Rice noodles are delicious again, but only as breakfast, southerners do not eat rice noodles at noon and night. Hunan rain and heavy dampness, so Hunan people love to eat chili peppers to the dampness. Hunan men have a lot of fire, Hunan women are enough barbaric (the meaning of brisk), which is Hunan people eat chili peppers lead to brisk character, or because of the brisk character to love to eat chili peppers it? Who can not understand. However, when it comes to chili, Changde’s most famous spicy snack is the duck in sauce, right? To make duck in sauce, you have to take a semi-old duck, because the meat is firm and chewy. The duck is then brined with a special chili pepper marinade, which is divided into three spicy levels: slightly spicy, medium spicy and extra spicy.
When night falls, the family sits around the fireplace, grandma brings out a plate of duck in sauce from the kitchen, and the children in the family smell the fragrance from afar and immediately run to grandma’s side, flocking around until the duck in sauce is put on the table by grandma, and then we reach out to grab it impatiently. The first bite was not obviously spicy, so we took one bite after another and stuffed it into our mouths, and only after a minute or two, the spicy taste filled our mouths and tongues, and we exhaled heavily, scrambling around the room, with only one thought in mind: Hurry up and stop being spicy!
Drinking water does not work, even if the stomach is full of plain water, the mouth is still hot and spicy. At this time, my grandmother must have laughed while taking out a plate of fruit from the refrigerator, using two fingers to take out a few slices of apple flesh and stuff them into the mouths of us kids, which immediately reduced the spicy taste by a small amount. By the time the spiciness went down, we were holding big duck legs dripping with sauce.
Before coming to the north, I deliberately bought three or four duck in sauce, thinking to let my colleagues in the north try it. Later, at the gathering, solemnly took them out. However a few slightly spicy duck, let my dear colleagues in the room jumping up and down, full of sweat, that scene still think, I can not help but want to laugh.
I was just talking about fruits. Hunan is most famous for its tangerines and lotus seeds, right? It goes without saying that tangerines are sold all over the country because of their huge production, no matter where they are sold. Hunan lotus is also widely sold, but mostly dried lotus seeds are sold after dehydration. To experience the true joy of eating lotus, you have to come to Hunan yourself.
My hometown is not in this town, it’s another extremely small town next to Dongting Lake, producing mainly reeds and lotus seeds. There was a small lotus pond in my family’s backyard, and in July and August, when the lotus seeds were ripe, we children would go to pick them and eat them. We were not allowed to go by boat, so we could only pick the ones that grew on the shore, and when the lotus seeds were finished, we could only look at the lotus and sigh.
At that time, one of my buddies came up with an excellent idea. He took a long bamboo pole and folded it in the middle, the bamboo was tough and kept folding. We put this little homemade clip on the lotus, and with a gentle tug, the lotus fell steadily on the clip, then slowly drew it back and put it on the ground. We spent the afternoon picking lotus seeds, reaching out at first, but at dusk, we had to look carefully. Later it was really one that was missing, and we just stopped.
Eating lotus seeds at the pavilion on the edge of the pond was perfect, as the shells could be left directly in the lotus pond. We piled the lotus seeds on a table in the center of the pavilion and sat around it. It is a misconception that the heart of the lotus is bitter and should not be eaten directly, but in fact the heart is not bitter and is sweeter than the flesh. When the young green lotus seeds are finished, we pick and eat the dark green cooked lotus seeds. When the cooked lotus seeds are finished, the sun is hanging over the mountain peaks in the west, like a wine jug that is about to be finished, and is pouring out its last dark red wine, filling our pavilion to overflowing. At that time, only the old black and purple lotus seeds were left on the table. We don’t eat the old lotus seeds because the flesh is tight and the heart is extremely bitter, so let’s go home. When the family saw how many old lotus seeds we brought back, they took them with a smile, peeled them, dried them, and cooked them for porridge in a few days. After the old lotus seeds were cooked in the porridge, they melted in the mouth and were extremely sticky. The porridge with red dates and silver fungus, chilled in the refrigerator for a few moments, is the best way to beat the summer heat and best for guests. The taste of that still makes me reminisce.
Now that I am in the north, I can’t often eat these hometown snacks, but it makes me appreciate the opportunity to go home even more. The northern pancakes, dumplings and roast duck also make me linger, which gives me a more profound taste experience than other southerners!
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