Chapter 32 kitchen notes

When I was a kid, my perception of the kitchen was a mystery.At home, my parents were afraid of cooking like a tiger, and they always strictly prohibited me from entering. Now I think it was because they were afraid of fire, but at the time, I just thought it was strange: how could my parents walk in, and there would be food served?Going to the countryside and seeing the big kitchens in the countryside is even more eye-opening.In the early years, the countryside in the south of the Yangtze River still used large stoves built with bricks and stones. The stoves were extremely high, and the pots were huge. The fuel was stuffed with firewood, and the room was full of smoke.My grandmother also used a briquette stove to make soup, sit in water, and cook rice.When I was a child, my hands were clumsy, and I used fire scissors to pinch briquettes. I always cut the briquettes in half, which made my grandma futile.

Later, as I got older, my parents were not afraid that I would catch fire or die near the fire, so they allowed me to enter the kitchen and watch.When I first entered the kitchen, I felt dazzled.Gas stoves, stoves, all kinds of spatulas and knives are colorful, like the room where Gargamel, who wants to catch the Smurfs every day, prepares magic potions.Occasionally, when I visit my parents to cook, under the blazing fire and knives and shovels flying, the dishes are finished like running water, and I feel admiration: How can it be so well done? When I was young, I admired two types of people. One was the uncle driver in my mother’s factory who was in charge of transporting everyone to work. Gear, accelerator, steering wheel, methodical.At that time, I was addicted to watching all kinds of cartoons, and I was envious of the pilots' proficiency in pressing the various dashboards.The second is the chefs, who occasionally eat out, always hide by the kitchen door timidly, watching the master chefs flying fire and meteors.My first impression at that time was: "The restaurant's kitchen is so big! There are so many utensils that I don't know at all!"

When I started cooking, my mother was so disturbed that she decided to let me do it.Mr. Lao She said that since he was a child, he knew how to accompany his mother to the stove, and the children of poor people are already in charge of the family. Compared with him, I am just a quasi-bad boy.My parents don't let me touch fire or knives, they only allow me to wash rice, wash vegetables and peel beans.When I wash the rice, I am clumsy and diligent. I am afraid that it will not be clean, and I always rinse the rice until there is no rice milk.So the rice I make from washing the rice is always less fragrant and less chewy when I eat it.Later, my mother taught me that it is enough to wash the rice roughly, and add a little sesame oil to make the rice more fragrant.In the era when electric rice cookers were not popular, cooking rice was a big project, and it would be burnt if the fire was skipped.When I was a kid, slightly burnt rice was actually the norm.Because the adults also believe that if the rice is raw, it is not edible, but if it is slightly burnt, it is acceptable.When I was young, I loved to eat scorched rice crispy rice. When I went to kindergarten for lunch, I asked the canteen master to "have some crispy rice". My mother thought it was the master who deliberately abused me, and I was unhappy for a long time.

After going to school, the teacher called on good children to work hard to solve their parents' worries and problems. He also cited countless good examples of heroic teenagers, saying how heroes and heroes can write at the age of three, poetry at the age of seven, and add firewood to the family at the age of ten. It got me excited, and I even did the stupid thing of leading a group of classmates to go to the grove to pick branches and go back to participate in the fire.When I came here, I learned how to wrap wontons and mix lettuce. I wanted to scare my parents when I went home, but in the end I was ridiculed by my father and advised by my mother kindly.When I was in middle school, I finally made a tomato scrambled egg. I was happy to honor my parents. I didn't know that I put too much salt, and almost killed my parents.

Seriously, I started to have the idea of ​​learning to cook. When I was in high school, my old lady warned me earnestly that if I didn’t learn to cook, I would starve to death sooner or later.People in the north often laugh at the men in the south who are responsible for washing and cooking. Although it is a bit more polite, what my mother means is nothing more than "preparing for the worst to marry a daughter-in-law who can't cook".So I learned to cook, learned to cook noodles, and learned a few so-called fool dishes, fool soup, and moves that don't even need to add salt.Learn the dishes my parents taught me, and they are all different.My mother likes to cook home-cooked dishes such as bean sprouts, braised pork, and gluten in oil. I don’t want to add oil, salt, or stir-fry.My dad is good at making appetizers, such as garlic paste white meat, dried shredded fish, fish head soup, etc., which are fresh and pleasant, so I flock to them.In short, after learning a few dishes, I felt complacent and thought that I could draw inferences from one example, and from then on I had a glimpse of the art of cooking.

Leaving home to go to college, renting a house to live in.Feeling that the price is too high, thinking about how to get food out of the teeth, I decided to do it myself.At that time, his mind was full of the dishes taught by his parents, just like a young hero who first went out, his head was full of famous swordsmanship and ready-made handicrafts, he thought he could catch it with his hands, but he was so arrogant that he fell down and gnawed mud when he went out, and was beaten in the vegetable market. Sap.As soon as I arrived at the vegetable market, I realized that the ingredients were not arranged in bowls and plates for you to cook, but had to be bought from vegetable stalls by category.It's as if Wu Songs may not necessarily encounter eye-catching white-fronted worms when they travel the rivers and lakes, but may encounter the most basic troubles such as black shops, thirst, and missing places.The amount and texture of the ingredients is a mess in my mind, and the uncles of the street vendors are either eloquent or impatient, and they can make me dizzy, a person who doesn't distinguish between five grains and four bodies.I finally escaped by chance and brought home a variety of ingredients. My eyes were dizzy. I cut this one with a knife and salted that one. I took care of this and forgot that. For the benefit of mankind.

But poverty leads to change, and nothing can stop the imagination of hungry people.When I first got into the kitchen, I had one meal and one dish every day: the rice was Yangzhou fried rice, and the dish was shredded green peppers and potatoes. I once ate it all at once for a week.The so-called "Yangzhou fried rice" is of course nonsense. Li Bihua boldly mentioned in his column that there is no standard way for the modern version of Yangzhou fried rice, as long as there are shrimps and eggs, and the wok is strong enough to be fragrant.That's why I boldly tampered with the recipe. I often fried a large plate of sausages, green beans, eggs, diced carrots, etc., and ate them with a bang.The green pepper and potato shreds are also crude. It is said to be potato shreds, but in fact it is more suitable to say that they are potato sticks.The advantage of this meal is that it is greasy to relieve cravings, and you have to drink strong tea to relieve oil after eating.I like the freehand style of cooking, and I often think scribbled, so I am always amazed when I see dishes with exquisite knives and fine decorations.

Of course, freehand cooking is also good.Although the style is vague and casual, it is like the Dugu Nine Swords, which can be transformed into a large one.For example, I am thinking about lazy braised pork. I don’t learn from my parents. I just wash it, add soy sauce, wine, ginger, a little sugar, and a lot of water. In principle, take your time.Later, I read a kind of braised pork written by senior Wang Dunhuang: without adding water, the meat is braised raw with soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, and a lot of green onions.I cleaned it up like this, but after all I couldn't escape Su Xi's usual habits, and I added a little sugar, which made it crunchy.Another example is fish head soup. The method I came up with out of my own imagination is to fry it in oil, add ginger and water, and boil it vigorously.There are countless people like this, so when my friends see me cooking, they are all surprised: "You don't follow the rules?"

There are also Gongbi-style cooking, especially Western food.I have a friend who studies science and engineering. He is very rigorous. He memorizes the recipes like a formula, and the ingredients are very delicate. Looking on, I think he is a chemist who is dripping hydrochloric acid into the silver nitrate solution.The dishes produced in this way are of course exquisite and delicious, but the delay is too long, and it takes half a day to polish a meal.Every time I feel sorry for it, I think it is true that the people depend on food, why is this so? Later, after the integration of Chinese and Western diets, sausages, lettuces and other versatile foods that are suitable for raw and cooked became popular, which can be regarded as the gospel for people like us.In the end, more or less wanderers who are away from home can always learn to cook, but the dishes are simple and mostly Western-style.When I went home and told my parents, my dad was fine with it, but my mother always scoffed at it, thinking that raw and cold western dishes are not king.Frying, frying and frying, the heat is measured, is the ultimate secret.

Only young men and women who have been away from home for a long time and have tried cooking by themselves will be shocked again when they return home and see their parents' kitchen skills at their fingertips.Thinking about everything that was used to being easy when I was a child, it turns out that it implies kung fu.