How much southerners love (eat) osmanthus, northerners don’t understand

When I was a child, my mother said

If I can’t find a home

just come back smelling the scent of osmanthus

I am a child from the south. I'm in the north and miss the smell of sweet-scented osmanthus.

The eighth month of the lunar calendar is commonly known as "Guiyue". From the foggy and rainy Jiangnan water towns, to the roaring whistles of the Central China Plain, to the southwest hills surrounded by mountains and rivers, and the Lingnan area where the "Autumn Tiger" shows its power, autumn in the entire South is dominated by sweet-scented osmanthus.

When we were children, around the Mid-Autumn Festival, we would always smell the faint fragrance outside the window, with a hint of sweetness in the coldness.

This kind of fragrance is not overpowering, but it has quite penetrating power. Usually when you are in a trance, a sweetness gently blends into the nasal cavity, but suddenly it is gentle. You are looking around, but before you can see the osmanthus tree, the surroundings are already immersed in the fragrance of osmanthus - the fragrance is in the house, the window is fragrance, and the streets and the city are full of fragrance. The sweet-scented osmanthus, on the other hand, hides behind the leaves and looks at you shyly.

This sweet-scented osmanthus is also a treasure of autumn. It smells refreshing and makes people salivate.

In my memory, in late autumn mornings, I was often awakened by the sweet smell. I saw my mother wearing an old cooking apron, busy in front of the steaming pot, her temples soaked with sweat. Taking a closer look, there was "osmanthus soup" in the pot. He grabbed the porcelain bowl noisily and took a big sip. A sweet and warm current followed the wisps of fragrance and his mother's loving eyes, and together with the autumn of his hometown, he was warm in his heart.

When I grew up, I said goodbye to my hometown and came to the vibrant north. There is naturally osmanthus in the north, but it doesn't bloom as prosperously, so the originally elegant fragrance becomes even more ethereal. Occasionally I smell it, and I have to look around for it, and take several deep breaths, fearing that a gust of autumn wind will blow away the thin aroma, and if I miss it, I will have to wait a whole year.

Late autumn is always the time when southern children feel homesick, because of sweet-scented osmanthus.

The world is so big, if we talk about the feelings among flowers, for us, the only one is osmanthus.

Osmanthus fragrans, also known as "osmanthus", is native to southern China and can be found in Jiangnan, Central China, and Lingnan.

As an ancient flower and tree, it has many varieties, the most famous of which are Dangui, Golden Osmanthus, and Silver Osmanthus. All three can grow into trees. Their flower colors are red, yellow, and white, and they all bloom in autumn. . Among the three brothers, the golden osmanthus is the most beautiful, the red osmanthus is the most fragrant, and the silver osmanthus is the most elegant; there is also a younger brother, the osmanthus osmanthus, with light yellow flowers, short plants, suitable for potted plants, can bloom several times a year, and has a lighter fragrance.

When it comes to sweet-scented osmanthus, we have to mention Suzhou and Hangzhou. These two cities in the south of the Yangtze River, which have similar temperaments, are also "the world of sweet-scented osmanthus" every autumn.

Osmanthus in Hangzhou, the vast misty rain in the south of the Yangtze River

The osmanthus in Hangzhou can bloom into a vast picture of the misty rain in the south of the Yangtze River. "The stars are bright and the moon is bright with thousands of yellow spots, and half the city is filled with the fragrance of osmanthus trees." In the eighth month of the lunar calendar and around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the fragrant osmanthus flowers are like gold and ink entering the water, dizzying the whole city one after another, making it truly beautiful. West Lake is already crowded with tourists. Under the fragrance that fills the sky, even if the autumn wind is bleak, it will naturally make tourists intoxicated.

Old Hangzhou will tell you that tourists only go to the West Lake to appreciate the osmanthus.

During the sweet-scented osmanthus season, locals will go together to avoid the noisy tourists and head to Manjuelong south of the West Lake. This is a valley. Since the Ming Dynasty, it has been the place where osmanthus blooms most outside Hangzhou. When the autumn wind blows and the dew is heavy, the osmanthus in the valley often scatters with the wind, and it looks like raindrops from a distance. If you are among the osmanthus trees, you feel like you are bathing in flowers. The rain brings fragrance, which is very interesting.

This is exactly the scene in Hangzhou, "Full of Osmanthus Rain".

When you are in Hangzhou, if you don’t have tea and food, you always feel that there is something missing. If you can brew a pot of Osmanthus Longjing under the long osmanthus rain, this trip will be worthwhile. Longjing is originally the "breath of spring", while Osmanthus is the "flavor of autumn". One spring and one autumn, one tea and one flower. It takes half a year for each to have a "perfect encounter".

Suzhou osmanthus, jasper, small bridge and flowing water

The osmanthus in Suzhou looks more like Xiaojiabiyu.

This is a garden-like city, with peonies, pear blossoms, cherry blossoms, etc. blooming alternately and competing for beauty. Only the sweet-scented osmanthus plays a supporting role, scattered everywhere in the city, always for you to look for. Even in exquisite and elegant Su-style gardens, sweet-scented osmanthus is often found in a "quiet corner", unassuming, not competing for favor, and beautiful alone, just like the delicate and elegant Su embroidery without losing its grace.

In late autumn, tourists flock to Tiger Hill and are bustling among the sweet-scented osmanthus bushes. The real old Suzhou will bring the whole family to the Shihu Lake around the autumnal equinox to enjoy the moon and go boating. They will watch the reflection of the bright moon across the bridge hole, as if there are several moons strung together. This is the folk custom of Wudi, "Shihu Lake". "Crossing the Moon".

The sweet-scented osmanthus in the night looks pink and white under the cold moonlight, and the figure is obscured and fleeting, just like the graceful and colorful Jiangnan women, who are also knowledgeable and sensible, and know how to advance and retreat. In late autumn, when all the flowers have fallen, their own elegant and sweet fragrance blooms.

Suzhou people’s love for sweet-scented osmanthus lies more in its taste. People here are addicted to sweetness, and the sweet osmanthus seems to be a gift from heaven. They collected it here and dried it on the stove; they boiled the syrup over there, with steam rising and a hint of sweetness, and then put it in to seal in the autumn flavor. The sweet-scented osmanthus, sweet-scented osmanthus syrup is made.

This syrup is available all over the country, but Suzhou people can make it fragrant, sweet and authentic. Its sweetness will travel through the four seasons of Suzhou, poured on lotus roots, yams, rice cakes, and short ribs. It will also soothe people's souls together with winter wine.

Guilin Osmanthus has its own charm

Who has the most beautiful osmanthus in Suzhou and Hangzhou? Seeing this, Guilin smiled.

Guilin is a forest of osmanthus trees. There is no garden without osmanthus trees, and no one does not know osmanthus trees. Not to mention parks and scenic spots, Guilin people will not hesitate to plant osmanthus trees even downstairs in residential communities and in their own yards, and take good care of them until they bloom.

The weather in Lingnan is hot, and the osmanthus trees have to wait until October to bloom. Once it blooms, the whole Guilin will look like golden paint has been spilled. The osmanthus yellow is dotted with orange and silver, which is quite flamboyant. When you take a gentle breath, the whole city is more like the sweet-scented osmanthus perfume has been spilled. There seemed to be no other smell.

Dangui is a unique product in Guilin. Its color is orange-red, which is very eye-catching among the branches and leaves. Although it is small, it has a kind of wild publicity, surpassing the golden osmanthus, also called Zhuangyuanhong; its aroma is rich, other osmanthus is elegant, it is free and unrestrained, like extremely The passionate southern girl rushes straight into your face.

Guilin people are particularly lucky. In late autumn, the three-color osmanthus blossoms all over the city, combined with the strange mountains and rivers along the Li River, are as sweet as perfume. The beauty of Guilin, with its passion and charm, is its own style and does not require much ink.

The sweet-scented osmanthus in the south is so beautiful. It has various postures. It is so beautiful in Hangzhou, so beautiful in Suzhou and so beautiful in Guilin. If it were you, what kind of osmanthus do you think is the most beautiful?

Let me tell you secretly, for us, no matter what kind of sweet-scented osmanthus, there is no beauty as in Mama’s Kitchen.

The Chinese people have no other talent than being a farmer and a foodie. The highest praise we can give a flower is to eat her seriously.

Osmanthus cake, an ancient Jiangnan flavor

Using flowers as a main course or snack, the ancients called it "flower food". According to "Shan Jia Qing Gong" of the Southern Song Dynasty, picking purple chrysanthemums in spring, frying gardenias in summer, and making Guanghan cake in autumn. This "Guanghan Cake" requires "picking osmanthus flowers, removing the green stems, sprinkling licorice water, and cooking with rice spring powder to make a cake." In fact, it is the "osmanthus cake" in various places in the south of the Yangtze River today.

There are many schools of Osmanthus Cake. If you follow the ancient recipe, Zhejiang Wenzhou Osmanthus Cake may be more authentic. Collect the sweet-scented osmanthus, dry it and pickle it with molasses. Mix the rice flour with cooked lard and white sugar, steam it in a box and season it with sweet-scented osmanthus molasses. A fresh and elegant delicacy is ready.

Among the ancient sweet-scented osmanthus cakes, there is a special one - Shigang Cake from Nantong, Jiangsu. This is an intangible cultural heritage. Its real name is printed cake. It is named after the pink print on each cake.

To make Shigang glutinous rice cake, local japonica rice and glutinous rice need to be mixed in proportion, soaked for 7 days and washed 7 times before processing, then ground into rice flour, wrapped in flowing osmanthus bean paste, steamed into cake and stamped system. The sweet-scented osmanthus cake made in this way is white and soft when eaten while it is hot, but it cools down and becomes less hard after being left for a while. It is a seasonal tea and snack, which starts every year from the Waking of Insects and ends before the Beginning of Summer.

This sweetness travels through thousands of years

Osmanthus and syrup are a pair of companions that travel through thousands of years. They complement each other's exterior and interior, are fragrant and elegant, sweet but not overpowering, clear but not overpowering. It allows you to travel back thousands of years and appreciate the "unique flavor" of ancient China. It can also build a bridge of osmanthus in modern times, hold the hand of exotic flavors, and play "Chinese and Western".

For example, the coconut milk and osmanthus cake that comes and goes in the modern Cantonese-style morning tea. It combines Cantonese, Chaozhou and Western-style dim sum techniques. First, coconut milk and osmanthus syrup are mixed with gelatine (gelatin), steamed in one layer, then spread in another layer, and finally sprinkled with golden chopped osmanthus.

It is so gangster, duang in your eyes, duang in your mouth, duang in your heart... To eat or not to eat is really a question.

Nowadays, in various coffee shops, Osmanthus Latte is indispensable in autumn. It is a whimsical idea of ??Shanghai's Shiliyangchang. With the rise of local coffee in recent years, it awakens every sleepy soul in late autumn and enriches the afternoon comfort of new urban white-collar workers. It is said that in Hangzhou, you must have a drink in front of the osmanthus rain falling in the wind.

Who said osmanthus can only be used in desserts?

There are too many flavors related to osmanthus. It has long surpassed desserts. It can be made into tea, garnished with meat, and even made into fine wine. An osmanthus flower has countless beautiful faces.

In the treasure island of Taiwan, there is a special product called Osmanthus Oolong, which quite captures the artistic conception of osmanthus. Knowledgeable local tea farmers will plant osmanthus trees next to tea gardens to enhance the aroma of oolong tea; during the baking process, dried osmanthus flowers will be added to further increase the aroma. You can also see the blooming osmanthus flowers in the brewed tea. .

We return to the south of the Yangtze River, the water town of Shaoxing. This is the hometown of rice wine, so naturally sweet-scented osmanthus will not be absent. If you are more diligent, you can boil the dried osmanthus flowers slightly with water, filter, add rice wine, and boil again; if you are more lazy, you can just soak the osmanthus flowers directly in the rice wine. There is also "osmanthus wine" brewed by directly adding osmanthus flowers. In late autumn, when the temperature is suddenly warm but then cold, it is best to warm a pot.

The final highlight is Suzhou’s unique winter wine, also called “Dongyang Wine”. This was the capital of the Wu State during the Warring States Period. Traditionally, the Zhou Dynasty calendar was followed and the winter solstice was regarded as the beginning of the year. Suzhou still has the custom of "the winter solstice is as big as the new year".

There is a saying in Suzhou that if you don’t drink winter wine during the winter solstice, you won’t be able to resist the winter in the coming year. This kind of wine is brewed with rice wine as the base and sweet-scented osmanthus. It is golden in color, sweet in taste, faintly scented with sweet-scented osmanthus, and very refreshing.

It is very rare and can only be brewed once a year. If you want to drink it again, you have to wait until next year. It is just like the sweet-scented osmanthus. It only blooms once a year and the flowering period is not long. If you miss it, just say "see you next year".

It’s another year when the sweet-scented osmanthus blooms, and I can admire the Mid-Autumn moon from thousands of miles away. Quietly, the Mid-Autumn Festival passed, just like the falling flowers of the osmanthus tree, fleeting and silent.

For every child who grew up in the South, the fragrance that lingers deep in the soul is the scent of osmanthus. After all, in that misty and rainy hometown, the fragrance of osmanthus is everywhere. Even if there is none around, this unique aroma will appear in your food and drink inadvertently along with the sweetness, nourishing your taste and making you "unforgettable".

The nostalgia of southerners is the sweetness on the tip of the tongue, but also "bitter and sweet". The astringency and sweetness are intertwined, just like the freshly picked osmanthus. The longer you run around, the more homesick you become. However, the longer you run around, the less you dare to look back.

There are all kinds of flavors in this world, and every mountain is as high as the next. But no matter how fragrant everything is, it cannot be as fragrant as a meal after returning home from a thousand miles away; no matter how sweet everything is, it cannot be as sweet as the sweet-scented osmanthus candy made by mother. When I woke up early in the morning, there was still the same sweet smell; when I opened the kitchen door, there was still a pot of sweet-scented osmanthus soup. However, my mother's sweat-soaked temples were already gray, like silver osmanthus and dim white frost under the moon.

So, when you are running around, you don’t dare to look back easily. I didn’t understand this feeling when I was a child, I didn’t understand it when I was studying, but now that I can’t smell the fragrance of osmanthus, I finally understand it.

The osmanthus flowers in my hometown have a very short flowering period and often fall away in the drizzle within a few days. Fortunately, people always have a way to retain the fragrance of flowers through food and drink, which has become an elegant decoration during southern festivals and even all year round. I also want to thank today's developed logistics, where good products from the source are readily available, which can finally relieve the nostalgia on the tip of the tongue.

I am a child of the South. I'm in the north and miss the smell of sweet-scented osmanthus.

Text | Shui Shui

Headshot Photography | Sheng Ye