Artillery trucks
"Fried buns, fried buns, fragrant fried buns...... "When I was a child, whether it was the scorching heat of midsummer or the cold of spring, I was often awakened by a familiar cry in my sleep every morning. At this time, my grandmother would always go out at once, and take out an egg, or take out her wrapped and wrapped handkerchief from her bosom, and take out a dime from it in exchange for two fried buns for my brother and me. Now my grandmother is long gone, I am over half a hundred years old, and the old woman who sells fried buns never knows when she has never been here again, but I still think of them,—— I think of my grandmother, I think of the old woman who sells fried buns and her bamboo basket covered with a small black quilt.
What is the last name of the old man who sells fried buns? I don't know, but I just remember that my grandmother always called her "Lao Fu or Lao Fu", ,——so I called her "Lao Fu". "Lao Fu" is younger than his grandmother, sixty or seventy years old, not tall, wearing a towel of unknown color, his chubby face is always oily, his eyes are very bright and shrewd, and a pair of little feet with leggings wrapped around the same as his grandmother. I heard my grandmother say that "Lao Fu" is from the west end of the old street of the gun car, and her family has a steamed bun shop on the street, and every day she will bring the unsold fried buns to the countryside with baskets to sell. There are five or six miles of road from the west end of the old street of the gun car to our village, and we have to pass through several villages of Jiangzhuang, Zhouying, Qianxu and Wuchang to reach our Caochang. I don't know how her little feet got to our village.
When I was a child, there was nothing good to eat, and it was a delicacy to have a fried bun sooner or later! The steamed buns are made of dough, fried to bright and browned, and with the change of solar terms, the stuffing of the buns is not the same, sometimes it is leek and tofu filling, sometimes it is radish vermicelli filling, and sometimes it is pork and cabbage filling, but it is mainly vegetarian filling. The bun is not big, and it is hot in my little hand,—— but I am reluctant to eat it, so I will first bite off the two unfilled corners of the bun, and then slowly taste the stuffed part in the middle. I always have my grandmother constantly "Eat while it's hot, it's useless!" After finishing a good meal with urging and scolding, and then quietly licking the oil on his hands, the satisfaction will still linger when I think about it.
Sometimes, when there was a market on the gun carriage street, my grandmother would take me to the street with her little feet and crutches. When we were tired of walking on the road, we met someone pulling a cart, whether we knew it or not, my grandmother would stop us and ask them to pull us for a while.
It is essential to go to the restaurant to rub it out. I remember once when I was patronizing and listening to a book at the market, it was already three or four o'clock in the afternoon when I was hungry and wanted to eat, and my grandmother hurriedly took me to the old hotel and restaurant of the gun car to eat. At that time, there were several shops selling steamed buns and fried fritters on Gunche Street, but the only decent restaurants were old hotels. Coincidentally, I didn't know that lunch was over and dinner was still early, and there were no dishes in the restaurant, so the boss could only cook a bowl of noodles for the two of us. Grandma was so angry that she didn't eat half a bowl, and gave it to the door to ask for food. On the way home, my grandmother kept muttering, scolding people for not having food and opening a restaurant.
At that time, the old street was flanked by small tiled houses, and the street was potholed, muddy on rainy days, and dusty on sunny days. Every time to the market, the small vendors put the goods on both sides of the street to sell, at that time there was no city management and no one stopped, the street flow of people is like a tide, the street vendors are selling and the customers are bargaining, from the west of the old street to the east of the two miles of more than half an hour you can't pass at all. Now the old street has been renovated many times, and the multi-storey buildings integrating commercial and residential buildings have been built on both sides of the street, and the street surface has also been hardened and blackened, and the drainage pipe network has been laid and street lights have been installed. Two commercial streets have been expanded on the north and south sides of the old street, with a variety of shops, large supermarkets, luxury hotels, snack shops, dozens of breakfast shops, and even KFC and milk tea shops have also settled down. Every night, the neon lights and street lamps on the store's door plaques complement each other, and they are still bustling.
Today, the old street is still there, but it is no longer human. "Lao Fu" is gone, and her bun shop is long gone. I remember that when I was working in Jiangzhuang Village in 2004, I once inquired with people I knew about the "old man", but I couldn't tell why, which was a pity. Now, there is no longer a shadow of Lao Cai. If "Lao Fu" is still there, can she think of what the old street of the gun truck looks like now? If the "old wilt" bun shop is still there, I will definitely go to her bun shop for a full meal and take my grandmother with me. Still, can I still taste the original taste?