggs with Toona sinensis really awakened people's taste from the cold winter.
In summer, all kinds of fruits and vegetables in the garden are ripe. My family has cultivated a vegetable garden by the river beach, which is really not easy to open. When I was a child, my brother and I often followed our parents to open up wasteland in that river beach. My parents dig out the stones under the sand with hoes, and we are responsible for transporting them to the river bank. Over the years, a small vegetable garden has been opened up. Parents take good care of the garden, irrigate it with river water, fertilize it and weed it. The garden seems to know how to be grateful, and summer begins to bear crazy fruit. My father can bring back a lot of vegetables every morning when he comes back from the garden. The cucumber with thorns on it is washed and eaten directly, crisp and raw. At noon, soak a pot of dry cold rice noodles, pat two cucumbers in, mix vinegar, soy sauce and garlic to make an excellent cold dish. Bundles of long beans are washed and cut into small pieces, and any kind of scorpion is indispensable. There are red tomatoes, washed and cut into petals, sprinkled with soft candy, sweet and sour, better than any drink. Loofah and caviar gourd are not to be outdone. If you pick them late, they will get old. Stir-fried towel gourd with pepper and poured on rice, the soup will penetrate into the rice, which is simply an "artifact". Fried caviar is the main side dish of porridge at night. Dipping steamed bread in soup or pouring soup in porridge are all "cooking artifacts". What if there are too many vegetables? Answer, pickle it. Cucumber and long beans can be pickled. There is a pickle jar at home, where fresh vegetables are put. In autumn, you can eat pickled cucumber and pickled beans, as well as pickled ginger, which is served with steamed bread. The more you chew, the more fragrant it is.
When it rains in summer vacation, my parents will make us "oil angle" (called "Caijiao" in Beijing) when they are at home, which is simply my favorite. The leek egg stuffing is triangular and fried in hot oil until golden brown. After the pot is taken out, it is usually placed in the bowl at the top, and then it is our turn to eat. The skin is crispy and delicious, and the inside is wrapped with fragrant leek eggs. Sometimes, I cook fried dumplings at night, which also contain leeks and eggs. I don't know how much I can eat in a meal, and I haven't counted it. You'd better eat these two while they are hot. Even if they are cold, they don't have a flavor.
At the end of summer, especially after a rain before autumn, there will be another unique snack-fried buffalo. Buffalo is a crustacean insect with developed mouthparts and brown color, which is called differently in different places. Whenever it rains in late summer, buffaloes will come out of the ground to mate. At this time, you will see many people catching buffaloes on the hillside with plastic bottles and buckets. I will join in the fun, but I can't catch much. My brother can catch a lot. Sometimes the whole plastic bottle is a brown buffalo. After I take it home, I will help it. I can break off my feet, wings and head, simply wash them, put them in a pot and fry them with salt. It smells good. Some female buffaloes have seeds in their bellies and will experience the feeling of "Explosicum". Compared with all kinds of snacks now, fried buffalo at that time was also the exclusive food of our generation in the countryside.
In autumn, pumpkins are often the main characters in vegetables. Mother often sprinkles shredded pumpkin at dinner. This is a local dialect and I don't know how to write it. Some people call it "pancake", but this kind of pancake is definitely different from Shandong pancake or Tianjin pancake fruit. Neither of the latter two tastes good to me. Before paving, you can mix the chopped pumpkin into the batter, and then spread a proper amount of batter evenly on the seeds. There will be the smell of pumpkin after spreading, or you can beat eggs when spreading, which is very delicious. Noodles are cooked quickly and eaten quickly, which is considered as "fast food" in my hometown. In autumn, there are pickles mentioned above, as well as salted eggs. Salted eggs should be preserved properly, too short, not completely preserved, too long and excessively preserved. What is pickled? Generally, pickled egg shells are difficult to peel and can be dug with chopsticks. The yolk and egg white of pickled eggs are distinct, and the egg white is salty and can be soaked in porridge. Egg yolk is golden yellow, it will nourish oil when you tie chopsticks, and it will smell good when you bite it in your mouth.
Vegetables are in short supply in winter, mostly fried cabbage and potatoes. Fried tofu and fried rice cakes are often served as side dishes for dinner. Since studying abroad, I seldom eat this kind of porcelain tofu brain in my hometown, which is full of bean smell. Most of them are southern bean curd scattered when chopsticks are clamped, and they are tasteless. Powder cake is also a special snack in my hometown. Using sweet potato powder as raw material, add water and knead into dough. After cooking, press it into boiling water, take it out and put it in another pot, stir it with chopped green onion and wait for solidification. A pot of powder cake is ready (this is the general process, which I saw at home when I was a child, and there may be omissions). I was eating and cutting, and a big pot of powder cake was ready.
Sometimes when you go to the market in town, you will get delicious fried stamps. This snack is also unique to my hometown. Generally, in the market, an old man stands a stall, taking a short black pot of hot oil and a sizzling circle of rectangular sheets-Zhang Guan is attached to the pot. Because Zhang Guan is made of buckwheat flour, and the oil is usually donkey oil, the chemical reaction between them under the action of heat is extremely wonderful, and the strange fragrance released can float far away. Most passers-by can't resist the temptation and will sit down and eat a few pieces. Then see the old man skilled. This cheap and delicious snack is not available outside. If it appears in a big city, it will definitely become a popular food. After all, who can compete with their taste buds?
By the year before last, "cooking" was a big deal. People used to ask, "Have you cooked?" The so-called steaming means steaming steamed buns, bean bags, and some steamed buns, usually a lot of steamed buns, which are packed in jars or cartons and easy to store in cold weather; The so-called cooking is to fry sesame sugar in an oil pan and "twist". These two things seem to be unique to my hometown, and I have never seen them anywhere else. The raw materials of both are flour, eggs, sugar and oil, and persimmons or sweet potatoes with various patterns are also added. First, add a lot of raw eggs to flour, add proper amount of oil and flour, knead and wake up for a while, then cut into pieces, knead strips, slice, weave flowers, fry in hot oil until golden, and take out. Just fried, crispy, sweet and delicious, as usual, the first bowl is served first. Years ago, because of the large amount of cooking, sometimes the whole family had to go out. At this time, the kitchen seems small, but it is mainly done by parents, and we are all just "helpers". The reason why I have to cook so many staple foods is that I heard my mother say that there is a saying in my hometown that you can't move the steamer and badminton during the New Year, and you need to prepare enough staple foods in advance. Years ago, my father not only bought a lot of meat, cooked food, dry goods and fresh vegetables, but also fried meatballs and hairtail himself, and told us to eat some while it was hot every time after frying. At this time, I often watch TV in the back room. When I hear my father shouting, I will run to the kitchen.
Jiaozi is an indispensable protagonist in China New Year. When I was a child, there were many people in my family, some of them liked vegetarianism, and some liked meat, so my parents always mixed two or even three kinds of fillings, such as leek eggs, pork green onions, pork celery and so on. In my parents' time, eating jiaozi was a great progress. Nowadays, eating jiaozi is a very common thing. But when I eat out so much and go back to jiaozi, I always feel that it is not as delicious as home. Every time I go home, my parents will make sure that jiaozi makes me satisfied. After the New Year, there will be another special food-"tea", which is different from other teas. The tea here is a bit like "noodle tea" in Tianjin. Around the fifteenth day of the first month, my mother will fry tea noodles (yellow wheat) and sesame seeds, put them in a hot pot when eating, add water and stir constantly, and then add tofu, soybeans, kelp, vermicelli and so on. After cooking, spoon it into a bowl, which is thick and salty. Eat tea in the morning and evening on the 167th day of the first month, even if it is over.
That's all I can think of, but it's definitely more than that, and it's inevitable to leak. People often talk about "homesickness" In my opinion, the most concrete homesickness is the food cooked by parents. This bittersweet taste will remain in the taste buds forever and be printed on the genes. This kind of homesickness is unique in that it can be passed on. If you can inherit your parents' cooking methods, you will pass on this homesickness to the next generation. Unfortunately, I am not good at cooking, but I am good at eating. I hope I can cook with my parents more often in the future and learn how to keep these flavors.