Chapter 10 Lao Mai's Zongzi

Old Mai's surname is Mai. No one knows his name. If he is still alive today, he should be over a hundred years old. As long as I can remember, I know there is an old Mai.Lao Mai is from Cantonese, but there are very few Cantonese people who are as tall as him, and it is estimated that he will be around 1.85 meters.And I was too young at that time, and when I saw him, I always had a feeling of "standing up from a high mountain".Lao Mai's face is very Cantonese, with deep eye sockets and a protruding mouth.Maybe because he was too tall, he looked a little hunchbacked. I remember that Old Mai seemed to be sixty years old at that time.

Lao Mai does not have his own shop, but he has more than one hundred customers in Beijing.Lao Mai has a very old but sturdy bicycle. There are two large white metal barrels on the left and right behind the bicycle. This is his "mobile store".Lao Mai comes twice a year, one before the Dragon Boat Festival and one before the Spring Festival.For a decade from the early 1950s to the early 1960s, he was on time and never stopped. Lao Mai is a very optimistic and friendly person. His food is self-made and sold.The use of ham and bacon is to go door to door, and deliver the things he makes himself to the homes of regular customers on time.Lao Mai firmly believes in his craftsmanship, and what he makes is the best in the world. He will never allow anyone to raise objections to his quality and price, otherwise he will be desperate.Lao Mai is also proud of having more than 100 regular customers. He often hears him say: "I have more than 100 customers!"

Lao Mai's stuff is really good. During the Spring Festival, it seems to sell glutinous rice chicken, eight-treasure rice, and other things, I can't remember.Before the Dragon Boat Festival, they only sell rice dumplings, nothing else.There are four or five kinds of zongzi, the best ones are red bean paste and ham and bacon.Others, such as lotus seed paste and egg yolk, etc., Lao Mai knows the taste of my family, so he doesn't take it out. When I asked him, he said that he would sell it to someone in Guangdong.Laomai's zongzi is very different from Beijing's zongzi. First, it is wrapped with real zongzi leaves, while the zongzi sold in Beijing often use reed leaves.The second is that they are big and different in shape from those in Beijing. His red bean paste rice dumplings are square, while those with ham and bacon are axe-shaped. The size of the two kinds of rice dumplings is three times that of Beijing rice dumplings.Lao Mai's zongzi were very expensive, and it seemed that they sold for more than one yuan each, which was ten times the price of ordinary zongzi at that time.But the quality is also unmatched by ordinary zongzi.The bean paste used in his bean paste dumplings is peeled and filtered clear sand, fried with lard oil, rich in sugar and heavy in oil, and the ratio of glutinous rice to stuffing is 1:2.The ham and bacon are stuffed with real Jinhua ham and fat and lean bacon, and the ham is by no means an embellishment.The stuffing he used can make seven or eight rice dumplings in an outside shop, no wonder the price is about ten times that.Lao Mai's things are a buy-it-yourself price, and no one has ever tried to bargain with him, so it can be said that the goods are genuine.

Lao Mai spoke strong Cantonese, and it was very difficult for him to speak Mandarin, so his voice was probably louder, like fighting, but he burst out laughing from time to time.Lao Mai is a very serious person, just like he is as meticulous about the quality of the rice dumplings he sells, he is also serious about his life, he does not allow others to criticize the quality of his food, but he never sells it in a clever way, always putting on a " The emperor's daughter does not worry about marrying" attitude.Lao Mai never overcharged others for a penny, and he had to find out the change.During the three years of natural disasters, Lao Mai did not stop delivering goods. As for the price at that time, I don't know.

Lao Mai said that he had to go to more than a dozen houses in one morning, so he always seemed in such a hurry.In my impression, he always wears a dark gray Chinese-style trousers jacket with underbelly, which is very neat, because the bicycle with two foreign iron buckets has no chain cover, so no matter what time, there is no chain cover on the bottom of his trousers. With two big clips, I will never forget that.Delivering goods twice a year, even if there are more than 100 customers, how can Lao Mai make a living?Does he have another job?It's still a mystery. Around the Dragon Boat Festival in 1963, Lao Mai did not come. On the eve of the Lunar New Year in 1964, my grandmother said: "It is time for Lao Mai to come!" But Lao Mai still did not come.Since then, I have never seen Lao Mai again.

Thirty years have passed, every Dragon Boat Festival, I always think of Lao Mai.