The disappearing tiger kitchen

? Today, 50 years ago, there were "tiger stoves" in large and small market towns in the south of the Yangtze River, and even in the streets and alleys of big cities like Shanghai, which were unusual but indispensable. "Tiger stove" is also called "bubble shop".

? At that time, although the city residents had a supply of briquettes, the quantity was not enough, so almost every household built a stove for burning firewood. It was also very interesting to worship the kitchen god on holidays.

? Living in a town where there is no land to grow, you need to spend extra money on firewood to burn the stove, so you will see porters selling in the street at every party. Of course, it is not the woodcutter and firewood written in the book, but the farmer and the bean orange stalk. Few people sell straw, its firepower is far less than that of bean orange stalks, which have residual value after being burned to ashes.

? People's daily life on the street begins with briquette stoves. In order to make the briquettes burn as soon as possible, a fan is needed. If you wear a high-speed rail cap on the stove to smoke, you can also seal the stove with wet slime for the night if it is convenient, and you can make a fire to cook in the morning, but some discarded briquettes.

? Cooking with a stove is of course the fastest, but a home without a stove is lifeless and the entrance is deserted. This is why the folk custom of bringing a good stove into a new home has continued to this day, and its metaphorical meaning is: thriving and endless!

? This firewood burning is the first of the seven things to open the door. In order to save fuel and time, a kind of "tiger stove" came into being. Its existence depends on the number of families in the area or the length of the street.

? So another scene appeared in the street: from time to time, adults and children with thermos bottles passed by and went to the tiger stove to "soak in boiling water". Children have a bottle in each hand, and adults will bring more, even in baskets.

? The origin of the name "Tiger Kitchen" is not clear, and the biggest possibility is its shape. Of course, there is only a rough similarity without a certain shape: the red stove symbolizes the tiger's maw; The slightly flat well pot corresponds to the body part of the tiger; The preheated barrel is similar to the bow and butt of a tiger; Then there are towering chimneys and tails. This is the shape of Phytolacca acinosa root.

? Its actual situation is this: in the middle of the furnace is a round mouth of an iron can the size of a Haikou bowl, where fuel is added. When it is burned, it is covered with an iron cover, surrounded by four wells for boiling water and covered with a wooden cover; Close to the right side of the well pot, that is, the front end of the stove (at the tiger eyebrow) is a rectangular iron pitcher, which plays a preheating role; The large iron pot on the left side of the well pot is covered with a wooden barrel, just like the turret of the first generation tank, in order to make full use of the heat in the flue. The boiling water of the four well pots is supplemented from the iron box or wooden bucket in front, and generally water is not directly added from the water tank. Hot pot cold water will shorten the life of the well pot, and it is not known whether it will explode like a boiler.

? The process of boiling water is to lift the water in the water tank into a wooden bucket, and then add the water in the wooden bucket into the well pot or water tank. It is a small bucket carrying water up and down, which is one-third the size of the bucket picked by the monk, but the discontinuity at the beam is broken and plays the role of a handle.

? This "tiger" eats coal, and its "excretion" part is under the stove and ladle.

? Tiger has three tools to eat and drink Lazar. One is a shovel, which is its spoon. It is used to add coal. The second one is a steel drill with a D-shaped handle, which is his chopsticks. When the coal in the furnace is caked, it is inserted from the coal feeding place for tamping, so as to give full play to the maximum firepower of coal; There is also an iron hook, the handle is also D-shaped, one and a half meters long, which is used to dredge from the bottom of the furnace and let the waste residue fall.

? The most commonly used tools for tiger stoves are long-handled funnels and spoons with the same length. Put the funnel into the bottle of boiling water for a while, scoop boiling water from the well pot with a long handle spoon and pour it into the bottle through the funnel. A half spoon can fill a bottle. When filling water, gas and water will boil out of the bottle mouth because of the cold and hot hedging.

? It is manual to carry water from the water tank to the wooden bucket, add water from the wooden bucket to the well pot or water tank, and pour the water into each thermos bottle after boiling. After 365 days, injuries to both arms were inevitable.

? At that time, there was no running water in the street town, and the tiger stove and bathroom were all solved by transporting water from the canal by water trucks. The toilet water is built outside with a big pool. There must be a height difference. People who carry water are fixed, and it is impossible for people who are not young and strong to have a monthly or annual contract.

? Tiger stoves are about four meters long from beginning to end, separated by walkways. Along the direction of the stove, three large water tanks are half buried underground, and half of the tank mouths are covered with wooden cover plates. But no matter how big the jar is, the lyrics of Mrs. A Qing in Hu Chuankui's "Hiding under the jar in a hurry" should be needed in the play, which is unlikely to be true.

? The water in the canal is very muddy. After filling, the water bearer is also responsible for dispersing the broken alum into the water and stirring it with a bamboo pole to dissolve the precipitated impurities and make the water clear. I liked to do this process when I was a child. I took a bamboo pole and slapped the water hard. Soon a swirling vortex appeared in the center of the water. When the water is clear, you will occasionally see small fish swimming around in the tank. Domestic water also comes from canals, but the water tanks are much smaller. The difference is that the sludge deposited at the bottom of the tank is often cleaned at home, but the tiger stove can't be cleaned often, which is a troublesome and labor-consuming thing!

? The inner container of the thermos for boiling water has not changed so far, but the outer shell has changed a lot. At that time, thermos bottles were mostly made of bamboo sticks, with a piece of wood at the bottom and a lead wire on it. After a long time, the lead wire rusts and can't bear it, which will burn people. Only newlyweds have a pair of thermos bottles with bright red aluminum shells, which are displayed at home and rarely used for boiling water.

? Tiger stove is one of the earliest businesses in the morning. Shortly after midnight, you will hear the sound of shoveling coal on the concrete floor, mixed with the sound of half a body and the sound of the old man coughing and spitting.

? The tiger stove where Zhang Laotou is located is owned by a commercial company, and people who eat commodity grain are paid. He is short, hunchbacked, and has an eye barrier in his left eye, but it does not affect his vision. Walk back to my hometown twenty miles away every month and rest for three days. He smokes and drinks, croakes when he is drunk, sings songs that are out of tune, and hides his ears, but he also faces the smell of stew on the tiger stove (adding coal in the middle of the well pot).

? I heard this old man cursing the street early this morning! Listen carefully. A chicken we fed went home last night, thinking that someone had stolen it. Until the afternoon, some people said that they saw chickens in the wall of the tiger stove. It is a passageway between two gables, and the big head and the small head are not parallel. Chickens should go in for food from the big head, but they don't know how to turn around. The more urgent it is, the narrower it is until it can't move. In order to repay my last kindness, I laid an egg on the back of my ass, but this egg was beyond the reach of Lao Ji.

? There is no water on the stove. You have to wait when you meet four wells and pots that are not boiled. Because I have to wait for the water to boil, I leave early and return late, and the hot water bottles are placed before and after, causing a quarrel. Fortunately, Lao Zhangman is very experienced and always keeps the water in the pot boiling.

? Open a bottle of water, there are not enough change coins. Instead, it is a little finger-length bamboo piece with some red paint at the end-called "water broken". When scraping the cinder under the fireplace, occasionally dropped coins and water rise inside.

? From the benefit point of view, if you only spend one point and two points soaking in water, there is definitely no surplus-you can't save it. Fortunately, this tiger stove is owned by a commercial company, which is comprehensive and has other business contents. The existence of this water stove is mainly convenient for people. In the present words, there are some "people's livelihood" factors in it. A street town that doesn't even have a tiger stove is unreasonable and unlike a street!

? Not every tiger stove only boils water, and some also serve as teahouses and bathrooms. After careful calculation, this supply of boiled water is a sideline.

? There used to be a "Shang Ling Spring Tea Shop" on the street nearby, which opened a tea shop to soak in water. There are more than ten tables in the milk tea shop, with a row of cabinets against the wall and teapots of the same color. This tea is good or bad. Generally, a pot of tea costs 10 cents, and you can stay up late without adding money and filling it with water. When business is at its best, there are people telling stories, which is an unforgettable sight.

? However, this old man's tiger stove has other business contents when winter comes. There is a pool in the partition of the tiger stove, which is a bathhouse filled with hot water. Without a recliner, you have to leave after taking a shower. Five cents each, and we'll clean our backs. It is impossible to make a profit. Before the Chinese New Year, people blushed after taking a shower and opened the curtain to walk out.

? In my impression, tiger stoves are mostly opened in low and simple houses. With the development of the times and the change of living conditions, there is little or no need to soak in boiling water. The way of drinking tea and listening to books has long been replaced by high-end tea houses, tea art or comprehensive leisure methods. Large-scale demolition and construction, the location of low and dilapidated houses has long been calculated by developers and no longer exists. At the time of writing this article, I heard that the last tiger stove in Shanghai was contracted by foreigners for half a year and has been closed.

? The "tiger stove" that was once indispensable in the streets is gone! Only people who have lived from that era will have an impression when they mention it. It was just a momentary thought. There's no need to take it to heart. Those adults and children who remember soaking in water, eating tea, listening to books, telling stories, or working on a tiger stove should be almost 70 or 80 years old. If Lao Zhangman lives long, he should be over 100 years old this year. He wants to see the "Tiger Kitchen" again-he can only see it in photos in photo exhibitions or museums!

2020/2/9