Liu Anming and Lamian Noodles (Prose)

Lamian Noodles is a kind of pasta that we educated adults generally like, and I have a special liking for it.

I like eating Lamian Noodles since I was a child. However, there are few fields in Xishan, rice is planted in paddy fields, sweet potatoes are planted in mountainous areas, and wheat is also planted, but few are planted. I remember that our family only collected dozens of kilograms of wheat a year. When the wheat is dry, you can take it to my uncle's house and change it into dried noodles and plain noodles, and sometimes it will be replaced with flour. Noodles and vegetarian noodles are mostly used to make snacks for guests or take away as gifts, while flour is used to make Lamian Noodles. At that time, our three meals a day were mostly shredded sweet potatoes or rice. Eating pasta seems to be a luxury, so our family seldom eats Lamian Noodles. My uncle's family often does Lamian Noodles. Although I am very sensible since I was a child, I still can't resist the temptation of Lamian Noodles. When they were eating Lamian Noodles at home, I stood at the table and "watched", and then I accepted the invitation to eat willingly or unwillingly.

Nevertheless, I have had the experience of eating noodles. Probably when I was six or seven years old, and I don't know why, my mother sent me to my grandmother's house for more than a month. When farming is busy, grandpa and uncles are busy in the fields, and grandma makes snacks and sends them to the fields every day. Naturally, there is the treatment of eating snacks twice a day. I remember that it was just after the wheat harvest, and most of the snacks were noodles. Although my grandmother also used plain noodles and Lamian Noodles fried dumpling instead of noodles, I was afraid of noodles after dozens of days! I didn't dare to eat noodles for a long time after I came back from my grandmother's house. My uncle invited us to eat Lamian Noodles, but I only ate soup instead of noodles.

After school, close classmates will go to each other's home to play, and sometimes they will eat at their classmates' home. Mei and I became classmates in my second grade, and I often go to her house to play. Mei's father and brother are both state workers, so they can buy flour at home. Besides, the Mei family probably likes to eat Lamian Noodles, so I can often eat it in her Lamian Noodles. Later, if you want to eat pasta, you don't need to grow wheat and you don't need tickets. All you have to do is take the money and buy it in Shanxi. Buying flour at home is no longer weighing, but buying a bag to eat slowly. If you want to eat Lamian Noodles, it's no trouble. Just do it in Lamian Noodles! Weigh a few pieces of pork belly, buy an onion and put some pickles in the butcher shop. It must be delicious. If you add scrambled eggs or other seasonings, it will taste better.

The flour bought in the market is particularly white, so you don't need to put some salt in the water when mixing flour. Kneading the dough often gives you a trick: after kneading the dough, cook it for more than ten minutes, saving time and effort, and it will be very powerful only for a few minutes. After the dough embryo is made, cut it into strips with a kitchen knife, cover it with a towel and boil water. When the water boils, the noodles are completely covered, so that they can be pulled thin and long. Generally, when you eat Lamian Noodles, you don't prepare any dishes. Each family takes a bowl and sits on the table to eat, and you are also allowed to take the bowl to eat elsewhere. Sometimes an unimportant uninvited guest suddenly comes to the house, and it's too late to prepare a decent dish, so he usually cooks Lamian Noodles for emergency. I think this situation is not only in my family, but also in other people's families. Otherwise, how can I often eat Lamian Noodles when I go to my classmate's house?

During my three years as a teacher in Ryan, I often went to eat Lamian Noodles. However, this is not just to fill the stomach, nor to change. Instead, eating Lamian Noodles has risen to the level of tasting the taste of hometown in your heart. A bowl of Lamian Noodles can dilute my homesickness! At that time, the largest small commodity wholesale market in Ruian was near our school, and there were many stalls beside the shopping mall, with signs saying "Wencheng Lamian Noodles" or "Wencheng Pancakes". At that time, there was only one bus from Ryan to Shanxi every day. Most of the passengers come to Ryan to buy things. Many people in the car smell so strong that I get carsick. I feel that I have been in the car for at least three days, so I hardly go home except in winter and summer vacations, but I often miss my home, especially during holidays. In order to get rid of homesickness, I often go to the Lamian Noodles stall next to the shopping mall to eat a bowl of Lamian Noodles, chat with the stall owner and listen to the local accent, but sometimes I feel very sorry. The stall owner is not from Shanxi, but speaks civilized words outside Shanxi. But in any case, this noodle is wencheng flavor after all, although the cooking method is different from that at home, and the taste is not as delicious as mom's.

I seldom ate Lamian Noodles in the years after I graduated from normal school, but soon after I met my husband, I ate Lamian Noodles at his house many times. My husband's family is a farmer Looking at that broken house, you can see that the family is very poor. However, most women in love have a sharp decline in IQ and a sharp rise in EQ. I can't believe I went to his house for a while without entering the door. In the meantime, my future mother-in-law will cook Lamian Noodles for three days. I found that she has a unique skill in making Lamian Noodles embryos. She put some oil on the dough and then kneaded it, so that the dough would become smooth and would not stick to the panel, and there would be no need to sprinkle dry flour on the panel again and again. Lamian Noodles's ingredients are pork belly and pickled sauerkraut at home. Pickled sauerkraut is great. Lamian Noodles is naturally delicious, to my taste. I like it very much. Now, my mother-in-law has been dead for many years. When she was alive, our mother-in-law and daughter-in-law only got along for a few days each year, and the time spent together in these 20 years was pitiful. When we were together, she also cooked many dishes for us, but the only thing I can remember the taste is Lamian Noodles. I always unconsciously associate my mother-in-law with Lamian Noodles. In her mother-in-law's life, there must be countless dough kneaded by her own hands. She has learned softness through countless kneading. Otherwise, how can a short and weak woman like her have so much energy to let her husband and a large group of children do whatever they want? Such a woman is awesome! Although I also have the intention to follow suit, it is a pity that up to now, I have not been able to cultivate a "soft" way like my mother-in-law.

For decades, I was too lazy to cook and go out to eat a bowl of Lamian Noodles, whether when I lived in a mountain stream or after I lived in a big headland. Of course, it's not as delicious as home cooking. Sometimes I do it at home when I am in the mood and have leisure. In my early years, I had to make my own dough. These years have been great. If it's too troublesome, you can go directly to the vegetable market to buy ready-made Lamian Noodles embryos. A 50-cent dough embryo is enough for two people.

I ate a lot of Lamian Noodles in recent ten years! Especially in those years when I lived alone in Shanxi, only one person in my family was too lazy to buy food and cook. I have lunch at school, and I usually go to the store to eat Lamian Noodles for dinner. During that time, when it was time for dinner, I rummaged through the Lamian Noodles stores in Shanxi one by one in my mind, looking for the one that met the current taste demand. If you can't choose for a while, you will ride a bicycle around the street, and you will often struggle for a long time to choose which Lamian Noodles store to eat. Now think about how lazy and pathetic you were at that time!

In recent years, my husband and I have both worked in the county, but I have to eat Lamian Noodles often because I am lazy! On days when our school doesn't receive students, teachers are not arranged to have lunch. Of course, leaders are not included. The unit is not far from my husband's school, and it takes more than ten minutes by bike. Spending seven yuan in the teachers' canteen can solve the lunch problem, but I don't want to go back and forth for lunch, so I choose to eat Lamian Noodles near the school. This place is very small, there is nothing but two noodle restaurants. One of them is really bad, so I won't patronize it after eating it several times. Another family sometimes has Lamian Noodles, and sometimes only Daoxiao Noodles, so it will do.

Tired of eating Lamian Noodles, I began to think about going to the school cafeteria for lunch. At first, I had the cheek to eat. Although some leaders don't look well, they think of my lunch allowance of one month 100 yuan. Besides, why can only leaders eat the school canteen? So I eat with peace of mind. After eating too much, a leader's face became more and more ugly, and even a leader who had a good relationship with me told me not to eat any more. This greatly stimulated the rebellious factors in my personality, so I mobilized several other teachers who didn't want to go home at noon to have a meal, but they were smart and stopped eating once or twice. And I continue to eat casually, looking at the face that the leader hates, and my heart is full of pleasure! Finally, the leader couldn't bear it, and made no secret of his marching orders.

It is difficult to sing with one hand, but it is difficult to make a forest with one tree. After all, the thin arm failed to twist to the thigh, and it felt really boring to eat any more. Let's continue to eat Lamian Noodles! Didn't you say that the customer is God? I was sitting in Lamian Noodles's shop, gulping noodles and enjoying the superb treatment, and I felt very comfortable. Although my struggle ended in failure, what I said was that I would come back with dignity if I only paid eight yuan for each meal! But there are also awkward times. When you go out to eat Lamian Noodles, you have to go through the door of the reception office. Sometimes the security guard will kindly remind me that there are extra meals in the kitchen and let me go to the kitchen to eat. I can only say with a smile that Lamian Noodles is more delicious than rice. To tell you the truth, I still feel terrible whenever this happens, so I especially miss the lunch in Lin Nan Primary School and the snacks in Shanxi Town. At that time, leaders and teachers can have lunch at school as long as you like. AA system, lunch time is the happiest moment. Everyone chatted and joked while eating, and the happy scene is still fresh in my memory!

One day, a friend who works in the opposite school invited me to their school for lunch. I gave her a red envelope for the meal and asked her to transfer it for me. I had lunch at her school, and I was secretly pleased. Now my lunch is not only booked, but also a sumptuous lunch! But on second thought, I still feel wrong. I have to keep eating my Lamian Noodles!

In my life, Lamian Noodles and I have been inseparable. Eat if you want, or eat if you don't want!

(Editor in charge: Deputy Editor-in-Chief)