01

When I am in a foreign land, in the dog days of summer, I can always think of the rice tea in my hometown.

In order to understand my greed, my wife cooked rice tea according to the method in her hometown. Although the rice is also slightly yellow, the tea has a light fragrance, and it tastes like a flavor, but compared with the rice tea from my hometown, I always feel that something is missing.

What's missing? I asked myself. Is the rice too fine? Is the water quality clear? Or is it stir-frying in a big pot? I think, neither. The less should be a kind of pure fragrance, a kind of emotion, a kind of thought.

02

The rice tea in my hometown is a unique local snack in Hubei. It is popular in my hometown and several surrounding counties and cities. From early summer to late autumn, rice tea can be seen from farm tables to hotels and restaurants. Because it is fragrant and delicious, slightly sweet but not bland, slightly astringent but not bitter, it is eaten with steamed buns to fill the stomach and quench thirst, so it is loved by people in the hometown.

Li Shu, a native of Jiukou Town, once sang a song "Mom's Rice Tea" in his hometown dialect, which became popular on the Internet. It allows more people in the hometown to understand the pure fragrance of hometown rice tea and the feelings of their mother in the local accent; and when wanderers outside listen to it, it can evoke a sense of longing. Nostalgia, my mother’s figure and face, and the rice tea her mother cooked will all come to my mind instantly and linger in my mind.

The preparation of rice tea is not complicated, it is very simple. After frying the rice until it turns yellow, put it into boiling water. After the rice grains are boiled and bloomed, put it in a basin and let it cool before eating. There are also those that are eaten while hot, but they are not as flavorful as those eaten cold; there are also those that are left overnight and eaten after fermentation and sourness. This kind of flavor is like sour plum soup, which has a different taste.

Although it is a local specialty, it has also been in the elegant hall. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, it was a palace delicacy, and the Empress Dowager regarded it as a good summer drink and delicacy. It is said that back then, Emperor Jiajing's biological father, Prince Xing, was enshrined in Anlu Prefecture, Hubei Province, which is my hometown Zhongxiang. When his biological mother, Jiang, was pregnant with Emperor Jiajing, she was so happy that she couldn't eat, and all kinds of delicacies from the mountains and seas were not to her taste. Just when King Xing was furious, a chef brought his own rice tea to Jiang. Unexpectedly, Jiang's appetite increased after eating it, and she ate two or three bowls in a row.

As a result, rice tea from folk farmers entered the Xingwang Palace; later, Emperor Jiajing entered Bauhinia City, and his mother Jiang also brought it into the palace, becoming an indispensable dish for the royal family in summer diet. It is said that the rice tea made from other tribute rice cannot match the taste of Zhongxiang brown rice. Since then, brown rice from my hometown has also become a tribute.

My hometown is the hometown of longevity in the world. The selenium content in the soil is extremely high, which makes the grains and beans that grow in the soil rich in nutrients. Therefore, the rice tea made from Zhongxiang brown rice naturally tastes better than polished rice. I think that the rice tea made from polished rice that I had in other places should be the same. It lacks the pure fragrance and refreshing taste of brown rice.

03

The most authentic rice tea in my hometown is made from wheat rice. At that time, there was little rice in the plain areas. The rice harvested from the mountain fields every year was only used for steaming rice and was reluctant to be used for frying rice tea. No one makes it with wheat rice anymore. First, barley is no longer grown on a large scale in the countryside; second, as living standards improve, people don’t like the roughness of wheat, so they switch to brown rice.

The rice tea made from wheat rice, especially the past stories about my grandmother and rice tea, are deeply impressed in my memory.

First, the grandmother’s hard work in preparing barley rice. After the summer harvest every year, my grandmother would put the recovered barley on a drying pan to dry in the sun. Then, taking advantage of the fine weather, she would put the barley on a stone mill to grind the husk off. The wheat would be dried and bagged for later use. .

Pulling barley rice is very troublesome and very hard. Barley husks are very thick. It takes three times to grind the husks and wheat kernels completely, and then use a sieve to separate the wheat skin from the wheat kernels.

At Xiang Ma’s house, which is adjacent to my house, there is a grinding plate on the counter. The folks in the neighborhood all use this plate to grind barley rice. Our house is near the water, and my grandmother has been busy grinding barley since the morning.

Put the cattle on the grinding frame, put the barley on the grinding plate, and sprinkle a layer of water on it. Grandma held a small broom and followed the cows. While driving the cows, she swept up the barley rice that fell to the edge of the grinding plate. Under the tall elm trees, the old cows circling around the grinding plate, the "squeaking" sound of the grinding frame, and the figure of my grandmother with little feet sweeping rice around the grinding plate are deeply imprinted in my mind. Now that I think about it, it's very warm.

After the outer skin of the barley is loosened, it cannot be ground again. It must be collected and placed on a drying basket aside. After drying, use a sieve to sift out the bran. After sifting, put it on the grinding plate and grind it. Grind, dry, sift, and so on. After grinding and drying for three times, chopsticks remove the last bits of wheat skin, and then the barley rice is considered finished.

The second is the scorching heat and hardships my grandmother had to endure when making rice tea and steaming steamed buns. Every morning in the dog days of summer, after my grandmother cooked breakfast, she would start preparing fried rice, tea, and boiled rice tea in the kitchen. In the scorching summer heat, coupled with the lack of ventilation in the kitchen, coupled with the large fire in the earthen stove and the hot steam from the hot pot, the entire kitchen is like a big steam room. Before the gourdful of barley rice turned golden brown, my grandmother was already sweating profusely and her clothes were soaked with sweat.

While the rice tea was boiling in the pot, grandma had to prepare steamed buns to go with the rice tea. This kind of steamed bun is called "bench leg" in the dialect of my hometown.

To make it, first mix the noodles and put them in a basin to "wake up". After the noodles have "risen", shape them into a long cylinder, cut them into small squares with a knife, and put them in the steamer. Steamed. After steaming, the steamed buns resemble the legs of a farmhouse bench, hence the name. This method is simple and saves time. Villagers make it this way during the busy farming season or in hot summer weather.

Eat rice tea with this kind of steamed buns. It has the sweetness of steamed buns and the refreshing taste of rice tea. The feeling on your taste buds is very wonderful. In summer, this kind of food combination is very popular in the countryside, and every household arranges lunch and dinner like this. This has become one of my favorites!

After the wheat rice in the pot has bloomed, the rice tea is almost ready. Grandma put it in two large porcelain basins, covered it with gauze and let it cool. One pot is for the whole family to eat at noon, and the other is for the evening meal. After the rice tea is cooked and the steamed buns are steamed, grandma will go to the garden to pick melons and beans to prepare vegetables for the day.

04

In my impression, my grandmother is always busy. When he's not busy in the kitchen, he's working in the garden. I once naively asked my grandmother: "Why don't you boil two more pots of rice tea and steam a few more 'bench legs'? In such a hot day, you don't have to cook and steam every day!"

Grandma's answer Yes, the rice tea cooked on the same day is delicious, so as not to become sour overnight. The sour rice tea may not be tolerated by the stomach. Steamed buns tend to get moldy over time. There are so many people in the family, so only by preparing them every day can we ensure that everyone has enough to eat! It’s good to warm yourself up and sweat!

Grandma said it very easily. At that time, I didn’t understand my grandmother’s thoughts.

After dinner, my grandmother and I sat under a tree to enjoy the shade. My grandmother told me some stories and legends. The legend about rice tea is also unforgettable to me!

A long time ago, there was a summer when the area where my hometown was located suffered from drought and no harvest. When a landlord's tenant farmer failed to pay him food, the landlord's servants would beat him severely. The tenant farmers were resentful, and one night, a fire burned down the landlord's rice warehouse. The landowner saw that the burned wheat grains and rice could neither be eaten nor sold for money. He had no choice but to dump the burned wheat grains and rice in the wild.

Farmers who were short of food and starving picked up these grains of wheat that had been burned by the fire. After washing it with water at home, add it to a pot and boil it. After cooking, it smells fragrant, tastes sweet, and tastes delicious in soup. From then on, inspired by the practice of burning rice grains, the villagers put wheat grains and rice into a pot to fry and then boil them. This gave rise to rice tea, which spread and continues to be passed down to this day!

05

It has been many years since my grandmother passed away, and I have also been away from my hometown for many years. The rice tea cooked by my grandmother can only appear in dreams, search in memory, and reminisce in imagination.

In today's dog days of summer, eating a bowl of rice tea from my hometown is not only refreshing, but also calming and refreshing, and your thoughts are flying!

Rice tea is really fragrant, just like the fragrance of the passing years.

I will never forget the rice tea from my hometown and yearn for it...