In Shanghai, "Silly Gu Village" lived a rural life in Nanxun, with the flavor of hometown in downtown.

There is an alley called Bengu Village on Yuyuan Road in Shanghai. This alley is near Urumqi North Road, which runs north and south. The south exit is Nanjing West Road 1892 Lane, and the north exit is Yuyuan Road 36/KLOC-0 Lane. In an apartment in this alley, our family has lived for four generations. This is a newly-built alley at the beginning of last century, which is somewhat like the current townhouse. It has three floors. The front door is a small garden and the back door is a kitchen. The narrow stairs spiral up. There is a south-facing main room of about 30 square meters on each floor, and a pavilion of about 15 square meters on the second and third floors. My grandparents came to Shanghai from Nanxun countryside during the Anti-Japanese War, followed by my parents, my wife and children. Four generations have witnessed the rise and fall of this alley.

I am from Nanxun, and I have followed the rural life habits since my ancestors. From small to large, all the domestic workers in the family are villagers in the countryside. Rural people are reliable, because they are fellow villagers and everyone knows their roots. They all cook standard Nanxun dishes. Smelly white gourd, stinky edamame, stinky tofu and salty Toona sinensis are all made at home. On the terrace on the third floor of my house, there are many older and smelly brine retort, bad brine jar, sauce jar, and miniature millstones moved from the countryside. Don't underestimate these things. Although they look unsightly, the food made from these things is pure hometown flavor.

I remember that before the Chinese New Year, there was always a picture of Kitchen God hanging on the wall of my apartment. Sacrificial products such as whole chicken, whole duck, whole fish, hooves and incense burners are placed in front of the screen. I didn't know it was a sacrifice to Kitchen God until I grew up, but the ceremony was short. Grandpa said that when I was in my hometown, I only paid attention to the excitement. I used three kinds of animals as tributes and invited monks to do it. My family has to line up to salute, which is quite ceremonial.

Silly Gu Cun has been cooking with gas for a long time. It turns out that there is a huge gas tank near Beijing Road in Tibet Road, and the gas in Shagu Village is piped in from there. After each sacrifice, the four gas stoves in the kitchen didn't go out until New Year's Eve.

Nanxun people like to eat meat and fish. The famous "fast hoof" was bought by my grandfather in the countryside at the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, and then processed into stewed eggs with hoof sauce. This dish needs to be simmered for a long time, so the hooves and eggs are delicious when eaten. There is also a stove to open the oil pan and fry greasy meat, smoked fish and skins.

When we were young, our favorite food was nothing more than a kind of soup called "Yipin Pot". A whole chicken, a whole duck, hooves, bacon and ham are simmered in a single pot in a huge casserole. After the fire boils, simmer for at least one day. When all the ingredients are mixed together, poke the hoof and the old hen's back with chopsticks. New Year's Eve is only cooked, and eggs, jiaozi and thousands of buns (tofu wrapped in meat) should be put in it. Finally, put a layer of soybean sprouts (similar to Chinese cabbage in the north) on the top of the pot. The purpose of putting soybean sprouts is to reduce the greasy in the soup. Turn off the heat when the bean sprouts are almost ripe.

This tasting pot is the one that makes our mouths water at the New Year's Eve dinner in Silly Gu Village. Because this oversized casserole is full of soup, it is naturally extremely heavy, so it must be the strongest man in the family who is responsible for bringing the pot from the kitchen to the table. I used to be my father, but later I took on this important task. On the way out of the kitchen, you should clean the road with your mouth in order to attract the attention of other family members.

Nanxun people also like to eat sauce hooves during the Spring Festival, which is a bit like the sauce elbow in Beijing, but the sauce method is different. It seems that after beginning of winter, I remember to put fresh hoof sauce in the sauce jar, and I must use good soy sauce and Shaoxing yellow wine as the main sauces. The sauce doesn't pass the hoof, so put a board on it, press a heavy stone on it and put it in the shade of the terrace. Open the sauce jar every few days.

Because winter in the south is not very cold, sometimes it rains, so wet weather is easy to breed mold. The sauce doesn't pass through the hoof, and the part where the sauce is exposed is easy to get moldy. When the north wind rises gradually and the temperature drops suddenly, it is already the twelfth lunar month. At this time, you can take out the sauce hoof and hang it on the shady tuyere of the terrace to enter the air drying process. At this time, the temperature has not reached the freezing point, but the dry wind from the north blows into the south of the Yangtze River, which is a good time to dry the sauce hoof. If it is too cold, it will freeze. Once it freezes, the meat quality of hooves will become rough. If it is too hot, it may get moldy. Therefore, the production of sauce hoof is not complicated, but it takes a lot of effort, especially in the air-drying stage. After entering the March 9th, the sauce hoof should be taken back indoors, because it has been basically air-dried, and a layer of slurry substance will appear on the surface of the sauce hoof to protect the sauce hoof from the cold wave.

Take it out on New Year's Eve and wash the patina off the surface with warm water. Stew it in a casserole for a few hours. Gently poke the skin of the sauce hoof with chopsticks, and you can easily poke people and get out of the pot. Never open the lid, because the sauce smell after opening will make people have an irresistible desire to eat.

After the meat dishes are basically done, it is necessary to open Nanxun people's favorite stinky pot and pickle stinky tofu and stinky edamame. After taking out some, steam the stinky tofu for a few minutes, pour the bean paste and hot sauce, and add the cooked oil. Stinky edamame can't be cooked. Add salt water and seasoning and steam it in a steamer, so that it won't lose its original color and flavor because of cooking.

Then we have to make several vegetarian dishes, such as pear, fungus and lean meat slices (Nanxun is called lean meat and lean meat), winter bamboo shoots and bitter vegetables, fried fungus with oil gluten and mushrooms, and embroidered brocade (embroidered brocade is a vegetable specialty in Nanxun and cannot be planted outside Nanxun town). In addition, there are hot fried, braised lion's head, shredded eel, diced chicken with assorted hot sauce (similar to fried chicken with sauce), stuffed meat with oil gluten, assorted hot sauce and so on.

From my childhood memory, on New Year's Eve, Silly Gu Village always turned on all the lights, the curtains were open, and the window grilles on the windows and the New Year pictures on the walls were particularly dazzling in fiery red. There is a western-style square table at home, which is somewhat like the old square table. Because there are many people and dishes, the desktop is not enough, so the hardwood desktop that is not used all the year round at home will be stuck on the western-style Eight Immortals table and become a big desktop.

Dinner is about to start. My father shouted all the way to the middle of the table with a huge pot. Then all kinds of dishes filled the table. Grandparents always sit in the seats facing south and greet everyone to take their seats, so Nanxun dialect on the dining table began to break out one after another. All the elders speak Nanxun dialect except my mother and me. I asked grandpa if he could speak Shanghainese. Grandfather said of course he would. He said that he speaks Shanghainese when he goes out to work and socializes, but insists on Nanxun dialect at home. He called this persistence not forgetting his roots.

In this way, we Shanghainese in Nanxun live the Spring Festival of Nanxun people year after year in Bengucun apartment in the city center. Until now, we still yearn for and remember the "Yipin Pot" stewed in that huge casserole. The special fragrance of stinky edamame and stinky tofu in my hometown has disappeared for a long time because of the disappearance of stinky brine. There is also a mini millstone, which is used to grind glutinous rice flour into pumpkin balls and cakes every New Year.

Although all this has become a thing of the past now, and we have moved into a new home in a high-rise building, the strong local flavor of the old apartment has been haunting me. Ancestors and fathers' persistence in tradition and love for their hometown will become our eternal thoughts, inspiring us to inherit the feelings of our ancestors, love our home, love our hometown and love our motherland!