I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that.

First, artemisia rice

A few days ago, a good friend called, invited me to his home to eat artemisia rice, and then remembered that it is again the Qingming Festival.

My hometown is a small mountain village on the edge of the Qingjiang River, where the mountains stretch endlessly. In the 1970s before, no highway, into the mountains and out of the mountains, only a few winding mountain road. The slope was large. From a distance, it looked like a thick and thin rope of unevenly distributed grass hanging on the mountain slopes. Walking on the mountain road, people are like moving ants. Slope especially afraid of drought. Drought crop failure, food production decreased. In those difficult years, the population of the family, no food to eat when the wild food to hunger, which artemisia rice is a bit famous in the local, not only is difficult to eat, now people also like to eat. It is just that the food was not flavorful, not to mention green, nutrition, just to fill the stomach and live.

The old home there is a lot of artemisia, the fields can be seen everywhere. Artemisia is a herbaceous plant. Every year in February and March of the lunar calendar, the spring bloom, everything is recovering, the grass grows and flies, it is the field and the wilderness artemisia growth of the heyday. The fields are full of gray-green artemisia after the winter harvest and waiting for spring plowing. The leaves are pinkish-green and covered with downy hairs, giving it a plush feel.

It is understood that there are many varieties of artemisia, one called Artemisia absinthium, picking a piece, rubbing and twisting with your hands, there is a special stimulating odor, can not be eaten, but can be used as medicine. Hometown Dragon Boat Festival when families pick some of the Artemisia annua hanging on both sides of the door, is said to have the role of driving away evil spirits. Boiled water bath with mugwort, can dispel dampness, drive cold poison. Another kind of old family members called it face artemisia, in addition to the same medicinal value as artemisia, but also has the effect of warming the stomach, intestines, etc., people often pick to eat. Usually pigs eat fodder grass, and sometimes people use it to get through the famine when food is not enough.

Modern research has found that artemisia is rich in vitamins, fiber, trace elements, conducive to human health. Now artemisia rice as health food reproduced on people's tables, every spring there are many farmers to pick some artemisia in the small streets of the sale, there are also good artemisia rice as a local flavor for sale. In the countryside opened the farmhouse can also eat artemisia rice.

Artemisia rice can be roughly divided into three kinds, one to satiate the stomach type artemisia rice, artemisia more, less cornmeal, so that it is difficult to swallow, but also only when the hunger is difficult to eat it; the second is the taste type artemisia rice, artemisia is just ingredients, accounting for a small proportion. The third is considered luxury artemisia rice, is in the second on the basis of the addition of bacon, or preserved sausage and some discretionary ingredients. In the past is the family conditions are good to eat on, nowadays ordinary people are often eat, sometimes also used to entertain guests from afar. Artemisia rice cooked with a distinctive flavor, its production process is also a pleasure, in chewing and swallowing, between the lips and teeth left behind is the breath of nature, absorbing the essence of heaven and earth.

Some time ago, I and delicious meal of artemisia rice, artemisia is not only not bitter, there is a unique plant fragrance. After inquiring, know that this artemisia, not face artemisia, is artemisia, artificial cultivation. Artemisia originally also has a bitter flavor, processed into rice, the bitter water removed. Plus artemisia just ingredients, accounting for a small proportion. Even if a little bit of bitterness, but also by the bacon and other discretionary ingredients of the flavor washed out.

Artemisia is artificially cultivated, and other vegetables, the loss of its own wild nature, it is not really artemisia rice. From the perspective of eating, what people are looking for is the original flavor, exotic, novelty, rare, expensive. Of course, in the context of food problems nowadays, there are also green, nutritional factors. In addition, when times get better, people will try to change their tastes. The "flavor" may not be as we imagined, which nostalgia may account for a large proportion.

Artemisia is the gift of nature to mankind, and artemisia rice is the old ancestral legacy of health cultural heritage. As the annual Qingming Festival is approaching, the fields in my hometown are already full of green artemisia, and the smoke from the cooker is emanating the strong aroma of artemisia rice.

Two, mash

Mash is usually made with glutinous rice and wine brewing a fermented rice wine, is a traditional snack of the Han people in the south of the Yangtze River. Because the production process is simple, just steam the glutinous rice and put on the fermentation of wine, most of the peasant housewives almost all do. Although the process is simple, but the rice cooked a few points, the amount of quartz how much, fermentation time and other aspects of some attention, and to be made into a mellow and sweet 'mash is not easy.

Doing the mash is Grandma's specialty, she did the mash all by "nature", good mash to make a house full of mellow smell, eat very sweet and refreshing, and a few intoxicating.

In the mountainous countryside of a few miles around, no one did not know that Grandma would do mash, and often many folks asked Grandma to guide them to their homes. Grandma was a warm-hearted person, in addition to teaching the "craft", every time you do a good job of mash, you often have to serve a bowl to the neighbors to taste.

Mash in the mountains is also considered a delicacy, can often drink a bowl of mash, it is a kind of enjoyment. Research has found that the mash is rich in carbohydrates, proteins, B vitamins, minerals, etc., these are indispensable nutrients, which contains a small amount of ethanol. When I was a child, I loved this kind of food, and I remember once I ate a long time old mash, half an hour later, the whole body was red, walking around, quietly hiding in bed and hooting and hollering. It turned out that the mash had been aged for a long time and the ethanol content had increased. This thing has become a local joke. I'm not sure if I've ever had a good time with my grandmother's mash, but I'm sure I've had a good time with my grandmother's mash, and I've had a good time with my grandmother's mash.

In that era of material scarcity, the mash was only imported on New Year's Day or when the family added someone to the family to do, plus at that time glutinous rice became a rarity, many folks took sticky rice or sorghum rice, or even to the red camas instead of rice, with Grandma's good "craftsmanship", but still be able to brew a delicious mash to. In my memory, the New Year's Day morning, or guests can eat mash dumplings, mash eggs.

Since I joined the work, it is difficult to eat the hometown mash. However, my love and preference for mash is still the same, there is a kind of mash complex that can not give up, unforgettable that mash mellow and sweet.

After the death of my grandmother, my mother may have gotten the true heritage of my grandmother, and the flavor of the mash is good. Because I like to eat mash, whenever my mother learns that I'm going home, she always prepares to do some mash in advance. She would hurry to calculate the time of my return, ask people to buy liquor quartz, and pack up the brewing utensils ...... In the process of brewing, she would observe and take good care of the mash as if she were a baby, fearing that something might go wrong. In waiting for me to return those days, my mother every day to stand in front of the house, toward the village in front of the highway to see a few times. Sometimes, simply bring the bench, sitting on the street, while watching my return. Whenever I think of seeing my long-lost mother soon, I can't help but feel a burst of excitement and thrill. When I heard my mother's sentence "baby back?"

Now working outside, rarely eat home home mash, occasionally to the supermarket to see, and will think of Grandma, mother, think of that mellow sweet, long aftertaste of home mash.