Oysters – "Oyster Yellow"
Oysters, we fenghua people call "oyster yellow". Every year in November and December, it is the season when "oyster yellow" is listed, and every season, Tangtou Village in Yinghu Lake becomes extremely busy. People say that the mountains eat the mountains, the sea eats the sea, Tangtou Village is by the sea to eat oysters, the village of more than 100 households have about 70% of the cultivation of oysters, the total breeding area of about 12,000 acres.
Oysters are best grown at the junction of freshwater and seawater, and the location of Tangtou Village provides unique conditions for oyster farming.
Farmers here drive boats out to collect oysters at 6 o'clock every morning, and come back at about noon, which can collect about a few thousand catties. Part of the local processing, part of the shell sold to Fujian, Yueqing and other places.
Light green flesh
"Ding-dong, ding-dong..." The women of the village are holding tools to process the oysters, revealing their light green smooth flesh. In the past, this kind of processing of oyster meat was done in simple shacks, but now, a whole row of cement houses has been built in the village, replacing the former shacks, and dozens of them are brushed together, and the scene is spectacular.
Now that the processing environment has become better, the women in the village are more motivated, gently prying along the cracks of the oyster shells, one prying open, and the movements are skillful. According to them, they can pry out about 20 pounds of oyster meat in a day. At present, the retail price of oysters is about 28 yuan a catty.
There are many ways to eat oysters, which can be eaten raw, salty, or grilled, and the most wonderful thing is that people in the coastal areas of The Lake of Ulva make it into a unique oyster rice tofu, which tastes delicious and has become a delicacy in most people's memory.
Begging for life in the wind and waves
Master Wang, an oyster farmer in Tangtou Village, is more than 50 years old and has been farming oysters for more than 30 years, and he said that their ancestors have been cultivating oysters for generations, and they have not known how many generations they have been here.
Master Wang told us that oysters used to be farmed with stones and cement columns, and when the oysters were harvested, it was very laborious to lift the bulky cement columns to the shore. Now it's tires, foam, and tires are the kind of bike tires we commonly have, about a dollar a piece of buying them from elsewhere, and need to manually split the tire rings one by one, which is a heavy job, usually in the first few months of the oyster busy season.
Like fishermen, they are people who make a living in the wind and waves, and the oyster market season is busy for four or five months without rest. Master Wang said that few people in the next generation will be engaged in this work anymore, and it is too hard to go in the wind and rain every day, and like him, the 50s are still young in this industry.
Master Wang said while showing us how to tie the tire ring with rope, he told us that in the first few months of the oyster season, they were not idle, basically doing preparations, weaving mesh bags, repairing moso bamboo, preparing foam board... I can't sit idle all year round.
However, hard work is also rewarding, and there is still a guarantee of income of more than 100,000 yuan a year.
A ...
Now, when the oysters are at their fattest,
Have you ever remembered the experience of digging oysters and roasting oysters in the beach by the sea?
Let's take a walk around Tangtou Village!