Past events in the public eye: Part 3, disturbing the group

1. The Guanzhong man with a big appetite

The past events in this section need to be explained in detail from the beginning. If you don't explain it in detail, people in front of you won't understand it.

Mixed dough balls, as a special snack in Guanzhong, have entered high-end hotels; as a complementary food or side dish, vacuum-sealed convenient mixed dough balls have also entered supermarkets with barcodes.

Who would have thought that this kind of farm snack was a dietary invention born out of famine and people trying to save food. Let’s talk about the big-eating Guanzhong man first. The characters involved are all old people he has seen since childhood. The stories take place in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, real-life events in agricultural farming or engineering construction.

In the old farming era, there was almost no agricultural machinery. Apart from limited animal power, heavy work relied entirely on the labor of young adults. The four big-mouthed men ate a pot of stewed red bean rice and a few steamed buns, but none of them were full. When one becomes poorer, one is short of both food and money.

If you unfortunately encounter a famine, it will be even worse. I was already poor and didn’t have enough to eat. If you don't eat enough, you will have no nutrition, less energy, and you won't be able to do your job. If you can't do the work, you will be ineffective and you will become poorer. Man-made and natural disasters, let Wei Xing nest and Li Du, where else can they go if they don't starve to death.

In the era of mutual aid groups in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and later in the era of production teams, there was an indispensable simple agricultural tool in the countryside: the broom; in fact, it was a large broom made of slender bamboos tied together. In those days, there were no winnowing machines, let alone combine harvesters.

The sweeper is used to collect and manage grain particles and remove residual soil, leaves and residue in the grain particles. The slender bamboo that binds the broom is also called broom by the locals; it comes from the mountains of Qinling Mountains. The production team will send people with a letter of introduction to pass through the mountain pass forestry inspection station; then go to the deep mountains of the Qinling Mountains to cut it with a sickle.

The slender bamboos cut in the deep mountains are tied into bundles and piled with drill sticks. They have to be carried down the mountain first and then pulled back to the village in an ox cart. Therefore, cutting the sweeper is an important technical chore in rural areas; people without strength or knocking on the door simply cannot do it.

Because it is a strenuous job, the production team gives heavy work points to those who go up the mountain to cut the scavengers: 10 points per day; they also receive additional food subsidies: braised red beans and rice that are not accounted for, which makes them very resistant to hunger. Each person is provided with half a catty of rice per day.

The four Biaoduer men received all the rice the night before. After breakfast the next day, they walked into the mountains carrying rice and cloth sickles. It takes several days of hard work cutting mowers in the deep mountains; sleeping in the homes of mountain people at night.

On the last day, they tied up the thin bamboos; they used the last six kilograms of Domi beans to cook a full pot of red bean stewed rice in a Shakuhachi iron pot about 65 centimeters in diameter. The four of them ate everything, but they all said they were not full; each of them also ate a few leftover steamed buns. Then, he used a drill stick to pierce the thin bamboo bundle and carried it down the mountain.

How many bamboos can four people carry on their backs? have no idea. All they knew was that the bullock cart that picked them up at the mountain pass headed north downhill. Halfway through, the bullock pulling the cart fell down on the ground from exhaustion.

Three of the four people are currently deceased and one is still alive. One of them told me during his lifetime: They rushed to the mountains to cut hay, not only to earn big work points, but also to eat a few unpaid meals.

2. Having a meal that cannot be paid for: holding back until death

In the construction of poverty era, there are many public, public, and public welfare projects. For example, building dams, building bridges and roads, building factories or railways, etc., all require young and middle-aged labor from the production team to participate; the production team will record high work points for them, and add some cash subsidies at the construction site: a few yuan per month The food subsidy varies.

Another advantage is that there is plenty of food. People in Guanzhong call it: food that is not paid for. This means: you can eat as much as you want at the construction site without keeping accounts; work points and subsidies will no longer be deducted at the end of the month.

Young and middle-aged people who were hungry at home and heard that their meals were not paid, signed up one after another to participate. But whether he can go depends on his relationship with the production team leader; or his wife’s relationship with the production team leader’s wife.

Back then, in order to enjoy the unpaid meals at public construction sites, hungry people caused many life-related stories.

What follows is some weird news from the construction site.

The Feng River flows out of the mountain pass and turns northwest to near Mawang Village in the western suburbs of Chang'an. It makes a big turn and forms the Mawang Village battlefield. Sand is a necessary material for infrastructure construction.

Mawangcun sand is of first-class quality. Mawangcun sand is used in the infrastructure construction of many key projects. There is a railway station built near Mawang Village, from which sand is transported to all parts of the country. It is said that it can also be exported in exchange for foreign exchange.

The project was busy at that time; there was a public welfare paid labor, which was to transport sand from the bottom of the river to the train station. Back then, the poor had nothing to live with, and they didn’t have high-end machinery. Conveyor belts, winches, excavators, etc. have never been seen before. Transportation equipment, let alone cars, are rare.

Transporting sand to the train station requires all the strength of Guanzhong men; from the bottom of the river along the more than ten-meter-high ramp of the Dahe Weir, a frame truck is used to pull it up; this is a heavy job that can only be done by oxen and horses. The men in Guanzhong in those days did it like this; Hei Ming did it non-stop all night long.

Working hard, risking your life, is to earn high work points, so that by the end of the year, you can share more of the food you grow. The second is a cash subsidy that can earn a few dollars a month. The third is to eat food that is not paid at the construction site.

There are generally two types of fire food at construction sites: steamed buns or rice; this is a home-cooked meal in Guanzhong. The steamed buns are big steamed buns made of three-liang white flour, with shredded radish sprinkled with oil and salt as a side dish.

Although rice is produced in the Fenghe River Basin, rice cannot be eaten often and cannot be afforded; the construction site can only eat one meal a week. When eating rice, there must be meat stewed with tofu, cabbage, or meat stewed with potato vermicelli. It's considered an improvement in food.

The ox-horsepower produced by humans will definitely not work without adding some meat. The story goes like this: Old Liu, a gluttonous man from a certain village, signed up to pull sand so that he could not afford to pay for his meal.

Lao Liu arrived at the construction site for the first time and lacked experience. The force was too strong and a lot of sand was pulled. When a cart of sand was pulled up to the weir, I was already hungry and ran to the construction site kitchen to ask for steamed buns. In addition, I was not good at work, exerted brute force, sweated profusely, and my stomach was really hungry and turned into two skins. After only two days of work, I kept complaining that I was hungry.

The cook in the kitchen was a warm-hearted foreigner. He had never seen such a big eater as Lao Liu. He suspected that Lao Liu might have hidden the steamed buns and wanted to take them home secretly. Under the construction site dining system, you can eat as much as you want; but you cannot take more than you want, and you cannot take it home.

A few days later, during dinner, the cook asked Lao Liu to sit in the kitchen and eat in front of him. He also joked and made a bet: If Lao Liu can really eat as much as he wants in one meal, he would rather divide his own food and give it to Lao Liu for a long time.

Old Liu Xin believed it was true and said that he could eat 20 large white flour steamed buns in one meal.

Both parties agreed on witnesses and began to bet. Lao Liu ate 17 of the three-liang white-flour steamed buns in one go. When he was eating his 18th meal, it was said that Lao Liu looked strange and all the witnesses were frightened away.

It was a boring night at the construction site. After hearing the news, everyone came to watch the excitement. The cook had already panicked and blocked Lao Liu from eating any more, willing to admit defeat. Seeing that the situation was very bad, the cook followed the elder's advice and did not go to sleep. He helped Old Liu walk slowly along the Feng River Weir all night long, and then Old Liu finally recovered his breath.

The strange thing about making a bet on steamed buns was learned by the superior department; the construction site management committee punished the kitchen man and fired Lao Liu back home. Because he only worked for a few days, Lao Liu didn't get a penny of subsidy from the construction site, nor did he earn high work points from the production team. He only ate the food that the government paid for a few days.

This incident became an allusion to greed for gain and was passed down as a joke by the locals; they said: You must be holding on to death for catching the government's unpaid meals. Note: Hold, in Guanzhong dialect, means to eat fiercely, and has a derogatory connotation.

To think so vulgar is similar to the mentality and style of today's greedy bureaucracy. Anyway, it’s government food, so if you don’t eat it, you’ll eat it for free, and if you eat it, you’ll eat it for free. In the end, I almost died from eating too much.

3. Disturbing the group

Some people may not understand: Back then, farmers had to pay public grain for farming; in addition, they also had to pay a small amount of rebateable subsidy for grain purchase. Taking the production team as a unit, after handing over the leftover grain purchased by the public and the seeds left for the next year, the final settlement is based on the work points earned by the main labor force of each household.

Families with large appetites and many strong men may earn a lot of work points in a year, but the small amount of food they expect from the agricultural community will definitely not be enough if they eat freely.

In the upper reaches of the Feng River in Guanzhong, the main crops are rice, which produces high-quality rice. If you can't be careful with your budget, eating rice, white steamed buns, and pork and tofu every day is satisfying, but it can last for up to three months. For the remaining nine months, we must not drink from the northwest wind.

If you want to avoid hunger, you have to plan wisely. Usually, the rice is secretly brought to Weibei to be exchanged for corn noodles, which is usually eaten in groups; vegetables such as potatoes, red taros, radishes, and lotus grown in dry land are added; and additional food such as wild vegetables, leaves, and bean dregs are added to ensure stability. survive the famine.

Even in times of non-famine, there is not enough food in Guanzhong. In order to survive the famine, farmers gradually invented ways to eat rice dumplings and steamed cold skin.

More than a kilogram of corn noodles can be mixed into half a pot, but the whole family cannot eat it in one meal. One pound of rice is ground into rice paste, and four pounds of cold skin can be steamed. Adding a few other things, it can feed eight people.

When making dough, mainly use corn flour that contains more starch; it will easily condense into lumps after cooling. To make the authentic stir-fry dough, slowly spread the noodles in a pot of boiling water while stirring constantly in the pot with a large wooden spoon; use a wheat straw under the stove to simmer slowly. Go by feel, until the batter is scooped out and can be shaped, it is considered a success.

Disturbing a group is a hard skill in the kitchen, and some people will never learn it in their lifetime. Beginners, such as little girls and new wives who have just learned to cook, generally find it difficult to succeed in joining a group.

There is a saying in Guanzhong that says: The melon girl stirred up the dough one by one and sprinkled the flour when it was thin, and added water when it was thick; which means: it is difficult to get the key; in the end, it was beaten into a pot of half-cooked paste.

4. Eat stir-fried dumplings

When eating stir-fried dumplings, adjust the seasoning water in advance; it is best to use wild vegetable pulp water or celery pulp water and add oil to scald the spicy pepper; then add oil Braised vegetables: Braised braised vegetables with green oil, stir-fried leeks with green oil, stir-fried spinach with green oil, and stir-fried garlic sprouts with green oil are the best.

When everything is ready, first ladle half of the bowl with the seasoning water; then use a wooden spoon to scoop out the dough in the pot, and slowly slide it layer by layer into the bowl, floating on top of the seasoning water. It is decorated with green rapeseed and bright red spicy peppers.

When eating, slowly use chopsticks to eat from the outer ring. The three colors of the yellow of stir-fried dough, the red of hot peppers blanched in oil, and the green of braised vegetables all match together, which greatly increases appetite. So it became a famous farm snack in Guanzhong.

I used a few tips above to explain the tips for making and eating the dough. If you are too impatient, not only will you not be able to eat well and lose the taste, but it will also burn your mouth, heart, and stomach.

There is a joke about eating stir-fried dumplings: there is a young man who has just finished his work and is very hungry. He has no experience in eating stir-fried dumplings. ; Lying on the ground rolling with his arms around his belly. There is also a slang saying in Guanzhong: I can’t eat hot stir-fried dumplings in a hurry; I just came here.

Although the dough tastes delicious, it is a thicker cornmeal batter after all; the water is an acidic seasoning that is easy to bloat, and does not have much nutrition; it neither tolerates hunger nor increases strength. . Therefore, Tuan Tuan also has an interesting alias: coaxing uphill.

It means: I have just eaten Chuantuan, and I feel full at that time; but if I pull a cart and go uphill with heavy salutes; when I pull it uphill and I am sweating all over, I feel hungry; so it is called coaxing. Uphill.

This is also known as the Guanzhong folk rice that is coaxed uphill. In the famine years, I don’t know how many strong men were fed and how much food was saved. The saved food saved the lives of many hungry people. How can this account be settled? This is the benefit of Guanzhong, a holy place that once fascinated the hungry people. In times of famine, at least there were corn noodle balls cooked uphill to eat.

"The Past in Guanzhong in the Hungry Age" by the Prodigal Son of Tang Dynasty: Disturbance Group