Chapter 6 childhood food

Naturally, the meals of the poor cannot be compared with the meals of the rich.But the child of the poor may have a better memory of this than the child of the rich-because he has experienced hunger.As the saying goes, hunger is the best seasoning—it even makes up the MSG in memory.After often rushing to various banquets, even the delicacies of mountains and seas are tasteless, but I miss the food of my childhood, including the childhood hunger. I grew up with grandma's parents outside Zhonghuamen in Nanjing.That street can be called a slum, and the doorways of every household are built with picked up red bricks to make stoves for burning firewood.A big black iron pot is the mascot of the family.Every once in a while, grandma will use fat pork (also known as fat) to make meat oil in this pot.Diced fatty meat churns and churns in the oil pan, and I stand by the pan, waiting to eat the browned scum that has just been scooped up -- dipped in sugar or salt.In the life of clear soup and little water, this is almost my festival.I eat with gusto any food that isn't on the menu.And I also experienced the happiness of the so-called gourmet without a teacher.

The refined meat oil is packed in bottles and cans, and turns milky white after cooling.At that time, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, and peanut oil were all supplied by ticket, and the three meals a day of the common people were often replaced by meat oil.Until now, I still think: the dishes fried in meat oil may not be able to enter the elegant hall, but they are indeed delicious.It was filled with the real smell of fireworks in the world. Hunyou is indispensable for making Yangchun noodles.Dig a spoonful of meat oil, add some soy sauce, sprinkle with chopped green onion, and pour it with hot soup, it is the best soup (no less than the current Master Kong).Tang Zubing (my elementary school classmate) across the door holds such a bowl every morning, squatting on the steps to eat, and the aroma hits my nose straight.But our family prefers the kind with slightly less soup—commonly known as "dry picking".The noodles are tossed in a bowl to soak up the broth and topped with chopped and pickled red peppers—the soy sauce-colored noodles are especially enticing with a garnish of red peppers.Is this a bit like the hot dry noodles in Wuhan?With meat oil, even the noodles become as delicious as meat... I have eaten all kinds of noodles since I grew up, from dandan noodles, braised noodles, fried noodles to California beef noodles, and I don’t think anyone can It is comparable to the "dry challenge" of childhood.Is it the hunger that makes it so delicious, or is it because my mouth has become "tricky"?

The vegetable rice that grandma is best at cooking also needs to use meat oil.The so-called vegetable rice is to mix the green vegetables in the rice and cook together, add the right amount of meat oil and salt.It can be divided into two types: dry and thin.Drinking a bowl of vegetable porridge in the cold winter will keep you warm.As for dried vegetables and rice, the by-product is delicious crispy rice.If you can't finish it while it's hot, grandma will scoop it up from the bottom of the pot and roll it into a ball.When you are hungry, tear a piece and soak it in boiling water in a bowl, which can replace breakfast or supper.

This time I went back to my hometown and took a walk with my brother in the high-rise buildings.The younger brother sniffed suddenly. "Whose cooking smell is this?" We immediately raised our heads and looked at the brightly lit windows.This long-forgotten dish revived my childhood memories.Unexpectedly, there are still people who do it now-she (or he) is really happy.My grandma, who is already in heaven, when will she be able to cook me rice again? My uncle jumped in the queue at the nearby Piaoshui, and every educated youth was given half a tractor of sweet potatoes when they went home for the New Year.The family built a shed for storage.Hunger is no longer a fatal threat. Grandma has a smile on her face and feeds the family with sweet potatoes in different ways.Vegetable rice becomes sweet potato boiled rice.Or just cook soup with cubed sweet potatoes (with some brown sugar).In addition to peeling the sweet potatoes and eating them raw, every time they start a business, they will throw a few sweet potatoes into the hearth, and finally pick them out from the dying ashes-it has become a burnt-yellow roasted sweet potato.

Maybe in those few years, I have eaten enough sweet potatoes in my next life. Until now, when I encounter a stall with roasted sweet potatoes on the street, even if it smells so good, I usually don’t pay for it. We can get some cheap fish during festivals.The braised octopus made by grandma is a must.Sometimes a few strips are pickled with salt and dried in the yard like a shiny silver belt. We also call it "salted dried fish". "Dried salted fish" in Nanjing is often used as a metaphor for those thick-skinned lazy people.At that time, there was also a sea fish that was cheaper than hairtail, which seemed to be called "rubber fish", which had to be cooked after peeling off the thick skin.I think it tastes good.But I have never seen this kind of fish sold in the market since I was an adult.Because people's living standards have improved, or because it has become extinct?I miss rubber fish.Like missing a vanished phantom.

When eating pork, even the skin is reluctant to waste.Several strings of dried pigskins are hung on the door frames of every household.When it accumulates to a certain extent, it will be fried into a belly in the oil pan.Belly is a must when making hodgepodge (a combination of various leftovers).Poor people really know how to eat and live. Even the skin of meat can be turned into a soft and delicious delicacy.There are many similar examples.When there is no meat, a few torn fritters will be placed in the vegetable soup, and the soaked fritters will become "artificial meat"-at least, there will be some oil stars in the soup.

I also ate fried noodles (dry food for the volunteers on the icy and snowy North Korean front), with some meat oil and salt, washed with boiling water, and stirred into a batter.I also ate fried rice unique to Jiangnan.A bowl of fried rice soaked in brown sugar is a snack when receiving guests. After elementary school, my grandma gave me a few coins every day and asked me to buy breakfast on my way to school.I had the initial feeling of "going to a restaurant".Eat all the snack bars on that street.My favorite is fried dough sticks wrapped in steamed rice.The guy spreads the hot glutinous rice (and some purple rice) on the gauze, wraps it with fried dough sticks, then rolls up the gauze and squeezes it firmly with his hands—uncover the gauze, and the hammer-shaped steamed rice wrapped with fried dough sticks can be delivered directly to you palm.It is also possible to sandwich deep-fried dough sticks with sesame seed cakes——After Liang Shiqiu went to Taiwan, he was still full of praise for this, so he wrote it into the article.There are also fried sesame balls, wontons, scallion pancakes, meat buns or vegetable buns, siu mai, tofu nao and so on.At that time, in my eyes, breakfast seemed to be richer and more optional than dinner.

One day, my uncle bought browned sesame seed cakes just out of the oven, and dipped a plate of sesame oil into them to eat.He also let me taste a piece according to his method.I tried it, and it worked wonders.The biscuits are fragrant enough by themselves, but with the addition of sesame oil, it’s not just fragrant.I was impressed by my uncle who doesn't talk much: he really knows how to enjoy... This is the first gourmet I have met in my life. A few years later, I read Jin Shengtan's famous saying: "Chew peanuts and dried tofu together, you can taste the taste of ham." I couldn't help thinking of my uncle and his "invented" way of eating sesame oil dipped in sesame oil.It seems gourmet is not necessarily the patent of the rich.

I also have an aunt who is very good at cooking braised lobster. Every summer she invites me to her house for a meal.The lobster mentioned here is not the Australian lobster that is worth a lot of money in seafood restaurants today, but the freshwater crayfish that grows in rivers and lakes that are abundant in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.Burnt with chili and soy sauce, I can eat a large plate in one sitting, until the peeled shrimp claws and shells are piled up in front of me.Especially the shrimp yellow, in my taste is the most delicious thing in the world.I heard adults say that fugu meat is the freshest, but I guess it’s nothing more than that?In short, the braised lobster made by my aunt is the most memorable dish in my childhood.

I also ate Australian lobster in the restaurant the day before yesterday.Placed in the middle of the banquet, it is majestic, like a veteran in armor and helmet.The freshwater lobsters of my hometown are miniature novels—or miniature spectacles—by comparison.Although the size is very different, I still see the shadow of the lobster in my hometown in it - even aroused childhood memories.It's a pity that when I was a child, I never imagined that lobsters would have such huge monsters.Like in the eyes of a world traveler, hometown will become smaller.Before that, he thought that his hometown was the whole world.

The food of my childhood is getting farther and farther away from me.Even if you can eat it again, I'm afraid it's not the original taste—at least, it's not the original mood.In addition to deja vu, it will give me the feeling of fake.Perhaps, the food has not changed, but I have changed. The above is my childhood recipe (or a major part of it). Is it too simple? But tonight, I really can't think of anything more at the moment. These alone are enough for me to recollect. I grew up on these mundane foods.I express my gratitude by way of memory. I have a perpetual hunger for them—a hunger for the past, a hunger for the passing time...