I was born in Bashang, Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province. In my childhood memory, there are only two words: cold and greedy.
Bashang belongs to the border area between Inner Mongolia Plateau and North China Plain, with barren land, poor mountains and water, and still in the tuyere area. In spring and autumn, there is yellow sand all over the sky. When I go out and turn around, my mouth, nose and ears are full of sand. It seems that the soil on my hair can't be washed away. In winter, it's even worse. There is a white-haired wind blowing outside, that is, the wind wrapped in small snowflakes. When it blows on the face, it hurts and hurts. People wear sweaters and cotton-padded coats, leather pants and cotton trousers, and they have to wear socks on their feet. Corduroy cotton shoes with white background and black face step on the road, thumping and thumping, as if they would crush the road carelessly. The glass inside the house is covered with thick double-layer plastic sheets, and there is a fire kang in the house, a stove and even a burning wall. People have money to burn coal, but no money to burn dung. Even so, the water pipes at home are often frozen, forming small waterfalls, which make children laugh and adults scratch their heads.
children are not afraid of the cold. Early in the morning, I pestered the adults to go up and down the grass beach to catch rabbits. When the adults were entangled, they perfunctorily took the playful children, dressed in full gear, and went to the grass to weave a condom with wire. This condom is the child's hope for a day or even a few days. I hope I can catch a little gray rabbit and bring it home. I will keep it alive and eat it when I die, no matter how cruel my thoughts are.
unfortunately, except in snowy days, there is no rabbit at all.
in that era of material poverty, children were greedy and ate little, and it was the same whether they had money or not at home, because they couldn't buy it at all. Especially in winter, tofu is stewed with Chinese cabbage every day, or vermicelli is stewed with yam eggs. In order to adjust their lives, some clever mothers will make tomato sauce in autumn. Tomato sauce is to steam tomatoes, peel them and chop them up, then the whole family will work together, put the chopped tomatoes into the washed glucose bottles, evacuate them with needles and put them in rows in the corner. In winter, when guests come to the house, they will open a bottle, or scrambled eggs, or add sugar to the cold salad, which are all delicious. If the family is lazy and doesn't make tomato sauce, then they can only eat all kinds of pickles in winter. This may be a collective memory of many post-1981s people, but as a Bashang person, there is another delicious food in winter, that is, oat noodles.
oat flour is a kind of oat, which is suitable for growing in cold and barren land, and seems to be born for Bashang. You can buy it at will now, but not when you were a child. After the autumn harvest, the uncles and grandfathers in their hometown take off the cooked oat noodles, fry them in a big iron pan in real estate speculation, then grind them into black noodles and put them into cloth pockets one by one. Relatives in their hometown picked out the whiter ground oat flour, brought some sesame oil and went to visit relatives in the city.
visiting relatives in the city is something to show off, so it's always noon now. A bag of oat flour was tied to the back shelf of the bicycle of Erba Iron Donkey, and two clips of sesame oil were mounted on both sides, and they swaggered out of the village. When others saw it, they would ask, "Is Dagang (Big Brother) going to town?" Big brother will proudly say loudly, "Go and send some noodles to the fifth!" " Others will ask again, "Old Five is a city dweller, and we need this black face?" "It is a city dweller again, and he can't do without you. Don't eat noodles, boring! " After a set of formulaic greetings, the bike came out of the village, got on the bus quickly, and rode to the city against the cold wind, for fear that it would be difficult to walk after dark.
coming from my hometown is my favorite moment. When the sweaty uncle timidly pushes the car into the hospital, his parents will greet him with smiles on their faces, unload the goods and pull him into the house. Marshal Huang, who is not willing to eat at ordinary times, brings a pot of apples and takes out all the good cigarettes and wines. The tomato sauce in the corner "bang, bang" is connected to open four or five bottles, not only scrambled eggs, but also cold.
When men are chatting, mom will take a porcelain bowl, dig a few bowls from the pocket of oat noodle, make a good living and start cooking all kinds of oat noodle delicacies. Thin oat noodle fish, mother can rub five strands with one hand; Put some fragrant sesame oil on the marble, rub the palm of your hand, and stand on the panel like soldiers; Cut the yam eggs and carrots, steam them and mix them with stuffing. jiaozi guarantees that you can't eat more than five. My mother cooked such delicious noodles as if she were playing, and sometimes she talked to the men in the back room. When the food is ready and steamed, you can eat it.
oh, I almost forgot to mention the most important thing. That's soup. You need to eat the noodle with soup, so this soup is very particular. Soup can be made into cold soup with shredded cucumber and soy sauce vinegar, or even steamed with shredded yam eggs in pickled vegetable juice, but the most popular soup is mutton and mushroom soup.
Mushrooms are our local specialty, Tricholoma. In autumn, after the rainy day, my grandfather and I took the radish head (basket) and went to the ridge and looked for mushrooms in the grass beach. Mushrooms are hard to find, and laymen may not find them all day. We locals are familiar with the terrain and go to mushroom nests. A nest of mushrooms can hold a sack. The mushrooms in my hometown are white mushrooms, with small poles and round heads. When picking, you must use a wooden shovel or hand to pick them. You can't dig them. After picking the surface part, cover it with grass so as not to destroy the mushroom layer, so that you can pick several stubbles. Take the mushrooms home, do not remove the soil, directly lay them flat and dry them, and do not soak them in water, otherwise they will give birth to insects.
when I was cooking oat noodle soup, my mother asked me to wash the mushrooms together. Dried mushrooms are difficult to wash, so they need to be soaked in advance. When washing, water needs to be changed several times. The cold water makes my mother and I's hands red, so we will hold each other's hands and rub them back and forth until they itch. Drain the hard-washed mushrooms, and mother will finely dice them and put them in an enamel bowl. At this time, I will take a piece of mutton from the small room outside, and while the mutton is still frozen hard, my mother will file it down little by little with a thick back knife. When the mutton is soft behind the file, I will cut it into cubes, put it into an enamel bowl filled with mushrooms, put shredded ginger and scallion on it, pour soy sauce and salty salt, and steam it on the pot. Ten minutes later, the mutton and mushroom soup will be out of the pot, and the room is full of fresh fragrance.
Dad and Grandpa have been drinking for a long time. As soon as the oat noodle is served, they all put down their glasses. My mother gave me soup, and my uncle and I had more meat and less mushrooms in our bowls, and she and her father had to put some potherb in their bowls. Adults add some fried peppers to the bowl. Red mutton soup with red peppers makes it look warm. Put a chopstick oat noodle into the bowl, mix well and taste delicious.
It's a pity that you're full. My mother never lets me eat more, so I'm not convinced. I'm looking forward to growing up as an adult as soon as possible, so I can eat as much as they want. After dinner, my mother prepared white flour, meat, cigarettes and all kinds of new year's goods for my uncle. During the shoving, my uncle smiled and went home. When we get to the entrance of the village, we will stop riding bicycles and push bicycles. It seems very difficult to be slow, and the villagers will look at the uncle with envy and talk about the benefits of having relatives in the city.
time flies, and the days can't stop. I grew up when I was young. Over the years, I have drifted from south to north and have been to many places. I have eaten a lot of delicious food, but what I miss most is oat noodles. Everyone's hometown complex is bound to be linked to a delicious meal, and China people's "eating" has many meanings besides the tongue. Now oat noodles are popular all over the country, and there are even chain stores. I can eat it whenever I want, but unfortunately, the oat noodle cooked outside is no matter how fine and white it is, and the ingredients used in the oat noodle soup are no matter how good and expensive it is, it will never taste like home cooking.
many questions in those days were solved after I became an adult. I finally know why there are more oats in winter and less in summer. Relatives in rural areas are busy in spring and summer, and they are hungry. It is easy to do, so everyone will eat oat noodles. Some people will exchange white flour for oat noodles. When the winter is busy, they will send some oat noodles from their hometown to their relatives, so that children who go out can taste the taste of their hometown and harvest.
nowadays, we can send delicious food from all over the world to our homes with our fingers. Those who used to be warm when they thought of it, and those who were warm when they thought of it, drifted away. My mother also left me forever. I also have my own son, and in my spare time, I will also make him noodles, which the little guy doesn't like. I looked at him and thought, although you don't eat now, as a descendant of Bashang people, you will one day be inseparable from this bowl of mutton and mushroom soup with oat noodles. If you don't believe me, we'll see!