Everyday heroes

Chapter 306 Memories of Food

It's a new day, the mist is hazy, and the sky is dawning.

Guan Lang led Wu Yazhen, who got up early, to the vegetable market to buy ingredients.

Although Qin Yanxi had already made about ten catties of zongzi for them before, it was obviously not long enough for Guan Lang's appetite.

And since it's the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, if I don't make rice dumplings myself, I always feel that something is missing, even though yesterday's Dragon Boat Festival has passed.

It would be fine if he was the only one in the family like in previous years, but now that he has more cousins ​​to help, he can't be so casual.

Zongzi, also known as horn millet and tube rice dumpling, was originally used to worship ancestors and gods, but in the Jin Dynasty, Zongzi became the food for the Dragon Boat Festival.

The custom of eating zongzi has also been passed down for thousands of years, and even spread to the entire Chinese cultural circle, such as Japan, North Korea, Southeast Asia and other countries.

Although the Dragon Boat Festival in modern Japan has evolved into Boys' Day, it still retains the habit of placing calamus leaves in front of the door and eating Zongzi.

Most other countries in the former Confucian cultural circle are also like this. Even though there are differences in the cultural connotation of the festival, they still celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival.

From the perspective of fillings, the southern ones are mainly pork belly, mung beans, bean paste, and egg yolk.

As for the taste, the south is dominated by salty rice dumplings. The aroma of salted eggs and ham is mixed with the sweetness of glutinous rice, which is mellow but not greasy, while the north is mostly dominated by sweet rice dumplings. Jujubes and candied fruit are sweet and glutinous. Honey is simply delicious.

In fact, Guan Lang doesn't have too obvious a preference, both salty and sweet, it mainly depends on the craftsmanship, and the way to make it delicious is king.

However, because the section in Jiangcheng is filled with salted meat dumplings, Guan Lang considered Wu Yazhen's taste, and planned to follow the taste of the section in his hometown.

The two older children are away from home, and making some home-style rice dumplings can be regarded as maintaining the local complex.

After buying the ingredients they needed at the market, the two returned to the yard excitedly.

The glutinous rice was already soaked yesterday.

The two divided the work into washing, boiling, soaking, and trimming the zong leaves and Malian grass bought from the supermarket.

The prepared ingredients are sorted and placed in each pot neatly and orderly.

Apart from the main salted meat rice dumplings, Guan Lang is also going to make some crystal sago rice dumplings.

Considering my own food intake and the amount I plan to send to others, I bought a lot of ingredients, and there are also a lot of processing steps for the ingredients, such as marinating the pork belly, cracking the earthen duck eggs to get the salted egg yolk.
After working with Wu Yazhen for a long time, I finished processing all the ingredients.

The Podocarpus pine in the yard swayed gently under the breeze, and Qianqiu was lying on the high courtyard wall basking in the sun.

The unique fragrance of the ingredients wafts out after being chopped and soaked, filling the whole courtyard with a lingering aroma of bacon with zongzi leaves and apricots.

Guan Lang sat in the pavilion and spread out the pots full of ingredients on the table.

Under the gentle wind, I started to wrap the zongzi.

Wu Yazhen didn't watch the excitement, but also grabbed a zong leaf and rolled it into a funnel shape to get busy.

The green zong leaves are pinched in the hands, with a faint watery glow, and the bright colors make people feel good when they look at them unconsciously.

She was humming a faint tune, although it was a little out of tune, but Guan Lang could barely recognize that it was Luo Xiaohei's episode Good Night Meow.

The light and playful tune is also extraordinarily peaceful in the herbal fragrance of zong leaves.

There was a faint smile on the corner of Guan Lang's mouth, tightening the bottom of the funnel-shaped zong leaves.

Do not put too much glutinous rice, as glutinous rice tends to swell when it is full of water, and it is easy to leak rice after cooking.

It's not the first time Guan Lang has made zongzi.

When he was in Jiangcheng before, he would also help close the mother's bag, so he was familiar with it.

From time to time, I can give Wu Yazhen a few tips on making zongzi.

After adding the ingredients according to the ratio, make a delicate summary and you're done.

Guan Lang is skillful, and he is very familiar with the steps of making zongzi. Often before Wu Yazhen has finished making one, his fingers will fly, and two or three zongzi will land on the plate in front of him and be stacked.

Even looking at his light movements, you can still feel the beauty of flowing clouds and flowing water after watching for a long time.

Every fold in half seems to be extremely delicate, and there is no more movement.

"Brother Lang, why are the zongzi you made so beautiful? Do you have any other tricks?"

"Maybe I'm more proficient at bagging?" Guan Lang smiled.

"Oh." The more Wu Yazhen looked at the dumbfounded zongzi in her hand, the more dissatisfied she felt.

As if suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, I unpacked the bag.

The leaves of the zongzi are not folded properly, and the Malian grass is too extensively tied
Facts show that even in such a trivial matter as making zongzi, there is a difference between superior and inferior.

Just when Wu Yazhen was groping for how to make "beautiful rice dumplings", Guan Lang had already wrapped them in sevens and eighties.

Filled with pots the size of a millstone, they piled up into a spectacular hill.

Qian Qiu moved after hearing the wind, and at some point he started wandering around the basin next to the rice dumplings.

It is not so honest, mainly because it was caught by Guan Lang when it was stealing zongzi and was about to run away, and now it does not dare to make too many mistakes.

But it can only be watched, and the eyes are addicted.

Cats have poor digestion ability, so sticky or hard foods like glutinous rice are not suitable to eat more.

While Wu Yazhen was still packing, he told her to keep an eye on the little thief Qianqiu, and then walked to the kitchen with the basin in hand.

Throw the beautifully tied and strong zongzi into a large pot, add water and boil.

Cook a pot first for lunch.

After he controlled the heat, he went on to make zongzi.

Then I made a batch of zongzi with other flavors.

Crystal sago rice dumplings, white rice dumplings for dipping in sugar, brown molasses rice dumplings.
However, there are not many packages, which can be regarded as a swap for changing the taste.

The sweetness of glutinous rice, the smell of zong leaves, and the strong fragrance of pork belly permeate the courtyard for a long time.

Guan Lang seemed to be transformed into an emotionless rice dumpling machine.

The ingredients quickly bottomed out under his hands, and there was not even a single grain left.

When the zongzi was finished, the zongzi put in the kitchen to cook were almost cooked.

He came out with a pot of steaming rice dumplings.

The moment the pot was opened, the water vapor rushed towards the face, carrying the full aroma, which made the two of them who had been hungry all morning and hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch couldn't help swallowing a few times.

Sure enough, food is the best gift given by nature. Under the stimulation of the primitive senses that stimulate the taste buds and arouse the gluttons, the body and mind will be healed.

It’s no wonder that the ancestors always enshrine festivals and cultural traditions in food. Only this kind of food, the medium carrier, can continue to pass on and develop in the fleeting years, as if engraved in everyone’s blood memory for a long time.

(End of this chapter)