Chapter 52 Rock sugar taro puree

Every winter, I often think of when I was a child, sitting in the west wing of my hometown, the family gathered around the big stove, eating rock sugar taro mash made by my mother.After more than twenty years, every time I think about it, a sweet fragrance still surges up on my cheeks. Sometimes it’s okay, when I study late into the night, I will follow my mother’s method and boil a bowl of rock sugar taro puree. The warmth is still there, but the taste is not as good as before.I think that rock sugar taro paste is not just a kind of food to me, but a kind of feeling, which is the warmth in winter night.

Children who grew up in Taiwan a few years after the liberation have a deep memory of sweet potatoes and taro. In the early years in the countryside, white rice was a luxury for us. For three meals, the rice and sweet potatoes in the rice pot were always out of proportion. Sometimes in the morning, drinking a bowl of white porridge without sweet potatoes would make me happy for a long time. Children living in that situation can only ask for more blessings, but the most difficult thing is probably the mother, because she is always thinking of how to design some new patterns for the simple and poor food, so that we will not get bored and increase our vitality. interest in life.What I still miss most is the ingenuity and ingenuity that my mother took painstaking efforts to create in food.

Since I was just learning to walk, I often go to the fields with my mother to pick wild vegetables in my spare time in the afternoon. She can tell which wild vegetables are edible and add the most delicious recipe.For example, there is a dish called "Wuxin Cai". My mother picked the most tender sprouts and cooked the soup with cornstarch. I still dare not forget the thick and fragrant soup to this day. Even the leaves of sweet potatoes, peeled and shredded after picking, have a special green flavor whether they are fried or boiled. If it rains, my mother will take a shovel and a bamboo basket and go to the bamboo forest to dig out the bamboo shoots that are just about to emerge. In the damp places in the bamboo forest, there is often an edible fungus, which is silver and gray. A little brownish.My mother called it "chicken shredded mushrooms", and the taste of frying is really like shredded chicken.

Even the green pineapples that grow randomly in the countryside, my mother can conjure up several different dishes. My mother is the kind of person who often has inspiration when cooking, but it can't help but cause headaches when we eat sweet potatoes and taro, which are the staple foods we eat almost every day.It's easy to add sweet potatoes and taro to rice, but if you eat this kind of food every day, no matter how good-tempered your child is, you'll probably cry. In our family, sweet potatoes and taro are always available. Sweet potatoes are planted in the sandy land not far from the river. Even in the most difficult times, they will grow luxuriantly. They are inexhaustible and inexhaustible. , taro is planted next to the ditches in the field, the fruit is huge and hard, and it is not lacking in all seasons.

I often see my mother worry about the sweet potatoes and yams brought back in whole cloth bags, and then she starts to create in her worries, trying to use the most ordinary food to make the most extraordinary dishes, so that we can eat these two things all day long. Feel bored. Of course, my mother kept the best part and mixed it with the rice. For the rest, she carefully sliced ​​it into thin slices and beat them into a paste with sugar, flour, and our own eggs. Fry in the oil pan, pick it up when it is golden, and then put it in a large iron can, it becomes the biscuit we eat every day.Because my mother treasured those biscuits on purpose, we used to distribute them when we ate them, so we thought they were extra delicious.

Even though there were so many sweet potatoes, my mother didn't allow us to take them casually. She often talked about the period of air raids during the Japanese occupation, saying that sweet potatoes were as important as rice.At that time, our family still used a large wood-burning stove, and the bottom was a vent hole. The leftover fire ash fell into the vent hole and was still warm. We liked to put small red sweet potatoes in the hole so that it could be cooked. It was really fragrant.Our mother forbids us to do that, and only the rewarded child has that privilege. I remember that every time I got the first place in the exam or went home with a certificate, my mother allowed me to braise two sweet potatoes with red hearts under the stove as a reward; The feeling is no less than receiving an award on the school podium, and the sweet potato tastes particularly delicious.Our family is a big family. I have fourteen cousins ​​and four cousins. My uncle’s parents passed away at an early age, and my mother took care of the housekeeping. When it came to Jintian, we all still remember how grand it was to receive two sweet potatoes with red hearts. prizes.

Sweet potatoes are not only used for cooking, cakes, and prizes, but they can also be stewed with Dongpo pork and steamed. My mother always changes a pattern every few days.On summer nights, after we finish our homework, the dessert we look forward to the most is the sweet soup that my mother cut sweet potatoes into one-inch cubes and cooked with pineapple; both sweet and sour, it can quite symbolize our life that day. The status of taro does not seem to be as important as that of sweet potatoes, but a dish made of taro stalks from my mother is almost indescribable; once I ate a braised eggplant in Tianjin Wei, Taipei, and almost shed tears, because this northern dish The taste of the dishes is very similar to the taro stems made by my mother in the poor countryside in the south more than 20 years ago.Originally dug taro, the stalks and leaves had to be discarded, but my mother was reluctant to give up, so the taro stalks were made into a Chinese meal, and the taro leaves were used to make school rice bags for us.

Taro's aloof temper is the same as its strong smell. It is full of sensitivity and is almost incompatible with other foods.Wear gloves when peeling taro, because it makes the skin itchy. Its bad temper makes it unable to replace the sweet potato. It will always be a second officer and cannot be the captain. During the Chinese New Year, we can have a sumptuous dinner, one of which is taro rib soup. I think there is no better combination than taro and ribs in the whole world. The only thing that can be compared is lotus root ribs, but a strong One light has different flavors. When people are poor, most of them prefer strong flavors.When my mother was braised the chain fish head, the stewed taro and the fish head complement each other, which is probably unique in the world.

The most unforgettable thing is our experience of eating rock sugar taro mash on winter nights. My mother smashed the boiled taro and boiled it with rock sugar until it turned into a smectic blue color and put it on the big stove.Just waiting for us to finish our homework and be checked, we can go to the stove to scoop up a bowl of hot mashed taro and eat it around the stove.Whenever we know that my mother has made rock sugar taro paste, we rush to do our homework as soon as we get home, looking forward to a bowl of dim sum on the stove. The rock sugar taro puree can only be tasted slowly, even in the coldest winter night, every bite of it is still boiling hot.A large group of us brothers and sisters stood around the stove, enjoying the mashed taro made by our mother, playing and playing, and went back to bed satisfied after eating.

Over the past twenty years, brothers and sisters have been separated due to growing up, and even their hometown has disappeared due to the construction of new houses. Sometimes it has become a luxury to eat a bowl of rock sugar and mashed taro by the big stove.Eating white rice every day reminds me of the days when I was growing up with sweet potatoes and taro. Do you want to eat the dried radish that was hidden last year?Want to hear the oily bamboo shoots after the rain? Craving red sweet potatoes from the ashes?Do you want to eat rock sugar taro puree in winter night?Sometimes I can't think about it, and I feel melancholy in my heart. Even if I can make it again, even if my mother is still as hardworking, the taste is always not as good as before.

The environment in which I grew up was difficult, because of my mother’s love, all the hardships turned into beauty, and my mother’s love was expressed in those seemingly insignificant foods; If you eat taro, you can easily tell that it is not something else, but a kind of selfless love. Selfless love is the strongest in hardship.Even though it is ground into mud, every mouthful is hot and sweet, rushing in our original blood vessels. Under the cold Taipei lights, I often think that if I hadn't eaten my mother's rock sugar mashed taro in my childhood, then my childhood memories would have been completely eclipsed. Now I can maintain the calm nature of a country child. I can often face bags of sweet potatoes and taro with knowledge, know what to choose and change, and create the best style. When I am bored and worry, I will not lose the confidence to move forward. There is a close relationship between childhood and life.Because the shadow of my mother is in the deepest corner of my heart, pushing me forever. — May 1, 1983