Rural August prose

In August, a green corridor was set up for people in the countryside of eastern Henan plain.

The turquoise of corn, the dark green of soybeans, the yellow-green of peanuts, as well as sweet potatoes and sesame seeds, are full of infinite vitality. The endless cornfields remind middle-aged and elderly people of the green gauze tent in the north. This is also like a grand parade in front of Tiananmen Square on National Day. Neat and mighty, corn is like a soldier with a gun. Close up, you can see that the corn cob is plump and in good shape, with brown hair hanging over your shoulders, which is the style to show your youthful eyes. Soybeans are not so lucky. Master went out to work for more than two months, and big green worms, bridging worms and bean worms took the opportunity to make waves and gnaw leaves like old fishing nets that had not been sewn for a long time. Weeds and wild vegetables also come to bully, fighting for fertilizer, water and sunshine, making them nervous all day long, sallow and emaciated, and suffering nowhere to complain. Peanuts are smarter, and dolls are bred in the soil. The wind can't blow the rain, and there are few pests in the soil. Mid-Autumn Festival, early-maturing varieties have matured. Pull out a white fat peanut full of roots, look at grandpa with white beard and squint and smile: how like his own children and grandchildren! Soybeans have pale leaves, and a few late-maturing trees are still green, and you can also eat edamame. I remember when I was young, I once dug a hole like a stove on the slope of Xihe River, which was where I transported grain. Some friends picked up some dry wood such as branches and leaves, put the sweet potatoes stolen from the ground under the fire, inserted a thick stick and put edamame on it to burn. I still want to drool when I think of it. At that time, the brown edamame and brown sweet potato, and of course, the lovely cat face.

Peel off a bowl of green beans and mash them with garlic. Add minced onion and ginger, salt, monosodium glutamate and meat seasoning. Add flour to make a slightly thick paste. Put oil in the pot, pour the paste into the pot and fry it into persimmon yellow on both sides. Take it out and cut it into square tofu pieces on the chopping board, commonly known as bean balls. Then, make Guo Qiang noodles and put the bean balls in the same pot. The bean flavor of chopped green onion and Jiang Mo roasted green beans and the rich noodle soup are really delicious.

If the aunt in the city didn't mutter about her uncle several times, the wire brush and plastic brush would not be easy to use and environmentally friendly; My uncle wouldn't have planted those lines of corn if my aunt hadn't nagged me every day. The reason is that the mature season attracts crowds of sparrows, and all the corn seeds are gone. These two listless scarecrows are no good at all. Corn is a kind of five grains, similar to sorghum, and can be ground into steamed bread and pancakes with wheat. The main purpose of planting it is not to eat, but to use the bare ear of corn without seeds, commonly known as "taro". Can be used as a kitchen broom for washing pots, a handle for sweeping the chopping board and a broom for sweeping the floor. A spike-bearing thin stem about one meter long, commonly known as "millet rack", can be used to hold a pot cover, and the pot cover can be used to put jiaozi, noodles, cakes and so on. Although these appliances have long been replaced in modern society, nostalgic people like my aunt still like to use these truly green household appliances because she is not an antique.

The middle and late August is the harvest season. Walking in the country is full of golden corn, which is dazzling. On the side of the road, on the wall of the yard, someone was sleeping in the branches of the big tree. At this time, if you come to the countryside, there is no good wine and tea, but there is no lack of local flavor. Boiled peanuts, boiled edamame, roasted corn, and a plate of preserved eggs mixed with cucumber. There is crystal sugar and mung bean soup in the refrigerator to quench your thirst, and of course there is no shortage of beer and drinks. The staple food, either handmade noodles or steamed stuffed buns and rolled vegetables, depends on the preferences of the guests. Eggplants and tomatoes are not planted in the farm yard, and it is not easy to produce ideal fruits due to poor lighting and ventilation, but there are shallots, leeks, Schizonepeta and coriander. If you want to eat noodles, it's very simple. Press the noodles on the noodle press, peel and cut the green eggplant into pieces to absorb the astringency in the water. Dice the tomatoes and add water to make auricularia slices. If you like meat, cut some diced meat, and cook the onion and ginger with oil. Then put the diced meat and eggplant into the pot in turn, and then put the diced tomatoes in later. When the dish is ripe, add water, and sprinkle with Schizonepeta and coriander a few minutes before cooking. In this way, the noodles are finished. If I say delicious, you think it's a compliment. You won't know until you eat it.

At dusk, a cool breeze blows into the farmhouse, with the fragrance of grains. The street lamp is on, the orange persimmon is on the verge of breaking, the red dates are dense, and several pomegranates are smiling. I think "Jiao Mo" may be a unique local food in eastern Henan. The reason why it has not been widely circulated is probably because it is not delicious or delicious! It's too simple to do, but it is commendable that it is healthier than oil cakes and fried foods. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, it is our custom to eat steamed buns. By this time, new sesame seeds have been planted. Sesame is not rare now, and it should not be eaten all the time in the past. I haven't asked the older generation to estimate that they eat sesame cakes because they are round and big like the moon, which symbolizes the beautiful meaning of reunion. Good noodles, sesame seeds with a little salt, used to be branded on "smoke seeds", but now "smoke seeds" are basically extinct, replaced by pots and flat-bottomed pots, and more advanced electric baking pans are used in cities. Bake two batter flowers and they will be cooked, mainly until they are crisp, and it is best to fall to the ground and smash them, so that the teeth can be called "burnt buns" and they are not greasy.

There are many kinds of steamed vegetables, which are cooked according to everyone's taste and preference. Steamed bread should be softer. Soft steamed bread will taste soft, slightly sticky and sweet, and have a strong wheat flavor. But it is not easy to roll, and it is easy to stick to the chopping board and rolling pin. Heat is equally important. Steamed buns are too dry in a small fire and not ripe in a big fire. Food is easier to cook. Children like fried eggs and sausages, and eggs are fried in poached eggs. Slice the sausage and fry it quickly in large pieces of hot oil. When these are done, add chopped green onion and coriander buns, or sprinkle some green garlic and minced garlic. It is delicious to roll up, and raw onions and garlic are particularly appetizing. The popular way to eat is scrambled eggs with green peppers or scrambled eggs with peppers, and the ribs of steamed buns match the spicy taste of peppers. I like to stir-fry a plate of small bean sprouts and shredded carrots, put two pieces of lettuce with a little pepper, pepper and cumin powder and roll them up. No matter which way you eat it, you must eat it while it is hot. Steamed bread and vegetables don't taste like that when they are cold, especially boiled steamed bread. Of course, you can't eat steamed buns without porridge, and the ground pot is the best, but now you use electric rice cookers. Dried sweet potatoes are put into alkali-soaked cowpea or mung bean or pea. After cooked, dried sweet potatoes and cowpea are hooked into starch or batter, which makes a rustling sound and has the unique fragrance of sweet potato slices. I think it's delicious. Small bowls sell for one yuan and fifty cents in the street. If you don't like it, sweet potato porridge and pumpkin porridge are also readily available, and new sweet potatoes and old pumpkins roll under the chopping board and table.

Middle-aged and elderly people under 50 prefer to eat miscellaneous grains. Autumn grain appeared one after another, and Aunt Dong and Aunt Dong were very busy. Dried vegetables are prepared for sesame leaves and miscellaneous bread. When the sesame seeds are ripe, stir the green sesame leaves in the ground. After the radish is pulled out, it will be steamed and dried in a pot. Add dried sweet potatoes to soybeans and corn flour and grind them. When making noodles, grab two handfuls of bean noodles. Soak sesame leaves thoroughly, wash and squeeze out water. Cooking oil is preferably cooked lard or cooked oil that has been fried. Rub it in a pot. The noodle soup is a little thick. Put it in a bowl, sprinkle with coriander powder and mix well. Dice celery, drizzle with sesame oil and Chili oil, and drizzle with balsamic vinegar if you like jealousy. The old man and the old lady let their grandchildren and daughters-in-law take the tram for more than ten miles to the villages and towns, just to eat this pea noodle. Do you think it is delicious? If you replace soybeans with mung beans, it is mung bean noodles, which is more delicious. Eat bean flour today and think of tortillas tomorrow. The ratio of good flour to corn flour is 28% or 37%. You can't mix all the good flour with boiling water, but leave three or four portions to mix when the noodles are cooled. Put the pancake in the pot, the heat is just right, one cake has two skins, the skin is a little yellow, and the pulp inside is sticky and sweet with the taste of new corn flour, which is really delicious.

With the footsteps of August, the happy events of rural people's marriage followed.

On this important festival, August 15, families who plan to marry their daughters-in-law often have to prepare a generous gift and visit the woman's home, commonly known as "baby-watching", which is the agreed wedding day. By the matchmaker and the elder relatives of the man, but also the village leaders, peers who can drink and fight. This gift is really getting thicker and thicker as people's income increases and their living standards improve. Meat: a piece of pork weighs 20 to 30 Jin, which is called "gift list"; Red rooster four to six; Four to six big carp; A few Jin of cooked beef, too. Fruits: bananas, oranges, oranges, apples, cantaloupes, kiwis, longan, etc. Look at at least two boxes of samples. Dried fruits are now assorted fruit boxes, and there are at least two fruit boxes consisting of walnuts, melon seeds, raisins, hazelnuts, watermelon seeds and pumpkin seeds. Drinks: pure milk, yogurt, nutrition express, Wang Lao Ji, green tea, black tea, sprite, coke, orange juice, beer, etc. , more than two boxes, yes, China people believe this, especially ordinary people. In addition, the box also contains a batch of spiced beef, ham sausage, preserved eggs, brown sugar, white sugar, rock sugar, cigarettes and liquor. It is also necessary to prepare a gift for the daughter-in-law who has never gone through the door. I used to say it was money for selling clothes. From 30 thousand to 50 thousand. If the man doesn't have a building or the house he built doesn't satisfy the woman, the money is not tens of thousands, but several hundred and twenty thousand. At this important banquet, both men and women try their best to get each other drunk once or twice, which is really to lay down their lives to accompany the gentleman. Only in this way can the winner show his ability and dignity. Not being drunk is still the final result.

……

When Hongyan bid farewell to the sunset, the villagers buried their hopes in the soil. Woye is thousands of miles away, and the yellow waves are solidified. This is the era of rural sculpture.

When the moonlight lengthens the shadow of the night, whose window still hangs the moon! It's cold to show chrysanthemum fragrance again, which also frosts my mother's thoughts. I don't know the seasonal changes of the city. Tonight, is it as cold as the autumn wind in a foreign land thousands of miles away?

20 13. 10.20. Grain River