Prose The Silent Autumn Forest and the Fragrance of Sour Dates

The autumn day is silent and the fertile fields are flat. Pushing aside the layers of shrubs, I was led by my guide every step of the way - Mr. and Mrs. Deng, who are in their fifties. I was thinking of Mr. Lu Xun's "There is no road in the world, but as many people walk it, it becomes a road." But in the mountains of Junchu Town, Liling, there are really too few people walking on them. Everywhere is not a road, but everywhere is a road. If you explore your feet, you can reach a tree on the hillside that is ripe at the time of its ripening.

Standing on the mountain forest with the blue sky as the background and the mountain wind as the traction, I seem to understand why the sweet and sour taste of the jujube cake chewed in my mouth is so original and long-lasting, leaving endless aftertaste. .

1.

The mountains in the hilly areas are not steep, but the altitude of nearly a thousand meters and the steep climb made me severely exhausted. I drank mineral water from time to time, wiped my sweat and panted, but I was embarrassed to say I was tired, because Mrs. Deng and his wife, who were older than me, seemed very relaxed.

"Look, the one with the fruit is the jujube tree!" Sister Deng turned around and pointed it out to me.

I looked up and saw several tall and straight trees standing on the slope near the peak, with lush branches and graceful leaves. It turns out that "After autumn, the green clothes are decorated with red beans, and the silhouette is dancing away" is a realistic poem. The faint fruits among the green leaves make people who hold the remaining warmth of summer face the joy of autumn.

We continue to climb. Unknown birds sang melodiously in the mountains, forming colonies on one hilltop after another. Red dragonflies flew freely in front of us, like flowing flowers in the green mountain forest. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in such close contact with nature. Although there are spider webs wrapping around my cheeks, what hits my face is not only the freshness of the vegetation, but also the light cage of the morning mist that has not dispersed. The coolness of early autumn was more obvious in the high mountains. When I stopped walking, my sweat immediately disappeared. My uncontrollable joy turned into a loud shout of "I'm here", and the valley actually answered me with the same voice. Looking into the distance, the mountains on the horizon are endless, like a spectacular lithograph carved on the blue sky. When the Lujiang River flows here, it turns into a slender ribbon, passing through the golden wilderness of rice waves, with a long autumn sky, leisurely heading west.

"The scenery is really nice, a natural oxygen bar." I said.

"It's like this in the countryside, but the country people are tired of seeing it and go out to work and see the colorful world." Sister-in-law Deng said. I understand, those lonely small buildings scattered at the foot of the mountain, with white walls and red tiles, are mostly occupied by old people and children. My hometown is nice, but oxygen bars and jujubes are by no means necessities of life.

"The vine pears have been picked, the persimmons have all fallen, and the chestnuts will not be ripe for another half a month. Now the only fruit left on the mountain is the wild jujube that no one wants." )!" Brother Deng said. His yellow straw hat had long fallen to his back, and the loose hat strap did not feel tight at all. He probably wore a hat like this often, just to show his dark skin. is the best proof.

"Why no one wants such delicious jujubes?" I was puzzled. Even though I had drank a bottle of water, the taste of the jujube cake I ate on the way up the mountain still lingered between my lips and teeth.

He shook his head, pointed to the fruit above his head, smiled, threw down the old bamboo basket on his shoulder, and climbed on like a monkey with only the prepared bamboo stick with a small scimitar tied to the top. Straight jujube tree. Not liking to talk too much and being immersed in doing things is a characteristic of rural fathers. They have their own ideas and procedures for everything. Sister-in-law Deng has a plump and strong figure, but this does not affect her ability to walk and work at all. She stopped me from going to pick up wild jujubes on the ground: "Come on, people in the city have never climbed this steep slope. Let's take a rest for a while. The wild jujubes will hit your head. You try the fruit, but it tastes the same as the made jujube cake." ?”

To be honest, I have eaten jujube cake for many years, but this is the first time I have seen the fruit. When I was a child, there was nothing in the mountains around my hometown. The jujube cakes I ate were all brought from my grandmother’s house and other relatives’ houses. I knew it was made from a wild fruit, but how did the wild fruit become so black that the more I ate it, the more I wanted to eat it? Pliable cake slices, I never thought about that. All I know is that when I was playing latticework with my classmates, someone used a toy made of fruit cores. I heard they were jujube bones (cores). Twenty or so oval-shaped light yellow beads are strung together with thin hemp thread. Each bead is the same size and has a circle of five small holes at the top. They are as textured as works of art and fit well. They are easy to play and look good. They are more advanced than my abacus beads. There are too many, and I am jealous. I always feel that if I can't beat others, I am missing a string of jujube bones.

I picked one and placed it in the palm of my hand for a closer look. It was oval and golden in color, slightly smaller in shape than the northern jujubes, somewhat similar to loquats, smooth and moist. Completely complying with the natural laws of the biological world, the melons bloom in April, bear fruit in May, and fall from branches more than ten meters high into fern bushes that begin to turn yellow. It may become a surprise for mice and birds looking for lunch, or it may rot in the wind, frost and dew of late autumn and remain proud forever. But today, they will be picked up, put into baskets, and brought down the mountain. The unique taste they hold will be interpreted and spread in another way and in another aspect.

Although the fruit is yellow, the body is still very hard. Don’t try to tear the tight skin easily. Mrs. Deng asked me to start from where the stem fell off. The thick skin was peeled off, and the white pulp was clear and sticky. The fruit fiber should be very pectin, because a thin layer of pulp is still attached to the peel, similar to a mango. .

I put it to my lips and immediately smelled a unique sour and fresh smell that made me salivate. I took a bite and said, "Wow, so sour!" My taste buds were stimulated. The sourness that hit my teeth was definitely Brother Deng. The reason why it is said to be "wild fruit that no one wants".

"How can we call it jujube if it's not sour?" Mrs. Deng giggled when she saw my frown and squinted eyes.

I am a person who can and likes sour food, but I have never eaten any more sour fruit than this little fruit. "You chew it slowly and swallow it slowly, and the sweetness comes at the end. But after all, this is not a way we can accept." Mrs. Deng said.

I take another small bite. The pure and smooth pulp is amazingly fresh and sharp. It opens up your taste buds in a precise and precise way. After the sour juice is secreted, a faint sweetness slowly comes out among the sour juice. , filling the mouth and tongue, reaching the heart. The jujube has a small core and a big core. The skin is thick and the flesh is sticky. The core and the flesh cannot be peeled off. Therefore, when you eat it as a fruit, you will get very little pulp.

At this time, Brother Deng had climbed up the branch of the fruit tree. He was not in a hurry to use the bamboo pole to hit the branches full of fruits. Instead, he shook and stomped hard, and the jujubes popped. Falling down with a thud. "It's coming down!" I looked up happily.

"This is the ripest one, and the wind at night can blow it down. There are still a few fruits that have to be harvested, and we have to harvest seven or eight trees before going down the mountain." Sister-in-law Deng said.

The sound of bamboo poles beating branches and leaves rustled in the quiet valley, like rain coming or wind passing by. The mountains and fields were silent, and wild jujubes fell to the ground with sound and color.

2.

The jujube trees do not all grow together. Looking around, there are only seven or eight trees within 200 meters. It would be difficult to recognize the tree trunk and leaves alone. Tall trees with long leaves abound in the mountains in the south. Fortunately, they bear fruit. But I found an identical tree not far away, but it had green leaves and no fruit.

Brother Deng said, that is a male tree. Is this tree divided into male and female? But no, male trees only pollinate and never bear fruit. A male tree is responsible for pollinating about four or five female trees, so one of every five or six trees must not bear fruit. Who planted these jujube trees? I don’t know, it must be a hundred or two hundred years ago. My grandfather said that it existed when his grandfather was still alive. It is more stubborn than other trees, and it takes seven or eight years for it to bloom and bear fruit. Seven or eight years? There are only a handful of plants in the world that only bear fruit after five years. This jujube tree is really a wonder among fruit trees!

After turning around seven or eight trees, our bamboo-backed baskets and cloth bags gradually became heavy. "It would be great if they had high yields!" I thought of the grapes, melons, grapefruits, oranges and other fruits that had fallen branches and vines in many plantations on the outskirts of the city in recent years, so I had wishful expectations for these three or four-story trees.

Sister-in-law Deng said: "This wild fruit is more or less a gift from God. There is no need to change it. You can catch a lot of things in one go. How many farmed hybrids are large in quantity but the taste has changed. Going down the mountain, again Be careful when you carry the fruit on your back!"

I acquiesced to her words and carefully watched the road under my feet. The near-noon sun has returned to the summer heat, and the invisible caterpillar ash sticks to the exposed neck, making it feel hot and itchy. I turned around, and the jujube tree without its fruit became increasingly blurry in the vast green color, losing its original recognition. The lush mountain forests hide many of nature's own secrets and order. The change of seasons is subtle and slow. The growth rate of plants is measured in millimeters. The change of fruit volume should be based on the fluctuation of the number. All of this, God knows and the earth knows.

When I returned to Mrs. Deng’s house, my feet were no longer my own. I can't help with the rest of the work, just rest and watch. Mrs. Deng took a piece of what she picked yesterday and rinsed it. This amount was suitable for making a round of jujube cake. Watch the fresh fruits poured from bamboo baskets into plastic pots and aluminum pots of various colors. Watch them sparkle and shine under the wash of clean water. Occasionally, there are a few late-ripening green fruits like emeralds jumping among the beeswax bushes.

Wash it three or four times before it is clean. "The water is boiling!" Brother Deng walked out of the kitchen, and the two of them carried the fruit in basins.

A very large iron pot, which used to be used for cooking pigs in the countryside. The stove is an old-fashioned wood stove. The dried wood is burning in the belly of the stove, and the fruits are tumbling in the boiling water. Waves of sour wind drifted away, making people salivate.

Cook until the meat core separates? I asked. No, it won’t make the soup mushy, just let the skin and flesh fall apart!

I was a little frightened by Mrs. Deng’s understatement. As time passed by, the fragments of light and shadow played together in my mind for a period of amazing moments. In April this year, TV news reported on a "sacred tree" in a resident's house in Ningxiang, Changsha. It is four hundred years old and can be hugged by four people. It has been struck by lightning many times and still stands tall and graceful. Every spring, a touch of purple appears in the sky. The ancient tree canopy is filled with the infinite lightness of April in the world, and the small green fruit supports the wind and faces the sun... Its name is South Ziziphus. Four hundred years, four hundred times the spring breeze blows on the threshold and the dew is thick, four hundred times the flowers bloom and fruits fall with frost, four hundred times the sweetness and sourness are released, no one is surprised. I can't find any other words to describe its life apart from "ancient". Some ancient ones are questioned about their vicissitudes in the name of death, but the jujube tree is not. Its strong vitality does not require anything to maintain. The only thing we have to do is to pick up its golden fruits under its green shade after the White Dew solar term and cook them until the skin and flesh burst.

Mrs. Deng stirs the pot from time to time to see if the jujubes are cracked. She said that it would be better if it didn’t rain these days. The sun was no longer hot, so it would take several days in a row to produce the best cakes.

I asked why I didn't pick them earlier. The first day was enough. No, the jujube tastes good after the white dew. Only then does it become sour and mellow and rich. Only then does it become sour and then return to sweetness. It's a mess.

"What about the jujube cake I started eating?" I asked.

"That was made last year. It's the last few slices. I'll add them here. It's appropriate." Sister-in-law Deng asked me to ask Brother Deng to come in and carry the cooked fruits. The cooked fruit has a richer color, the cracked pulp reveals the stickiness of pectin, and the look is fuller. Although the pot is large, it would take three or four pots to cook several hundred kilograms of fruit.

Brother Deng came in with a large bundle of perilla and cut it. Perilla is one of the most important ingredients for making jujube cake. It is boiled and ground into powder.

It was almost a little late and I had a simple meal. When the cool wind blew, I couldn't keep my eyelids open on the bamboo lounge chair. I still needed a nap to get rid of the fatigue of picking fruits in the mountains.

3.

When I woke up, I had a green, clean air-conditioned quilt on my body. I rubbed my eyes and smiled at the busy people around me. There is one more person, Mrs. Deng’s son, Xiao Deng, who works in the town.

The peel is easy to peel off after it blooms. You can tear and squeeze it, one peel per second. I washed my hands to help peel off the peel. Of course, I tasted one first. I thought the sourness of the cooked jujube was a little lighter, but the meat was softer and the sourness exploded in full force. It was so rich that my teeth went soft and I didn’t dare to chew it. I bit it half in my mouth and held it half in my mouth. I couldn’t help but let the unique taste linger. Penetrate into the internal organs.

Peeling the peel and removing the core is also the most tiring part of the process of making jujube cake. Xiao Deng, who is in his twenties and looks like his father, has a medium build and is very strong. He is responsible for enucleation. The peeled fruit pulp was placed in a stainless steel bucket, weighing about three or four kilograms. Xiao Deng held two thick and long bamboo chopsticks. He first pounded the pulp hard, and then started stirring it in ten minutes, just like stirring eggs, constantly stirring in one direction. . Looking at his familiar movements, you can tell that the young man is an expert in making famous jujube cakes. Of course I would not let go of trying every step. Strangely, the long bamboo chopsticks became extremely clumsy in my hands, tripping over the thick and sticky pulp. My stirring speed was only ten times faster than that of Xiao Deng. one. This kind of speed is just messing around, and he will be suspended immediately: It’s better for me to do it, hurry up and stir things up tonight, so that it can be exposed tomorrow.

If you can’t get to the front line, you’ll be busy in the rear. After stirring to a certain extent, the core and pulp were really separated. Sister Deng and I took out the core one by one. The core may be clean or there may still be a bit of pulp paste stuck on it, but it is so small that it can be ignored.

This process is the most tedious and time-consuming. Brother Deng cut the cooked perilla into sections and turned on the small electric grinder. The time pointed to half past seven, and Mrs. Deng stared at the weather forecast on the TV. "It's not raining, that's good." She said to her son.

The night breeze in the countryside is a bit cold, and everyone is working overtime. The time points to nine o'clock. Xiao Deng finished his work and went to wash his hands and brush his mobile phone. He only left one sentence: Make a weight without adding chili and let me eat it!

After peeling and pitting hundreds of kilograms of wild jujubes, there is usually only one pot of pulp paste left for making wild jujube cake, weighing several tens of kilograms. The whole house smells sweet and sour, which reminds me of the TV series "Full House". There is no romance here, Mrs. Deng's work is not over yet. For the creamy-yellow pulp paste, add perilla puree, white sugar, glutinous rice flour, and salt, and then knead it thoroughly. Mrs. Deng's hands are flexible and strong. It is necessary to use dark force to make the thick and glutinous puree entangle and invade each other, making it flexible and even. After half an hour, she finished stirring and said she would just wait until tomorrow to cut it into thin slices on white gauze and dry it in the sun. The stirred jujube paste turned into dark brown, with dots of red stars looming. Yes, that was dried red chili powder. Smell again, the mysterious fragrance of perilla and the slight spiciness push the unique taste of jujube to the extreme. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the rinsed white gauze hanging on the bamboo pole at the door. The white moonlight of early autumn fell on it. The white moonlight illuminated the mountain forest and the tall jujube trees.

I said, in fact, the long-term and late-bearing jujubes can not only be made into inimitable delicacies, but are also excellent medicinal materials. "National Compilation of Chinese Herbal Medicine" states that Ziziphus jujube promotes qi and blood circulation, nourishes the heart, calms the mind, digests food, detoxifies, sobers up, and kills insects. It can resist myocardial ischemia and protect heart function. Sister-in-law Deng laughed, "It has quite a lot of effects. I only know that except for people who chew betel nut, it is suitable for everyone else. People with poor appetite and pregnant women like it the most." Indeed, when I was pregnant, I steamed it with brown sugar. It was soft, honey-sour, and appetizing.

I asked: "Sister-in-law Deng, is this your unique skill? Is it only passed down to your son?"

She responded with a hearty laugh: "What kind of skill is it?" Yeah, every household in the village knows how to do it. Didn’t your grandmother and mother-in-law do it before? It’s just a question of whether you want to go through the trouble of picking up the fruit or not. Didn’t you learn it today?” > "Yes, the food I ate when I was a kid looked like this and tasted like this. Why do online sellers say they have exclusive recipes?"

"I'm just lying to you, the price is higher! Also! Many people have more ingredients than I do. One pound of fruit pulp paste can be added with twenty or thirty pounds of pumpkin paste or sweet potato paste. Instead of white sugar, use cyclamate. The result is still transparent and has a nice glazed tile color, but only a little bit of the wild jujube flavor is left. I still like the old way to retain the pure jujube flavor, and everyone here is like that." Mrs. Deng knows everything, but she doesn't want to change herself.

There are many souvenirs selling on Taobao, and the business seems to be booming. I said, "Why don't you sell them on Taobao?"

"I make a little every year, just for friends and family." Friends gave it a try, and extra acquaintances introduced me to sell it. It’s not possible to open a store by myself and sell only one thing. But my son signed up a souvenir shop on Taobao last month, and no one has placed an order yet, haha. My sister-in-law is an optimist.

I asked her to tell me where it was and placed my first order in seconds. She held her stomach and laughed: "Sister, you are so stupid. Why did you go there to buy something? I said I would bring you to the city in a few days."

"Sister-in-law Deng, you are stupid, your son Where is the dumpling without the chili?" I looked at a large pot of jujube paste with red dots and smiled.

"Oh, my memory! But it's okay. Let's go to the next round. Tomorrow we will drive into the mountains. There are many jujube trees in Junshan!" Mrs. Deng complained to herself and patted her fragile forehead. The look of laughing loudly is so cute.

I drove home with the stars and moon in my arms. In the darkness, the trees and fields kept receding behind me. In my bag, there are dozens of jujube bones with five holes, which means "five blessings come to my door" to accompany me all the way.

I know that the long-standing jujube trees on Junshan must have stood tall and straight on the south and north slopes of today's south and north slopes a century ago, sighing at the wind and smoke, and their sourness is still the same as before. It must be that the clear lavender flowers in April are exchanged for the fragrant fruits after the frost in September. It must be that after nearly a hundred bright yellow suns were intensely irradiated, these oval-shaped fruits hung on the high branches with the same bright yellow color, and fell under the trees where the autumn wind blew the fallen leaves.

My jujube cake will arrive in a few days, with the freshest and oldest taste. The world outside is already colorful, and the market is already bustling. The people living here are also inextricably connected with the outside world, but like the southern jujube trees, they do not want to change because of this.

Here, the autumn forest is still silent.