Duba's raw material is fern root powder, which, as the name implies, is starch extracted from fern roots. Pteridium aquilinum, also known as sawn vegetables, leading vegetables, fist vegetables and crappy vegetables, is a perennial herb of Pteristaceae, and is known as the "king of mountain vegetables", and the Japanese call it "snow fruit and mountain delicacies".
The roots of mature ferns are purple and contain special high-grade starch. Its starch is rich in protein, vitamins, amino acids needed by human body and trace elements such as iron, zinc, calcium, flavonoids, selenium, strontium, magnesium, phosphorus and germanium. It has been widely enjoyed by people: fern root powder is slightly sweet in taste and cool in nature, and has the functions of relaxing bowels, clearing away heat and toxic materials, lowering blood fat and blood pressure, dredging meridians, lowering qi and resolving phlegm.
Tujia mountain people have always had the tradition of digging fern root powder (Duba powder). According to legend, this tradition began with proletarian revolutionary He Long. 1933165438+10, He Long led the red army into shizhu lengshui and liziba (now lengshui township and shazhen town) to mobilize the masses to rob the rich and help the poor. Liziba is a Tujia bungalow with a small population. Due to the political oppression and economic exploitation of the township group and local gentry, people around Liziba live a dark life. At that time, due to the serious floods in summer and the large-scale crop failure, the few colorful grains were confiscated by the Kuomintang's military pay and rations, and people's lives became more and more difficult. In winter, people dig wild vegetables everywhere and peel the bark to satisfy their hunger. After entering Liziba area, He Long personally led investigators to the black hole slot to understand the sufferings of the masses. He found that 40 of the farmers in Heikongcao 4 1 had stopped cooking at all, and he was anxious to find a way to solve the difficulties of the masses. On the way back to the station from the black hole slot, He Long accidentally discovered that fern root is rich in starch, which can solve the problem of people's eating. After returning to the station, he immediately organized a team, mobilized the masses to dig fern roots and powder, and made a Chengdu bus, which survived the winter drought safely. From then on, Duba became the best choice for Shizhu Tujia people to survive in famine.
Before the winter solstice vernal equinox, that is, from October of the lunar calendar to February of the following year, people go up the mountain to dig fern roots, because the starch content of fern roots is the highest at this time, fern roots are not easy to mildew, and the flour yield is relatively high.
"Root, root, three feet deep, dig." This is a jingle that people often read when digging roots. Fern roots are deeply buried in the ground, and it is difficult to dig with traditional tools such as hoes and shovels. After collecting fern roots, rinse them with clear water, scrape off the epidermis, cut them into small pieces of about 10 cm, put them in a basket, seal them, soak them in running water by the stream for 2 days, and then remove the odor.
After washing, fern roots exude the unique fragrance of plant roots. People spread it on a cement drying dam or a clean stone beside a stream, beat it with a special wooden hammer or mash it with a stone mortar, then put it into a cloth bag, put it in a water tank filled with clean water, rub it, wash off the starch, remove the residue with the powder slurry in a gauze filter tank, and then naturally precipitate it repeatedly. Modern mechanized operation, put the soaked rhizome into a beater, add water while crushing, then dilute and stir evenly, and filter twice with 80 mesh and 100 mesh screens respectively. The filtered powder slurry is quickly put into a sedimentation tank or a water tank, and after natural sedimentation, clear water is discharged to obtain wet fern root starch. The wet starch in the sedimentation tank is taken out and dried into powder or dried at a high temperature of 50-60 DEG C to obtain fern root starch, namely Duba powder.
Duba powder can be taken immediately. Take a proper amount of Duba powder, dilute it with a small amount of warm water (below 40℃), and brew it with boiling water. You can also add sugar and honey or make jelly, or mix with flour to make other foods.
In Tujia mountain village, people generally don't eat Duba powder in the form of fast food, but mix it with warm water to make dough, cut it into small pieces, cook it in boiling water until all Duba pieces surface, and then take it out, or mix it with bacon or stir-fry it with sugar, sesame seeds and peanuts to make sweet Duba pieces. Or make it into a brushed Ba Du block or a Ba Du roll. No matter which way it is made, it is soft and long, and it is full of fragrance.