Chapter 39 Spring Mushroom and Autumn Mushroom

Wang Shixiang has a special feeling for mushrooms.He once wrote an article called "Spring Mushrooms and Autumn Mushrooms Always Love".The article mentioned that when he was studying at Yenching University in his early years, he often rode a bicycle to visit Xiangshan.Near Xiangshan, he met a master mushroom picker, known as the "Mushroom King".The man told him that there are two types of mushrooms in Xiangshan, large and small, the big and light-colored ones are called white lilacs, and the small and dark-colored ones are called lilacs. The "Mushroom King" also taught Wang Shixiang many ways and tricks to pick mushrooms in Xiangshan.

Later, Wang Dunhuang, Wang Shixiang's son, also recorded many anecdotes about his father picking and cooking mushrooms in his book "Eating the Lord".He said that whenever his father was free, he would think about picking wild mushrooms.Once, he even rode to the reception room of Yongdinghe Primary School, found old man Zhang who used to deliver wild mushrooms to the vegetable market, and asked him for advice on where to pick wild mushrooms.So old man Zhang told him several "mushroom origins" in the source of Yongding River.My father was overjoyed when he found out, and took himself to the source of the Yongding River to pick mushrooms on the first rest day after "learning the scriptures".

Wang Shixiang often mentions picking mushrooms in his writings.He wrote that most of the master mushroom pickers in the capital are concentrated outside You'anmen and Yongdingmen. Each of them has a few "secret road maps" for picking mushrooms, and they will go around picking them every few days. It is difficult for novices Discover where these mushrooms grow.Later, it was difficult to buy wild mushrooms in the vegetable markets of Chaonei and Dongdan, and only the vegetable market at Caishikou still had them.I think his obsession with mushrooms is comparable to that of Zhang Daqian, who also tried every means to find mushrooms when he was working in Dunhuang, which is also a kind of gourmet spirit.

Wang Shixiang has a lot of unique experience in cooking mushrooms.Mr. Wang once introduced a kind of mushroom called willow mushroom. He said that willow mushroom is "brown in color, and it grows when gathered together. There are big and small. When cooking, it is advisable to add rice wine to remove the earthy smell. It can be stewed or fried. Braised is better than stir-fried, and it is a delicious dish with shredded chicken and tender peas.”There is also a kind of mushroom called Coprinus comatus, "the stalk is taller, the color is lighter, and frying is better than stewing." I don't think people who can buy, cook, and eat can't sum up these experiences.

I also really like mushrooms.I remember when I was a child, my mother would go to the market every April and May, and there were wild pine mushrooms carried by mountain people from the mountains in the market.After my mother bought it, she would fry it with green peppers, garlic slices, and lard.At that time, there was no meat to eat, so I ate the fried pine mushrooms in lard as meat.Seeing that I was devouring my food, my mother would often scare me and say, "Eat less! Poisonous ones will eat dead people!" At that time, pine mushrooms and lard were extremely precious things.There are only a few small cans of lard in my family every year. If I eat up a few meals, my family will not be able to eat it.In April and May, when the spring rains first fall, the pine fungus in the pine forest emerges from the rotting pine needles, the color is yellow and the flesh is thick, and it is extremely delicious.Another growing season for pine mushrooms is in August and September, after heavy rains.When we were teenagers, we climbed mountains for fun, and in these two seasons, we would pick some pine mushrooms on the mountains and go home.

Forty years later, in April and May, I went back to my hometown in Youyang, Chongqing, and ate wild mushrooms in a small restaurant with my classmates Li Yawei and Ran Yunfei.The way to eat it is to bring out a pot of charcoal fire first, put an iron pot on it, boil the pork belly to get the oil, then pour in green peppers, garlic slices, and pine mushrooms and stir fry together.Add a little soup at the end and eat while simmering.A large pot was steaming hot and full of aroma, which brought me back to my mother's stove in my childhood.At the end of the meal, the store will also serve a local tripod pot rice, and mix it with a large bowl of leftover juice in the pot. This is the real "satisfaction with wine and rice".Later, I would go back to Youyang every spring and go to that small restaurant to eat this dish.

In the mountainous area of ​​the southwest, there is also a kind of fragrant fungus, especially Gongtan, a thousand-year-old town in Youyang, which specializes in this kind of fragrant fungus.This kind of fragrant fungus is very fragrant. Put it in the box, and you can smell the aroma 50 meters away after opening it. Now it has become a high-end special gift.When I was in Chengdu as a restaurant in my hometown in eastern Sichuan, I bought a large amount of these mushrooms and used them to stew local chicken, pig's trotters, or make meatball soup. The Southwest is rich in fungi, with hundreds of species. The famous ones are matsutake, morel, colostrum, truffle, and boletus, but only a few dozen species can be cultivated on a large scale.Not long ago, I went to Dali to hold a poetry meeting, and I went to the vegetable market to buy two catties of artificially cultivated chicken fir fungus.Even if it is artificially cultivated, only the local taste is good, perhaps because of the water, soil and climate.

Back to Wang Shixiang, what he comes into contact with and loves are mainly mushrooms from the north.The fungi produced in the northern climate are collectively referred to as Tricholoma, and most of these mushrooms are produced in Hebei and Inner Mongolia. Since their largest distribution center is in Zhangjiakou, they are collectively referred to as "Mushrooms".Tricholoma is divided into four categories: white mushroom, green mushroom, black mushroom and miscellaneous mushroom.Most of the mushrooms mentioned in Wang Lao's article are white mushrooms. Mushrooms are used in dishes. Beijing has the famous duck heart with mushrooms, Shandong has fried mushrooms with mushrooms, Inner Mongolia has fried mushrooms with soft milk, and Hebei has mushrooms and so on.Mushrooms can also be used as stuffing. Beijing Quanjude has a duck diced bun with mushrooms, which uses mushrooms.

The name of mushrooms began in the early Qing Dynasty, and there was a record of stewed chicken with mushrooms in Yuan Mei's book of the Qing Dynasty. When Guo Moruo came to Zhangjiakou in the 1950s, he also wrote poems praising it, "The name of the mushroom is all over the world."