Chapter 11 Auspicious sheep

The beginning of the first yuan, the year is over, and it is the turn of the sheep of the zodiac.According to the records in "Er Ya", it should be Tu Wei (Ji) and Xie Qia (Wei). Among animals, sheep are the most able to group together and unite. "Sheep" is the ancient word "Xiang". The auspicious inscriptions on ancient Yi wares are mostly auspicious sheep, so literally speaking, the year of the sheep is an auspicious year. "Fish and wild goose" is a wedding in ancient times, where the man pays respect to the woman and uses wild goose as an engagement.Zheng Kangcheng said that the geese should be in accordance with Yin and Yang, and Ao Jigong said that flying geese would no longer be a coincidence.Later, because geese come and go in seasons and are not available at any time, the gift of fish and geese was replaced by geese and sheep.In the early years of the Republic of China, on the streets of Beiping, it was often seen that gondolas and goose wine were pulled by large gondolas, white sheep and geese were dyed carmine, and they were delivered across the streets and alleys to relatives and friends. On the one hand, they told relatives and friends that their family When will your daughter leave the court, the more dowries left by the receiving relatives and friends, the more dowry will be given in the future, so it will naturally be richer.As for the two items of sheep and geese, if the relatives of the uncle and aunt are relatives, and the two families are still well-off, then either the sheep or the goose should be kept, or even both the goose and the goat should be kept.However, the remaining geese and sheep can neither be slaughtered nor sold, and must be released.Later, the world became more and more frustrating, and they changed the lamb and wine into clothing and jewelry. One or two years before the Anti-Japanese War, on the eighth and eighteenth day of the first lunar month, if you went to Baiyun to watch "Shunxing" and "Meeting Immortals", the goose fence in the sheepfold was still there. There are remnants of old sheep and geese who live there for the elderly, and they are all sent as betrothal gifts to release them.

Big-tailed sheep are a gift to the public in Northwest China. Both "clothing" and "food" cannot be separated from big-tailed sheep.No matter the season, no matter the season, no one can do without an old sheepskin jacket and Xikou leather tubes, which are not only sold well in Pingjin, Central China, but also people from Fujian and Guangdong who travel to the Northwest will bring a few sheepskin tubes back to the south to give them away!The Laotan sheepskin jacket in the sheepskin is the most popular one. In the northwestern provinces, everyone who drives the train and pulls the camel has a fat and big white leather jacket with neither hanging cloth nor buttons. Put a piece of cloth on your shoulders and tie it around your waist.He eats Guokui hard steamed buns and drinks local wine Baigan (the small pot that holds the wine is called "Piaozi" or "Zehu") in his bosom.It is a leather jacket during the day and a quilt at night, which is convenient, neat and affordable.Rich people pay attention to wearing shredded radish beach skin, the hairs are fine and long, and the texture is soft and warm.The one with the longest fur is Wandaowan, and some are a whole leather jacket that can be rolled up so tightly that it can be stuffed into a thick bamboo tube. That is called Jiudaowan bamboo tube Tanpi, and it is a special product produced in Xikou.

On the northwest prairie, mutton and goat milk are the main diet of nomads.In the desert with endless yellow sand, I galloped my horse for a whole day, tired and hungry, cut off a leg of lamb from the slaughtered sheep, put seasonings on it and roasted it on a raging flame until the suet was warm. , the smell of meat is overflowing, use the hand-relief knife that you hang, cut off whichever piece is good, and try to attract you to eat it.Even people who don't eat mutton usually feel that the red stew is stewed, oily, fragrant, tender and rich in taste, and they don't feel any fishy smell of mutton.When drunk and full, pour a cup of strong goat milk tea boiled with tea bricks, lie on the thick Dulu felt, and relieve fatigue. People who have not experienced it personally will not be able to understand the feeling.

Although mutton is not as common as pork in Chinese recipes, each has its own way of eating!Such as Huzhou Shuanglin's flat mutton, Yangzhou wife's Zhai Honglan whole sheep's head, Suxi cuisine's frozen sheep paste, Shanghai Yimiao's mutton noodles, Xi'an's mutton steamed buns, Pingjin's fried shabu-shabu, just write and write. This article proves that the prevalence of mutton in our diet is second only to pork. When it comes to eating mutton, according to the older generation, all the grilled mutton dishes in Pingjin area come from Zhangyuan.Because the wind is high and the grass is fat, the sheep outside the mouth (people in Peiping call it the north of Zhangjiakou) are fat and strong, but they have a bit of a smell.But coming from the south of the mouth, going all the way, from Haidian to Beiping, all the sheep drink the pulse of Yuquan Mountain, the number one spring in the world, so as soon as the sheep enter the city of Beiping, they will be fat, tender and moist. nothing.Although I can't believe this kind of statement, it is true that Yu Gongkuo, who lived in Tianjin, always wanted to eat instant-boiled mutton and had to be brought from Beiping. Moreover, the instant-boiled mutton in Tianjin is indeed a bit more stinky than the mutton in Beiping. Woolen cloth!

Sheep are the most docile and obedient animals. When a flock of sheep walks on the street, the leader must be a black goat with horns, and there is a bell hanging under the neck. The flock will naturally follow the lead sheep. There are very few explosive groups running around.I once heard the senior Muslim Chen Imam say: "This kind of black horned, tall and big sheep was not a normal goat at first, but a 'Yuan sheep'." This kind of sheep is native to Xiliang. With heavy loads, the flock of sheep is headed by a sheep, so it is natural to be subdued without commotion.People in the city of Peiping call this kind of sheep "soul-leading sheep", because they work hard all the year round to lead the team, and they can avoid death in the end. They are the luckiest sheep in the flock.

In the early years when sheep were slaughtered in Beiping, they were not sent to slaughterhouses for slaughter, but an imam was invited by the mutton bed, and the imam first read a section of the Koran, and then the imam slaughtered them.The slaughter of sheep was done early in the morning. Every morning when I was a child, I would go to school, and I would always pass by a mutton bed. The headless carcasses were hung on wooden stakes with iron hooks.Although I often eat mutton when I came to Taiwan, the scene of the imam slaughtering the mutton still flashes in my mind. In addition to the protagonist Monkey King, the monkeys in Peking also have a dog and a sheep as partners. This kind of sheep is also a sheep with a big tail.The monkey joker said: Sheep are clever, they can teach things two or three times, and they can remember them without forgetting, but goats are not very smart, they are difficult to teach, and they forget them in a blink of an eye.In addition, goats eat a lot of fodder, pull a lot and spread goat dung everywhere mercilessly. If someone asks them to play monkeys in the courtyard of a deep house, it will be a disaster if the yard is full of goat dung, so it is useless to play monkeys. The reason is here.

Yang Zengxin, the governor of Xinjiang, is not only good at performing "Yi" etiquette, especially Ziping, but also good at divination.Master Yan Yintong, the former teacher, said: "Yang Dingshuai has been stationed on the North and South Roads of Tianshan Mountain for a long time, and he was taught sheep divination by a foreigner from the Western Qiang. It is very fierce, and there will be blood, but who knows that Yang was assassinated and died." The method of sheep divination is said to be to use dry moxa to burn the bone of the leg of the lamb, and burn it for a long time to see the length, depth, and distortion of the crack to judge good or bad fortune. Yes, it originated from tortoise divination, but it was only used in the Western Regions to use sheep bones.When Dr. Yao Le came to Taiwan, he treated guests to eat mutton, pilaf, and skewered mutton in the open air in the new park. One of the reception staff, who was from Korla, Xinjiang (the last name can’t be remembered), knew about mutton. He must have a true biography. Rest and blame mostly works.Believe it or not, it's up to you!