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"Mother's Cooking Era" is a new collection of essays by writer Jiang Xun, focusing on reminiscing about his mother, the things and things in the kitchen for the first time, and it is a humble tribute to the common people who live their daily lives safely, and contains endless wisdom of life.
Jiang Xun sees the big from the small, uses the concept of "five elements" to understand the kitchen, and gives life a deep meaning. It is the energetic interaction with wood, fire, earth, metal, and water in the daily life. From the use of refrigerators to the thinking of modernity, from molecular cuisine to dietary choices, from the iteration of fuel to the crisis of survival, we seek the same in the midst of change and the truth in the chaos. The details of life, the heat is just right, and the diet is appropriate, all of which are full of the philosophy of life of removing the turnip and preserving the essence and being simple at home. Ordinary daily cooking is the self-confidence of the common people in their serious life, and cooking is also full of the duty of being a human being, Jiang Xun said, "The smell of my mother's kitchen cooking is a life lesson that I can't learn all my life." ”
"Mother's Cooking Era"
Written by Jiang Xun
People's Literature Publishing House
Fire and life
A friend sent a silver chestnut pumpkin, like a big peach. The green glows with silver, like the light of mercury from the green glazed pottery of the Han Dynasty, calm and quiet, very beautiful. I put it on a few tables for a few days, and I was reluctant to eat it, and I was thinking, if it was my mother, how would she cook this silver chestnut pumpkin?
I have seen my mother burn a winter melon cup, accompany her to choose winter melon in the vegetable market, pick a long time, pick a small winter melon, about 20 centimeters in diameter, cut it, the flesh is very thick, green and white like jade, through the summer heat in the mountain spring like coolness.
Mother's winter melon cup is simmered with mushrooms, fungus, pine mushrooms, and flat tips in chicken broth, and a little soaked scallops, ham slices, and shredded dried squid. The material is vegetarian, the meat only enhances the flavor, and when the fire is boiling, it becomes smaller, and then it is steamed over a slow fire. Turn off the heat and simmer again to let the fresh aroma of the soup penetrate into the winter melon pulp. When eating, scoop spoonful by spoon in the bowl, refreshing and pure, with a long aftertaste.
Later, I had the opportunity to eat the winter melon cup in a big restaurant, adding too much abalone, fish maw, and hoof tendons, and the materials were expensive, and I always felt sorry for the lack of lightness of the winter melon.
It's not easy. Perhaps, being pure is to keep a kind of duty, not to be greedy and delusional, and then to be pure.
Mother's cooking, as if carrying her duty to be displaced in times of war, cautiously seeks the safety of all beings, and the taste is far-reaching. Because she has been on the move all her life, she doesn't have a special attachment to cooking. She is a northerner, and she is good at all kinds of pasta, from mash (cat ears) to flag flower noodles, from dumplings to steamed buns. She also cooks Fujian cuisine from her father's hometown, making her own sake lees, wrapping it in eel, steaming and frying it is delicious. She also stewed chicken on sake lees, which is fragrant and tender.
Jiang Xun's paintings, the same below
The waist flower fritters of Fujian cuisine are troublesome, the pork loin is labor-intensive, the urine tube is removed clean, and the flour is scrubbed without leaving a little fishy. Use a large blade into thin slices, season and stir-fry quickly to add overnight crispy fritters, this famous Fujian dish mother is also good at.
Her mother settled in Dalongtong, where she learned to make all kinds of rice cakes and fried rice for the Tong'an people, and grinded rice with her neighbors to make rice cakes during the Chinese New Year.
It is difficult to have delusions when surviving in the midst of displacement, so it is plain and simple.
Cooking with fire, pay attention to the heat. Steaming, boiling, frying, boiling, stewing, branding, roasting, simmering, frying, cooking, stir-frying, stir-frying, stewing, and boiling are all heat.
The heat is the experience of the fire, and the size is fast and slow, and there is a measure.
The fire was passed down from the ancient flint clan, or as the ancient Greece said, Prometheus stole it from the heavenly gods. Humans surround the fire, count the stars in the sky, and look forward to the rising sun. 10,000 years have passed, and we still hope that the flame will be passed on from generation to generation.
The mother experienced the use of fire, like a history of fire. In the war, she has seen the artillery fire and the smoke of gunpowder, and she may be able to experience the happiness and satisfaction of quietly watching a circle of fires in life.
She has cooked, used firewood, charcoal, briquettes, oil, gas, electricity, and magnetic waves......
Each type of stove with different fuels has its own characteristics, and the meals made are also different.
The fire in the hearth may have reminded her of the flames of the bombardment one day, the Devil Crying God. She still concentrated, praying for the stability of the life in the circle of fires in front of her for a long time.
Slow "simmering", fine "stewing", "frying" or "boiling" are all kung fu, and taking care of the heat is cooking and life.
Modern people don't understand the slow fire temperature of "simmering", and it is difficult to understand the "snuggling" between people, slow heating, but long-term. Knowing how to "simmer" and "simmering" requires patience and time.
I have no patience for fire, and it is difficult to understand the forbearance of "frying" and "boiling" in life.
I eat dried green beans less and less in restaurants, "stir-fry" takes time, "stir-fry" is not "stir-fried", nor is it "fried", no oil is used, "stir-fry" with low heat to get out the water. It also takes time, is in a hurry, and it is difficult to understand the "stir".
My childhood, with fire, took time; With water, it also takes time.
When you turn on the tap, there is water, and nowadays it is a matter of course, both cold and hot.
In my childhood, it took a long time to go to a stream to get water, to a well, and then come back to boil it.
Recently, I saw a pump on a riverside promenade and watched it for a long time. Presumably, the younger generation no longer knows what it is. A pump is a device that draws groundwater, and there is a handle of wood on one side, and when you squeeze the handle up and down, the water will be sent out from the hose at the other end. In my childhood, such devices were common, and women gathered around the water pump to wash vegetables, laundry, and gossip. Sometimes in order to grab water, there are also people who fight next to the pump and tear their hair.
The pump is a water intake device shared by the community, and of course it is not as convenient as the faucet of every household today. I'm glad I lived before I was 10 years old when every household didn't have a running water system, so to this day, when I turn on the faucet and see water flowing out, I feel like a miracle and I am grateful.
Nowadays, when you turn on the faucet at home, filtered drinking water and hot water are immediately available. With such a convenient use of water, there is naturally no "miracle" touch, and there is no need to be thanked; If there is water, it is a matter of course, and if there is no water, it may be abused and complained.
Fortunately, we should be glad that we have experienced the era of scarcity, and we have the opportunity to be full of gratitude for what we have at this moment, and keep our duty, so that we don't have too many delusions.
Yes, with the advancement of science and technology, many household chores have machines to do it for them. I am very glad that I started from nothing, and as I got older, I had an electric fan, a gramophone, a TV, a gas stove, a rice cooker, a refrigerator, a telephone, an air conditioner, and a MRT, and I could fly to the place I wanted to go at any time.
Every machine appears, like a miracle, full of joy and excitement.
Then, about half a century, there was an energy crisis. Electricity resources are insufficient, carbon emissions and exhaust gas pollution, ozone layer rupture, melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, forest fires, the extinction of many animals and plants, and a large number of microplastics in drinking water......
Rejoicing in miracles, and seeing miracles not being thanked, human beings have lost their duty, have no temperance, and miracles turn into curses. From the book of Genesis to the destruction of the city of Sodom, it is as if the Old Testament had prophesied.
The five elements around our lives - wood, fire, earth, gold and water - are changing all the time, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, perhaps, the core position is still people. People have lost their duty to stand on their feet, and the operation of wood, fire, earth, gold and water is popular, which will not be a help, but will become an obstacle.
After the Industrial Revolution, there was machinery to replace traditional manual labor, and mankind may slowly find that in a hundred years, the miracles of the Industrial Revolution have turned into curses.
In the post-industrial era, how to reconstruct the global problems left by a hundred years of industrial consumption?
I'm glad that the miracles of technology have happened in my life, all the way to my phone and computer. I also began to reflect deeply. Refrigerators, TVs, computers, washing machines, dishwashers, microwave ovens, air conditioners, air conditioners, air purifiers, electronic sweepers, etc., look at these essential machines in the home, and ask yourself: which one can I miss? Are they all "must-haves"?
I need another miracle, to go back to the simple origin of life, not to increase, but to reduce.
Often practice the "I Ching" "loss" and "benefit" hexagrams, what else can life reduce? Returning to this place, maybe it is time to return to the duty of guarding people.
Grocery shopping
Daily life, and most importantly, going to the market every morning to buy groceries.
Take a walk around the wet market, buy groceries, and at the same time see all kinds of vendors and chat with them one by one.
Fish, shrimp, mussel shells, oysters, spitting blisters in the basin. The crab is tied with a straw rope, with its feet facing the sky, and its feet are pushing desperately. The mother sometimes opens the cap of the crab's abdomen to see the umbilicus inside, or the yellow crimson eggs that spring out of the mother crab.
Yellow eels are also kept in pots and sloping around. Slippery like a yellow eel is a loach, shorter, darker, and with the fishy smell of a swamp.
At that time, there were many paddy fields in Dalongtong, and there were yellow eels, loaches, clams, and frogs in the paddy fields. After elementary school, I went to the fields to find all kinds of food. It doesn't seem to be food, half of it is fun. Catch the yellow eel, unfortunately you will catch the water snake, you have to quickly let go and shake it off.
I like to pluck the first-born white bamboo shoots, which are clean and moist like moonlight, sticking to my cheeks, with a pool of water to cool me.
The greens stall of the market has the fragrance of fresh plants. Coriander, mint, green onion, ginger, chrysanthemum, celery, and nine-story tower all smell good. I often close my eyes and smell with my nose, trying to keep all the smells in my heart, remembering the full vitality of the plants from the land and the seasons.
Sometimes it's a peeled fresh orange, the pungent acidity, which stimulates the taste buds, like the smell of the rising smell of the sun in the middle of summer. The freshly cut pineapple, a sharp blade pierced the gums, goosebumps all over the body, and irritated the nose and eyes were full of tears.
It is a living memory that only the vigorous old market can have. I once dreamed of the old market, a beautiful pig's head, freshly scraped clean, hanging on the butcher's head, smiling and groaning, as if he had just come out of a beauty salon, and he felt like a boss, making money and greeting customers.
The market is like my earliest school, following my mother, looking east and west, it was very fun, and I learned a lot. That kind of study, not for exams, no pressure, maybe it's the real study.
The yard at home is big enough, and there are a lot of chickens, ducks and geese. There is also a vegetable garden, leeks, tomatoes, beans, loofahs, peppers, one by one, and there seem to be ingredients for daily needs.
But going to the vegetable market every day is like a daily ritual, very ordinary, very simple, but to be repeated. Every day, the ritual is careful enough.
At that time, when I went to the market, I was buying the dishes that the family was going to eat that day. In the days when there was no refrigerator, I bought the dishes I ate on the day. With the refrigerator, I still buy the food of the day.
The structure of the modern urban economy has changed, and fathers and mothers have given all day to the workplace, and their children eat and go to school by themselves. Both parents are busy and are unlikely to buy groceries every day.
In the supermarket on weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, you will see families pushing carts full of food to eat for a week, and only then do you realize how luxurious and happy it is to have a stay-at-home mother who buys fresh ingredients every day and cooks different dishes every day.
Modern supermarkets are also different from the wet markets of my childhood. Chickens and ducks could not be heard, and wild dogs roamed around the butcher's stall, ready to pick up a bone. The fish is on the chopping board, its head chopped off, and it is trying to open its mouth, agitating its gills, as if trying to recover the body that was suddenly broken and lost.
The market, with life and death, is filled with the smell of all beings.
The butcher owner used a green leaf of his aunt's taro to roll up a pig's tongue as if he wanted to say something, a whole pig's tongue. Or use scissors to cut the tangled pig intestines, so long, so soft intestines.
When my mother came home, she washed it with salt and flour and pulled up her long intestines, and at the same time told me about the "intestine war" in the tragic battle in "Jiepai Pass". Luo Tong was injured, his stomach was broken, and his intestines flowed out, so he coiled his intestines around his waist and continued to fight.
After my mother washed her intestines as white as jade, she talked about the bombing in the war. A man, just after speaking, was hit by a cannonball, his body was torn apart, and his intestines were stuck to the tree. When telling the story, I was indifferent, as if I was just sorry that I didn't have time to wash the intestines hanging from the tree.
When I met people who clamed for war in the future, I knew that they had never experienced war.
Yes, I should be thankful for the mundane everyday, so extravagant.
You can go to the vegetable market with your mother, and by the basin of water, you can tease every clam with your fingers open and exhaling. As soon as my fingers touched, they retracted and closed tightly, hiding in what I thought was safe.
New Media Editor: Li Lingjun
Image source: Data map
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