Wax gourd is full of water, but its taste is light. Watermelon is sweet, but tasteless, not as bitter as bitter gourd, and tastes wonderful.
In the early morning of summer, bitter gourd was planted for less than a month and climbed up along the bamboo pole. The leaves are gray and gray, so evenly spread layer by layer, but there is no overlap and no gap. A gust of wind blew, and all the leaves on the wall turned up green waves, and palm-shaped leaves exposed small yellow flowers in the waves.
Bitter gourd leaves have no fragrance, and flowers have no fragrance. Standing in front of it, you will smell a faint bitterness. No wonder insects also stay away from it. Even bees and butterflies that should have come from flowers will only wander in twos and threes and taste lightly.
"Ci Hai" said that bitter gourd "is cooked with unripe fruit, but the ripe fruit can be eaten raw". Bitter gourd is called "matchmaker" in Wenzhou area. It is said that it is pleasing in appearance and sweet in taste, and it is eaten as a fruit. In the past, people used to choose some, take them home and put them on the disk as a "clean supply" for viewing. Every day, the color changes gradually, from blue, light yellow, golden yellow, and finally from red to yellow. The more mature the melon, the more beautiful and pleasing to the eye.
In Guangdong, if you only treat bitter gourd as fruit, I'm afraid it can only rot in the ground.
The taste of bitter gourd is just like that described by writer Shen Jialu in "The Real Taste of Bitter Melon": "Taste it with chopsticks, bitter! It really lives up to its reputation, but after swallowing it in a hurry, it feels a little sweet, and it makes the cheeks produce a lot of body fluid, which is very refreshing. So I couldn't help but put a chopstick on it and chew it carefully, so I realized the intention of bitter gourd: to cool off the summer heat and get rid of dampness with bitterness, but I didn't forget to leave a sweet aftertaste. "
Qu Dajun in the Qing Dynasty also gave a very high evaluation of bitter gourd: "If you cook it with other things, other things will suffer, but you will not suffer, but you have the virtue of a gentleman;" ..... Its nature belongs to fire, cold is the body, and heat is the use. Its skin and seeds are beneficial to people and have the virtue of a gentleman. "
Therefore, Cantonese people think that bitter gourd is not bitter, only that it tastes sweet and cool, also called cold melon. The cold melon in duruan Town, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province has long been a well-known bitter gourd variety. According to the records of Xinhui County Records, as early as the Ming Dynasty, the local area in duruan began to grow cold melons, and by the Republic of China, the cold melons in duruan were already very famous.
Duruan melon is full, shaped like papaya, flat at the top and thick in grain, which is "persimmon stalk and rat tail". Different from other melons, it is pointed at the front and pointed at the back. The locals call it the big top melon. In addition, the color is blue as jade, the melon meat is full, the entrance is sweet but not bitter, crisp and slag-free. In fact, duruan cold melon is suitable for both viewing and eating.
In duruan Town, the Cold Melon Festival is held every June. The biggest melon will be identified and a special banquet will be held. The methods of frying, frying, simmering, brewing and making soup will all be used. A duruan melon tastes bright and bitter.
Soup with cold melon, chicken feet, ribs and soybean, or hollow out the cold melon, chop pork and brew it into cold melon, and then stew the soup with bitter gourd. Coupled with the rich meat flavor and the freshness of soybeans, the soup will be particularly mellow and have the sweetness of cold melon.
For Cantonese who love herbal tea, this soup also has the effect of clearing away heat and toxic materials. Even if children are allowed to drink it, they will not refuse it because of its bitterness, which is much easier than coaxing them to drink bitter herbal tea. With such good intentions, it is no wonder that this soup will be called "good intentions".
But no matter how sweet and cool the melon is, it still has bitterness, so for most people, most of the time, the melon should go hand in hand with meat, fish and eggs, and reduce the bitterness of the melon with the pleasure of eating meat.
Stir-fried melon with black bean beef, stir-fried melon with ribs, stir-fried melon with fish bones, scrambled eggs with melon, fried eggs with melon, and stuffed herring meat with melon. Cool melon absorbs the richness and sweetness of fish, and relieves the greasy of fish. People's taste is intertwined with bitterness and joy, and there seems to be joy in bitterness, which makes people want to stop.
But in fact, people who love cold melons often pursue the original flavor of cold melons. The dish that can best maintain the true color of Du Ruan's cold melon is cold melon green. Leaving only the bright green skin of the cold melon, planing it into extremely thin slices, skipping it with boiling water, scooping it up with ice and ice, and spreading it on an ice dish.
Cucumber lying on the crystal clear ice, watching it can dissolve the summer heat and bring a cold room, which is very eye-catching. You can eat without any seasoning, oil or salt, and the entrance will only feel cold. Slight bitterness will only leave a lasting sweetness after passing through the mouth.
Stir-frying cold rice noodles in duruan is the favorite method of most local people. Cut the green part of the cold melon into pieces, stir-fry the garlic in the oil pan, add the skin of the cold melon, stir-fry it slightly, remove the heat immediately after suspension, and add a little salt. With a little sweetness in bitterness, teeth and cheeks will have a sweet feeling.
There is sweetness in bitterness and bitterness in sweetness. The cold melon explains the true meaning of life for us. Hard work is actually the life we expect in adversity.