Associative Prose of Vegetables

I sometimes take time to accompany my wife around the market, help with the dishes, and also take this opportunity to relax. After all, because I was born in the countryside, I always have an indescribable affection and nostalgia for all kinds of vegetables that grew on the land in the north.

Prunus mume

There is an old man's food stall. There is a vegetable called Prunus mume in our hometown, and it is also called "sword bean" or "broad bean" in some places. Eyebrow bean is a vine of the year, planted in spring and dried up after autumn, and experienced three seasons. Eyebrow beans don't need a special growing environment, and the fence, the wall and the heel are full of places where they grow pungent.

when I was a child, the production team didn't have enough food to eat, so every household planted some melons and beans on the slopes and slopes that didn't belong to the production team, in front of the house and behind the house, which was both food and food. There are many brothers in our family, and of course there is not enough food. My father is always sad. My grandmother, who is over sixty years old and has worked hard all her life, deeply appreciates her son's difficulties as the head of the family, and keeps the housework in order so that my parents can participate in productive labor wholeheartedly and earn more work points. Our courtyard, which faces south, is 4 square meters. Grandma planted melons and beans in the yard where she could grow something, and collected more things from the pot. Hanging melons were planted on the east side of the gate, loofah was planted on the west side of the gate, and several nests of eyebrow beans were planted on the open space behind the pigsty on the west wall. After the emergence of melon beans, use bricks and stones to circle them and use straw branches to stop them, lest they be damaged by chickens, ducks, geese and dogs. In the early summer, the vines of these melon beans have jumped up the wall and covered the scaffolding.

What impressed me the most were the plants of Prunus mume at the root of the western wall. They were close to the pigsty, with fertile soil, well-developed roots and flourishing leaves. Half of the wall where the rain poured out of the gap and the shed of the pigsty was full, adding a bit of vitality and poetry to the earth wall and the black and gray pigsty. Those few eyebrow beans are purple and white, and the white eyebrows are in white flower clusters, and the eyebrows are bluish white; Prunus mume has a cluster of flowers similar to perilla, and the edge of Prunus mume is purple. I don't know which day a slug flew in and screamed incessantly in the hot sun, which made the courtyard feel a bit idyllic. Especially in the quiet summer night when the moonlight is like water, the family sits around for dinner. After the new wheat leaves, everyone has to eat several new wheat pancakes or noodles. We are eating noodles with garlic paste and cold cucumber. My father leisurely sipped "white dry" wine with a small wine, and the grasshoppers on the eyebrow bean rack called from time to time, which made the farm yard warm and peaceful.

Braised plum beans with meat and vegetables are suitable for stir-frying. Grandma tries her best to adjust coarse vegetables and plain rice every day, cooking soup with loofah, steaming vegetarian buns with sweet potatoes and hanging melons, cutting plum beans into diagonal shreds and frying them, and sometimes adding two slices of pork. My brother and I often provoke a "chopsticks war". Grandma also scalded the unbeaten eyebrow beans with boiling water and dried them, some of them were salted into salted eyebrow beans, and some were reserved for frying in winter. Our family has dried vegetables to eat every winter, which is the crystallization of grandma's hard work.

although it has been a long time, I remember the hometown of the earthen hut, especially the plum blossom stands on the west courtyard wall, which are full of vitality, colorful flowers, butterflies dancing and grasshoppers singing, like a green waterfall, falling over my dreams, brushing away the impetuous smoke and dust for me, making my long life moist and lustrous.

Chinese cabbage

Chinese cabbage with green onions and garlic is the "three treasures" of vegetables in our hometown of Shandong.

Before the reform and opening-up, every household had some private plots. In autumn, some Chinese cabbage, radish and kohlrabi were planted as vegetables for winter and spring. Chinese cabbage has strict requirements on soil, fertilizer and water, and is suitable for growing in a humid and mild climate. Our place has a flat terrain, high groundwater level and deep silty soil, which is very suitable for the growth of Chinese cabbage.

Chinese cabbage is usually planted at the autumnal equinox, harvested when it snows heavily, and grows for two or three months. When it comes to light frost, gather the green leaves with wet sweet potato seedlings or wheat straw, and let them grow safely in the ground. There is an inherent saying that "the ice is ringing and the cabbage is long". It was not until the heavy snow that families were busy collecting cabbages at home. At this time, the core of Chinese cabbages was tightly held, and one tree weighed more than 2 kilograms. Our children were too tired to lift them. Chinese cabbage is a good dish among vegetables, and many families are reluctant to eat it, so they change it into money to supplement their families. If anyone often eats stewed pork with cabbage vermicelli, either the family is particularly rich or the family will not live. If it weren't for guests at home, or on holidays, it would be difficult to eat a hot stewed cabbage. The most unforgettable thing is that in the dead of winter when the door is closed by heavy snow, the pot on the stove mouth is stewed with cabbage vermicelli and pork, and the whole family is sitting around the stove to eat.

Later, the soldiers went to a place called "Xitieshan" in the hinterland of Qaidam, Qinghai Province, and participated in the construction of the first phase of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. That place "has no grass on the ground, the wind blows stones and there are no birds in the sky." Except for some bean sprouts produced with domestic water drawn from a distance, all vegetables are drawn from a distance by a living car. Nomuhong Farm, which is closest to our residence, can only grow some coarse vegetables such as fennel and potherb. If you want to eat vegetables such as Chinese cabbage, fresh peppers and garlic shoots, you have to spend a lot of money to pull them in Dunhuang, Gansu Province. It is estimated that those vegetables are also transported there from the mainland. In autumn, each company can share a car full of Chinese cabbage, and put it in the vegetable cellar like a baby after drying. If it is not an important festival or a superior leader comes, there is no place to eat it. Usually we eat fennel, radish, kelp, tofu, pickles and pickles. Chinese cabbage has become a luxury to improve life. Isn't it? Sometimes, on the "August 1st" Festival, the company will kill a big fat pig and let the soldiers of the whole company have a spicy meal of cabbage or stewed pork with potatoes. Everyone eats it with relish and leaves a lingering fragrance. At that time, the biggest "privilege" of the company leaders was that sometimes when they came back from going out and missed dinner, they arranged for our handyman to go to the cookhouse squad to ask for a pig elbow, move a Chinese cabbage and open a "small stove" by themselves.

We chop the pork elbow into small pieces, press it in the pressure cooker for half an hour, then put the shredded Chinese cabbage in and cook it, so that the pork oil can fully soak the cabbage, and then cook some noodles commonly known as "Qinghai jiaozi" in the pot, even eating and drinking. Some veterans rushed to help the fat, picked up bowls and chopsticks and ate them with laughter. Some veterans also "forced" the company leaders to take out the wine they brought when they visited relatives, take turns to take a sip, and then eat a bowl of pork elbow and cabbage boiled noodles, which was especially satisfying. The scene is unforgettable so far.