escape and return

No matter how old or young the mountain people are, their favorite day is the Spring Festival.This is the most leisure time of the year. After a whole year of hard work, I can finally stop in these few days. The whole family eat sunflower seeds together, watch movies and play cards, occasionally ask each other a few words of concern, and discuss the coming year Some big plans, enjoy this rare leisure time with each other, of course, this is how adults live.

Children are different.Children in the mountains look forward to celebrating the New Year the most. As long as they celebrate the New Year, they will not have to work, eat good things that they can’t usually eat, wear new clothes, set off firecrackers, go to the village with their parents to visit friends and relatives, and listen to joyful songs. , Play wild with your friends.

However, there are still a lot of things to prepare for the New Year, and there is a lot of work to do in the twelfth lunar month.On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, Yuan Dashan and Du Lijuan took a rest. The couple sat behind the stove, discussing their preparations for the New Year.

"May I make a cage for sugar cake and millefeuille cake? Then make a cage for tofu."

"Let's make two baskets of sugar cakes. When the time comes, Ge Ge will go back and ask him to take some away." Du Lijuan squinted her eyes and thought about it, "Let's make some more rice cakes. When did you say Chen Cun and the others made them last time? Pick a 50-jin rice and do it together with them."

"Last time they said 26 to do it, and it's convenient to do it with a machine. I'll take Gezi with me the day after tomorrow and let him eat something fresh and hot."

"If you want to kill a pig, you can kill it at 29, and ask the men from the neighboring village to help you."

"En." Yuan Dashan took a puff of a cigarette, thought for a while, and then asked, "Have you prepared the new clothes for the children?"

"It's been prepared a long time ago, oops, let's plan this first, and then think about other things. Chickens and ducks will be prepared after the New Year's Eve." Du Lijuan stood up on her knees, "I'll go and see the children .”

Du Lijuan organized the three siblings to work together, and cleaned the house from top to bottom, inside and out, and replaced a pile of sheets and quilt covers. The sister helped wash, and the two brothers were gesticulating next to each other, one holding a wooden sword. , one holding a stick.

"Stop, where do you run? Look at me as a hero, doing justice for the sky, eat my sword quickly! Hush, huh!" Yuan Song chanted words, and he also had his own voice, playing the wooden sword in his hand without any rules.

"Yuan Song, what did I tell you? Did I not let you bully Ge Ge? You're a dead boy, you can't do anything lightly or seriously. If I see Ge Ge cry later, I won't beat you." Yuan Song Tang rubbed the cloth in his hand, looked sideways at Yuan Song.

"Oh my sister, I won't hit my brother, look at the long stick I made for him, it's safe." Yuan Song tapped the stick in Fangge's hand and muttered: "You are all partial, snort!"

Fangge glanced at Yuan Song, scratched his head, smiled, and said to Yuan Tang: "Sister, it's okay, brother, pay attention now, you can't hit me, I won't cry out in pain anymore, don't worry .”

On the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, Yuan Dashan picked rice and took his two sons to Chencun early in the morning.Chen Village is the largest village within a radius of ten miles. It is located in the valley of Xishan Mountain. Among the surrounding villages, it is the only one that has a small shop, a primary school, a rice mill, and two clothing stores. Neighboring villages for convenience.

In the rice mill, there is a large rice cake machine with a large body that spans two rooms. The rice enters from one end and passes through the long square tube in the middle. The exit of the machine slid out, and it was a whole piece of uncut rice cake.There was a person standing at the rice cake exit with a pair of scissors, cutting the long rice cakes into sections.

Fang Ge felt that the machine was new, so he ran back and forth between the two rooms, checking from time to time to see if there was enough rice in the rice inlet, and then went to the next door to see if the rice cakes were coming out, which was much busier than the adults next to him.Yuan Song was like a silly child, he just thought it was fun for his elder brother to run back and forth, so he ran along behind him.

The rice cakes grown in the countryside are full of japonica rice, and the rice cakes made from japonica rice are fragrant and chewy, especially the freshly baked rice cakes, which are warm and exude a strong rice fragrance. The greedy brothers drool. He didn’t run away anymore, he just stood beside the exit of the machine and stared at the steaming strips of fragrant, soft, white and tender rice cakes that kept sliding out.

"Here, here, be careful!" The uncle holding the scissors quickly cut two short pieces and handed them to them, "I want to dip in sugar and go to the back room to find your aunt, and ask your aunt to bring you a bowl."

Fang Ge took Yuan Song and rushed to the back room, rolling the hot rice cake back and forth with his two little hands, grinning his teeth when it was so hot.

Eating rice cakes dipped in sugar is a habit of many people. They are fragrant, sweet and delicious.However, rice cake is a very filling thing, no matter how greedy you are, there are times when your stomach can’t hold it.When Yuan Dashan finished cooking 50 catties of rice, the two of them had eaten their bellies round and round.

To make tofu on the 27th of the twelfth lunar month, Yuan Dashan and his wife started grinding beans early.The soybeans are soaked one day in advance, and the swelled beans are ground by a stone mill into a white and tender slurry, which chases along the path of the grinding tank and flows into the wooden barrel under the grinding mouth.The thick hemp rope hanging from the beam was tied to the push rod of the stone mill, making a low babbling sound, and fainted in circles in the cold morning.

When the siblings woke up, there was already a pot of cooked bean curd on the table, each of them filled a bowl, and sprinkled with a spoonful of white sugar, it was sweet, and one bowl made the stomach feel comfortable from the mouth to the stomach Yes, the two brothers held the empty bowl, squinted their eyes and licked the corners of their mouths, with satisfied faces.

"Go, go play outside, wait for the tofu to be ready, and call you two to come back and eat fresh and warm." Du Lijuan drove the brothers out of the kitchen, "Tang Tang, help me turn up the stove, ah!"

"Good mother."

There was really no place for the two of them to stay in the kitchen today. A large wooden bucket for draining water occupied the entire aisle. A pole was placed on the wooden bucket, and a large cloth bag was placed on the pole. Dad Yuan Dashan is putting pressure on the bag of bean dregs, forcing it to release more water.

"Come on, brother, let's go out and play."

"Brother, I still want to eat bean curd, why don't you serve me another bowl." Yuan Song grabbed the corner of Fangge's clothes and looked at the basin on the table eagerly.Fangge climbed up on the stool, looked at the bean curd in the pot, there were about three or four bowls left, guessing that his parents would have enough to eat, so he filled another bowl for his younger brother, dug out a spoonful of sugar and poured it on the bean curd, He took his brother out of the kitchen.

Fangge doesn't like tofu, but he likes mille-feuille cakes.In one morning, a cage of tofu was ready and left to dry in the inner hall next to the kitchen.After lunch, everyone hastily ate, and the busy afternoon began again.

The couple started making mille-feuille cakes, which is one of Fangge’s favorite foods. This kind of food is a kind of yellow rice flour product made with lye water soaked in plant ash after burning a kind of tree. , shaped like tofu, can be used as a dish or as a staple food.When the mille-feuille came to the table at night, Fangge ate a whole bowl by himself.

"Brother, are you a pig?"

"You are the pig. Look at the whole plate of tofu. You ate it all."

"You two don't talk about each other, half a catty is right." Yuan Tang knocked on the two empty bowls each, and said with a smile.

"There will be sugar cakes tomorrow. Let's get up early tomorrow morning. Those who grind the flour, those who light the fire, those who wash the rice dumplings, let's make the sugar cakes together." Du Lijuan looked at the children with a smile , began to clean up the dishes.

On the 28th of the twelfth lunar month, steam sugar cakes.This is a must-have food for Chinese New Year and weddings. People of all ages love to eat it. Because they are full, it is also a kind of dry food that is often taken out. In rural areas, every household usually makes one or two cages. It is stored Long term, easy to keep, farmers can eat for a long time.

On the side of the stone mill on the inside of the lobby, Xiao Fangge is standing on a stool, holding a large iron spoon and pouring rice into the hole of the stone mill. After a while, a thick layer of rice noodles accumulated, and the air smelled of rice.

"Gezi, when you start school, I'll bring you half a cage. Take it home to eat when you're hungry, and give it to your grandma and the others."

"Thank you, Dad!" Fang Ge grinned happily, and he immediately thought that his breakfast was settled, and he didn't need to eat plain water to cook when he went back.

"Brother, come down, mother is calling you to eat, let me take your place." Yuan Song ran out of the kitchen, looked up at him, Fangge saw the two little pears on Yuan Song's mouth as soon as he lowered his head eddy.

"What are you eating?" Fangge said, digging out another spoonful of rice and pouring it into Mokou.

"New year cake, mom added eggs!" Yuan Song smiled happily. Usually, it is rare to eat eggs. The eggs at home are all made by free-range chickens. In the city, they are called local eggs. They are collected and taken to the city You can get a good price here.As he said that, Yuan Song climbed onto the stool, took the big iron spoon in Fangge's hand, turned his head and said to his father, "Dad, you can eat later, Mom hasn't finished eating yet."

Yuan Dashan nodded with a smile, with a doting look on his face.

The production of sugar cakes is time-consuming and firewood-consuming, and it is also very important to control the heat. If you are not careful, it will not be steamed properly.Du Lijuan is a good expert in steaming sugar cakes from all over the world. Every basket of sugar cakes is perfect, so every time they get married, other people will ask Du Lijuan to sit in and help steam the sugar cakes.

They were busy until the evening before steaming the two baskets of sugar cakes. The sugar cakes just out of the pan were sweet and soft, with the fragrance of rice and the sweetness of brown sugar. Everyone was satisfied when they ate them.

The slaughter of pigs is done by asking a few strong young men from the neighboring villages to help. The domestic pigs are fat and weigh hundreds of catties.They came at night, ready to start in the early morning.The children are asleep and the adults are preparing everything needed.

Suddenly, Fangge heard a shrill scream in his sleep, and he jumped up immediately. Then, Yuan Song beside him also woke up, rubbed his eyes and straightened up to look at Fangge.The sound of howling pigs hit their eardrums one after another, Fangge slid off the bed, went to the door and pushed it open, Yuan Song followed closely, holding Fangge's clothes tightly.

I saw a pig in the middle of the hall being pressed on its back on the big wide bench in their house, with one person holding each of its limbs, and someone took a thick rope and tied it twice from its stomach to the stool below. Together, the poor pigs struggle to break free from their captivity.The child was terrified, the scene of slaughtering a pig was too shocking.

"Hey kid, go into the house and go to sleep, go in, don't come out, kids can't watch." Who knows who saw the kid standing in the doorway, yelled, and instantly woke them up from the howling of pigs .

"Hey Gezi, Song Song, why did you two come out? Hurry up and go into the house. You stay in the house by yourself. Don't come out. Mom will go in and accompany you when she finishes her work." Du Lijuan rushed over and pushed the two of them into the room. He entered the back room and closed the door behind him. "Don't come out, you know? Go back to bed."

That night, the screams of pigs lasted for a long time. Fang Ge and Yuan Song tried their best to cover their ears, but they still couldn't stop them. The shrill sound was even more miserable in the winter night.Later, every time Fangge saw pork, he seemed to be able to hear that ear-piercing wailing.