[Prose] Silent Lin Qiu Zizyphus jujube fragrance

Autumn is silent and fertile fields are flat. Through the layers of shrubs, every step is the new development of my team leader, Mrs. Deng, who is in her fifties. I think of Mr. Lu Xun's saying that "there is no way in the world, and more people can make it", but there are too few people walking in Junshan, Chu Jun Town, Liling. There are not roads everywhere, and waste can be explored everywhere, as long as you can reach the jujube trees on the hillside.

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

1.

The mountains in hilly areas are not steep, but the altitude near 1000 meters and the climbing along the line also make my physical exhaustion serious. I drink some mineral water from time to time, wipe my sweat and gasp for breath, but I am embarrassed to say that I am tired, because the elderly Mrs. Deng and her wife look relaxed.

"Look, that's the jujube tree with fruit!" Sister Deng pointed it out to me later.

I looked up and saw several tall and straight trees standing on the slope near the summit, flourishing and charming. It turns out that "Red bean makeup in Tsing Yi after autumn is also dancing away from the figure" is a realistic poem. The faint fruit among the green leaves makes those who hold the warmth of summer face the joy of autumn.

Let's keep climbing. Unknown birds sing euphemistically in the mountains, forming communities on one hill after another, and red dragonflies fly freely in front of them, like flowers flowing in the green hills. I haven't been in such close contact with nature for a long time. Although there are spider webs on the cheeks, it is not only the freshness of the vegetation that hits the face, but also the light cage that has not been scattered. The coolness of early autumn is more obvious at the height of the mountain. When I stopped the car, the sweat disappeared immediately, and the uncontrollable joy turned into a shout of "I'm coming". The valley made the same sound to answer me. Looking into the distance, the mountains on the horizon are endless, like a spectacular lithograph carved in the blue sky. The Lijiang River flows here, turning into a slender ribbon, passing through the golden wilderness of rice waves, with long autumn waters and leisurely going west.

"The scenery is really good, natural oxygen." I said.

"This is the case in the countryside, but the country people are tired of watching it, and they all go out to work to see the world of flowers and flowers." Deng Wei said. I know that those lonely small buildings scattered at the foot of the mountain, with white walls and red tiles, are mostly old people and children. My hometown is good, but neither oxygen bar nor jujube is a necessity.

"Grapes and pears have been picked, and birds and persimmons have also fallen. Chestnuts have not been ripe for half a month. Now the only fruit left on this mountain is this unwanted Zizyphus jujube (the name of Zizyphus jujube)! " Brother Deng said that his yellow straw hat had already fallen on his back, and the loose hat band hung around his neck without any feeling of tightening. It is estimated that he often wears a hat like this, just for sun protection, and dark skin is the best proof.

"Why doesn't anyone want such delicious Ziziphus jujuba seeds?" I don't understand, although I have drunk a bottle of water, the smell of jujube cake I ate when I went up the mountain still lingers between my lips and teeth.

He shook his head, pointed to the fruit on his finger, smiled, dropped the old bamboo basket on his shoulder, took a bamboo pole with a machete tied to the top, and climbed up the straight jujube tree like a monkey. Do not like to talk much and do things seriously, which are the characteristics of rural parents. They have their own ideas and steps to do everything. Mrs. Deng is plump and strong, but it doesn't affect her agility in walking and working at all. She stopped me from picking up the jujube on the ground: "Come on, the city people haven't climbed this steep slope yet. Take a rest first, Zizyphus jujuba will hit your skull. " Try fruit, but it tastes like jujube cake? "

To tell the truth, after eating jujube cake for many years, I saw fruit for the first time. When I was a child, there were no jujube cakes in the mountains around my hometown. I ate it from my grandmother's house and other relatives' houses. I know it's made of wild fruit, but I've never thought about how wild fruit is made into black flexible cake slices that I want to eat more and more. I only know that when playing checkers with my classmates, someone used a toy made of stone, which is said to be Ziziphus jujuba (stone). More than 20 oval pale yellow beads are strung together with fine twine, each with the same size and five holes at the top. They are artistic and docile, so they look good to play with. They are much more advanced than my beads, and I envy them. I always feel that if I can't beat others, I just need a bunch of props of Ziziphus jujuba seeds.

I picked one and put it in my hand, looking at it carefully. Oval, golden yellow, slightly smaller than the dates in the north, and somewhat similar to loquat, smooth and moist. Completely abide by the natural laws of the biological world, melons bloom in April, bear fruit in May, and fall from branches more than ten meters high into ferns that begin to yellow in September. It may be a surprise for mice and birds looking for lunch, or it may rot in the frost and dew in late autumn. Just today, they will be picked up, put in the basket and go down the mountain. Their unique taste will be interpreted and spread in another way.

Although it is a yellow fruit, the fruiting body is still very hard. Don't try to tear tight skin easily. Sister Deng asked me to start from where the stem fell. Peel off the thick skin, and the white flesh is clear, sticky and silky. Fruit fiber should be very pectin, because there is a thin layer of pulp attached to the peel, similar to mango. I put it to my lips and smelled a unique sour taste and fresh body fluid. I took a bite: "Wow, it's so sour!" " "My taste buds are stimulated. This sour tooth is definitely the reason why Deng Ge said that' no one wants wild fruit'.

"Not sour, also called Zizyphus jujuba?" Sister Deng giggled when she saw my locked eyebrows squinting.

I am a sour eater and like to eat sour, but I have never eaten a fruit more sour than this little fruit. "You chew slowly and swallow slowly, and the incense is coming. But this is not an acceptable way to eat. " Deng Wei said.

I'll take another bite. Pure and smooth pulp is fresh and beneficial. Hit the nail on the head and open your taste accurately. After the acid juice is secreted, a faint sweetness comes slowly in the acid slip, filling your mouth and reaching your heart. Jujube stone is small, thick and sticky, and the stone and meat can't be peeled off. So when fruit is eaten, it has little pulp.

At this time, Deng Dage has climbed the branches of the fruit tree. He is not in a hurry to beat the fruit covered with branches with a bamboo pole, but shake it hard first and the jujube will fall. "This is coming down!" I looked up happily.

"This is the most familiar, there is a wind blowing at night. A small amount of fruit still needs to be knocked down, and seven or eight trees will go down the mountain. " Deng Wei said.

The sound of bamboo poles knocking on branches and leaves rustled in the quiet slope valley, like rain coming like wind passing, Shan Ye was silent, and Zizyphus jujuba fell to the ground in various colors.

2.

Not all jujube trees grow together. Look around, there are seven or eight trees within 200 meters. It's hard to recognize the leaves from the trunk. Tall trees with long leaves can be found everywhere in the mountains in the south. Fortunately, it blossomed and bore fruit. But I found an identical tree not far away, with green branches and no fruit.

Brother Deng said it was a male tree. Is this tree still divided between male and female? Yes, the male tree only pollinates and never bears fruit. A male tree is responsible for pollinating about four or five female trees, so one out of every five or six trees bears no fruit. Who planted these wild jujube trees? I don't know, it should be a hundred or two hundred years. My grandfather said he had it when his grandfather was here. It is more tenacious than other trees, and it will blossom and bear fruit only after seven or eight years of growth. 78 years? There are countless plants that bear fruit in five years in the world. This jujube tree is really a wonderful flower among fruit trees!

After turning seven or eight trees, our bamboo baskets and cloth bags gradually became heavier. "If only they had high output!" Thinking of the vines of grapes, cantaloupes, pomelos, oranges and other fruits in many plantations in the suburbs in recent years, I have wishful expectations for these three-and four-story trees.

Mrs. Deng said, "This wild fruit is more or less a gift from heaven, so there is no need to change it. How many cultivated hybrids, the amount is large, but the taste has changed. Going down the mountain and carrying fruit, be careful! "

I acquiesced in her words and watched the road carefully. In the afternoon, the sun returned to the heat of midsummer, and the invisible caterpillar ash stuck to the bare neck, which was a little itchy. I looked back, and the fruitless jujube tree became more and more blurred in the vast emerald green, losing its original discrimination. The lush mountains and forests hide many secrets and orders of nature. Seasonal changes are subtle and slow. The growth rate of plants should be calculated in millimeters, and the change of fruit yield should be based on the fluctuation of numbers. It would be nice to know all this from heaven to earth.

Back to sister Deng's house, my feet are no longer my own. I can't help you with the next job. Take a break and have a look. Sister Deng will also take a washed one that she picked out yesterday. This amount is suitable for making a round jujube cake. Watch fresh fruit pour from bamboo basket bags into plastic pots and aluminum pots of various colors. Look at them glittering and translucent under the washing of clear water. Occasionally, a few late-maturing green fruits, such as jadeite, jump among the beeswax.

Wash it three or four times before washing. "The water is boiling!" Brother Deng came out of the kitchen, and two people were carrying pots of fruit.

A very large iron pot is only used to raise and cook pigs in rural areas. The stove is an old-fashioned wood stove. Air-dried miscellaneous wood burns fiercely in the furnace belly, and fruits roll in boiling water. A sour wind drifted away, making people drool.

Do you cook until the meat is separated from the core? I asked. No, that's not a pot of soup, just peel it!

I was shocked by Deng's understatement, and the fragments of light and shadow flashed by, spelling out an amazing time in my mind. In April this year, TV news reported the "sacred tree" in a resident's home in Ningxiang, Changsha. It is 400 years old, how thick it is for four people to hold it, it has been struck by lightning n times, and it still stands. Every spring, a touch of purple permeates the ancient canopy to open the infinite light of April, and the young fruit helps the sun ... its name is Zizyphus jujuba. In 400 years, 400 spring breezes have blown over the threshold, 400 flowers have blossomed and fallen heavily in first frost, and 400 sweet and sour flowers have blossomed. No one was surprised. I can't find any other word to describe its life scroll except "ancient". Some ancient times were questioned in the name of death, but Zizyphus jujuba was not. Its exuberant vitality can be maintained by nothing. The only thing we have to do is to pick up its golden fruit and cook it until it is raw under its shade after the Millennium solar term.

Sister Deng stirred the pot from time to time to see if the dates had cracked. She said it would be nice if it didn't rain these days and the sun wasn't spicy. It would take several days to make the best cake. I asked why I didn't choose earlier. The first day of that toxic day is enough. No, the Ziziphus jujuba seeds after a thousand years are delicious, sour, rich, sour, sweet and in a mess.

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

"That was done last year, the last few pieces. It is appropriate to continue here. " Sister Deng asked me to ask Brother Deng to come in and get the ripe fruit. Cooked fruit is more colorful, and the cracked pulp reveals the viscosity of pectin and looks fuller. Although the pot is big, it is estimated that it takes three or four pots to cook several hundred kilograms of fruit.

Brother Deng came in with a big bag of perilla, which hasn't been cut yet. Perilla frutescens is one of the most important raw materials for making jujube cakes. Boil and grind into powder.

I just had a simple meal. When the cool breeze blows, I can't open my eyelids on the bamboo couch. I also need to take a nap to get rid of the fatigue of picking fruit on the mountain.

3.

When I woke up, I was covered with green and clean air conditioning quilt. I rubbed my eyes and smiled at the busy people around me. There is another person, Deng's son, Xiao Deng who works in the town.

After flowering, it is easy to peel off the skin, or even tear and squeeze it, one at a time. I washed my hands and helped peel the skin. Of course, I tasted one first. I think the sour taste of ripe jujube is slightly lighter, but the meat is waxy, soft and sour, but it breaks out all over. It is so rich that my roots are weak and I dare not chew it, only allowing the unique taste that I can't stop to penetrate into my internal organs.

Peeling and coring is also the most tiring part in the production of jujube cake. Xiao Deng, in his twenties, looks like his father and is of medium build. He is in charge of nuclear removal. The peeled pulp is put in a stainless steel bucket, which weighs about three or four kilograms. Xiao Deng is holding two thick bamboo chopsticks. First, he beat the pulp hard. Ten minutes later, he began to stir in the same direction as the egg. Looking at his familiar movements, I know that he is an old hand at making jujube cakes. Of course, I will never let go of every process. Strangely, the long bamboo chopsticks became clumsy in my hands, and I stumbled step by step in the sticky silk pulp. My stirring speed is only one-tenth that of Xiao Deng. This speed is simply a mess, and I was immediately suspended: I will do it. I'm in a hurry tonight, so I can't get a good sun tomorrow.

If you can't go to the front, you will be busy in the rear. After stirring to a certain extent, the stone pulp really separated, and Mrs. Deng and I took out the stones one by one. The core is clean or a little sticky, but it can be ignored.

This process is the most monotonous and time-consuming and laborious. Brother Deng cut the cooked perilla into sections and turned on the small electric mill. It's half past seven, and Mrs. Deng is staring at the weather forecast on TV. "It doesn't rain, not bad." She said to her son.

The night wind in the country is a little cold, and everyone is working overtime. Time points to nine o'clock. When Xiao Deng finished his work, he washed his hands and brushed his mobile phone, leaving only one sentence: Give me a sun without peppers!

After peeling and coring a few hundred kilograms of jujube, a pot of dozens of kilograms will remain until the pulp of jujube cake becomes paste. The whole room smells sour and sweet, and I think of the TV series Romantic Room. There is no romance here, and Mrs. Deng's work is not finished yet. The creamy pulp must be mixed with perilla paste, sugar, glutinous rice flour and salt, and then kneaded. Mrs. Deng's hands are flexible and powerful. To make it dark, let the thick waxy fruit paste interweave and invade, which is flexible and uniform. Half an hour later, after mixing, she said, just wait for tomorrow, scrape it into thin slices on the white gauze and go to the sun. After stirring, the jujube paste turns dark brown with a little red star looming. Yes, it's dried red pepper powder. Smell it again, the mysterious fragrance and slightly spicy taste of perilla, add fuel to the unique taste of red dates to the extreme, close your eyes and take a deep breath.

When I opened my eyes, the white gauze hanging on the bamboo pole at the door fell in Bai Yueguang and Bai Yueguang in early autumn, next to the mountains and tall jujube trees.

I said, in fact, jujube with long tree age and late fruit can not only be made into unparalleled food, but also be a good medicinal material. According to the National Collection of Chinese Herbal Medicines, jujube has the functions of promoting qi and blood circulation, nourishing the heart and calming the nerves, promoting digestion and detoxifying, sobering up and killing insects, resisting myocardial ischemia and protecting heart function. Sister-in-law Deng laughed, and the effect was quite good. I only know that everyone is suitable except those who chew betel nut, and people with poor appetite and pregnant women like it best. Indeed, when I was pregnant, I steamed brown sugar, which was soft and sweet and had a big appetite.

I asked, "Mrs. Deng, is this your unique skill?" Only to my son? "

She responded with a hearty smile: "What kind of stunt is this? Every household in the village can do it. Didn't your grandmother and mother-in-law used to be like this? " It's just a question of whether to take the trouble to pick up the fruit. It's so simple. Didn't you learn today? "

"Yes, that's what I ate when I was a child. Why do online sellers say it is an exclusive stunt? "

"Just lie to you, the price is higher! There are many people who have more ingredients than me. I can add twenty or thirty kilograms of pumpkin puree or sweet potato puree to one kilogram of paste, and use sodium cyclamate instead of white sugar to make transparent and beautiful glazed tiles with only a little jujube flavor left. I still like the old practice of preserving the taste of pure dates, and so do all of us here. " Sister Deng knows everything but doesn't want to change herself.

There are many local products sold on Taobao, and the business seems to be booming. I said, "Why not sell it on Taobao?"

"I do a little every year, I will try it with my relatives and friends, and the extra acquaintances will introduce it. I can't sell anything when I open my own shop, but my son linked a local product store on Taobao last month, and no one has placed an order yet, haha. " Sister Deng is an optimist.

I asked her to tell me where it was and placed the first order in a few seconds. Holding her belly, she smiled: "Sister, you are so stupid. What did you buy there? You said to take it to the city in a few days. "

"Mrs. Deng, you are so stupid. What about your son? " I looked at a big basin of jujube paste with red spots and smiled.

"Oh, my memory! But it doesn't matter, let's move on to the next round. Tomorrow we will open the road into the mountain. There are many jujube trees in Junshan! " Sister-in-law Deng blamed herself and patted her forehead and smiled. It's so cute.

I drove home with the stars and the moon. In the darkness, the trees and fields kept retreating behind me. In my bag, dozens of five-hole jujube bones, meaning "five blessings", accompanied me all the way.

I know that the jujube trees that have been deep all the year round on Junshan must have stood tall and straight on the north slope of today's south slope a century ago, sighing and being sour. It must be the lilacs in April for the fragrant fruits after first frost in September. It must be, after nearly a hundred bright yellow suns' intense irradiation, these oval fruits hung on the same bright yellow high branches and landed under the trees where the autumn wind brushed the fallen leaves.

My jujube cake will arrive in a few days, the freshest and oldest taste. The outside world is already colorful and the streets are already bustling. People who live here also have countless intersections and connections with the outside world, but they, like the wild jujube tree, don't want to change because of this.

Here, Lin Qiu remains silent.