The water in the south of the Yangtze River is especially good for nourishing all things. The color of the water red is dark red and bright, the charm is vivid, and a basket of water red water is a basket of flowers. The water red rhombic shell is very easy to peel, grab the two waist corners and break it, the white ingot-shaped rhombus meat will come out, a thin layer of underwear is still leaking out of a touch of elegant light red, chewing a little in the mouth, there is really no slag at all, only the sweet syrup full of water and the curling Qingfen, slowly released in the heart.

The most watery tender ling, of course, it is best to cook it raw. No matter what method is used, if you can't keep the sweet taste of the water spirit, it is self-defeating. Water red diamond slices, red pepper also slice with the meat slices first fry, will be cooked, and then put into the diamond meat slices slightly turn a few times, the water chestnut can be half cooked on the plate, the meat is fragrant and fresh, the water chestnut is crispy and tender, it can go its own way. The water red rhombic shell is thin and thick, suitable for slicing and setting aside, the leg meat of the chicken is diced and soaked in cooking wine and soy sauce, the oil is cut off in the pot, the ingredients are added and the water is simmered for a while, and then the water is slightly stir-fried until the soup is dried, and it is ready.

The northerners don't know what water chestnuts are, and they can't tell whether they are from trees or grow out of the soil like peanuts. But in the difficult years, the lotus root in autumn and winter was the "life food" of the people of the polder township. In the water chestnut harvest season, until the evening, every family wafts out the fragrance of stewed water chestnut. In the steaming heat, the big lotus leaf covered the pot was removed, and the family, sometimes the neighbors, began the water chestnut rice replacement dinner. There was a "click" and "click" sound. When they were full, they stood up and patted the powder on the placket of their clothes, while the woman was busy cleaning the rhombus shells all over the floor. Children usually sit in the waist basin during the daytime and eat the crispy and sweet tender lings.

At that time, the pond was not covered with water chestnut leaves, and many small green frogs with bulging eyes and unknown water birds jumped around on these green carpets. Ling five or six days to turn over again, too much to eat for a while, just dry into water powder, there are also people dig a water cellar, the whole basket of the whole basket of water poured into the raising, when you want to eat, scoop out some with a long-handled scoop. At the end of the winter wax, the production team caught fish in the car pond, and there were many black and slimy water tricks out, so some of the children caught wild fish, and some dragged a big basket to pick up the water ling.

These sweet and relishing eats in the mouth with a faint smell of falling water lings must be picked up, otherwise year after year, what grows is the horn thorns and less meat, commonly known as "dog teeth" wild ling. At the beginning of the next summer, there will be a lot of thin water lings in the pond, and you can drag up the black and shiny female lings below with a light lift. At this time, the black and bright water chestnut shell has been eroded very thinly, and the water chestnut meat is still white, and because the stored starch has become sugar, it has a mellow and sweet taste in the mouth. I remember that in the late spring of a few years ago, in the Jiaxing Scenic Area of Zhejiang, the most I saw were the vendors selling this kind of swarthy water ling. It is packed in a convenient bag or a special ingot basket and sold to tourists, and there is a faint smell floating in the air. Local customs, deliberately let Lao Ling sink to the bottom of the water, pick up when the pond starts in winter, that is, "Wuling". In the New Year, I cooked Wuling to entertain the children, and took the same sound as "Ling", and the children ate and read smartly.

The poet Psyllium said: "In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, I have eaten Huzhou's Shuihongling and Changshu's Shuihongling, those two places also have aura, and a group of outstanding cultural people have lived in the past, and where cultural people are produced, there are often excellent food production. "Jiaxing's Wuling, in the twenty-eight years before falling into the water, is also the same red and beautiful, the water is smart and moving, the flowers bloom, people love each other, just like the fairy dancing beauty in the Western ballet "Red Lingyan". The reason why psyllium has come to the conclusion that "Shui Hongling can only be eaten raw", regardless of whether it has the orientation of "hunting beauty" in its subconscious, but as a wise poet, in my impression, the vines of his poetry were also so fresh.

The petiole of the water chestnut has a floating sac like a jujube kernel, which stores air, so it can float on the surface of the water. It is very interesting for the people of the polder to plant the rhombus, first put the rhombic seedlings that were pulled up in the pond of other people's houses, stacked them in a wooden pot, tied a knot at the root of each tree, and then used the penny penny to hold the knot, and slowly inserted it into the deep water silt. There are also trouble-free, only tie a tile at the root of the rhombic seedling and throw it into the water, which can still sink to the bottom and tiller the tree. Rhombus flowers in the beginning of autumn, and the white dew fruit is ripe. In the evening, the pond is full of small white flowers, each flower must be a pair, and after pollination, it hangs into the water under the leaf axils and bears fruit.

Water chestnut to life, grab the water chestnut, pick a water chestnut, don't look at it to know that there must be one or two on the corresponding side. The horns protruding from both ends of the diamond are called shoulder angles, and the lower corners of the two abdomen are called waist horns. When I was a child, I was hooked with the waist and corner of each other's ribs, and then pulled and pulled, and the corner was folded to lose. "Ji Po Ling" is the sweetest, pink, and bulging. There are also hornless lings, called ingots. The rice produced by the unruly wild lings is particularly powdery, particularly fragrant, and more delicious than chestnuts. Yeling rice is roasted with meat or chicken, soaked in the aroma of meat, oily and shiny, sweet and crispy, far better than chestnuts.

The water chestnut plant of water chestnut has greater utilization value. The tender stems that have been removed from the hair and the petioles that have been plucked off the floating sacs are blanched with water, chopped and then fried in a pot, mixed with garlic and drizzled with a few drops of cooked sesame oil, which is the unchanged scenery on the farmer's dinner table from summer to autumn. Even in the cold winter wax moon, it is still a bowl of blackened pickled water chestnut vegetables on the table. The world has changed, who would have thought that today's luxury restaurants, a plate of garlic stir-fried, with enough sesame oil to cut very finely sliced wild water rhombus vine served on the table, in the light and shadow of the wine red light and green, by a pair of delicate chopsticks into a delicate plate, its popularity, absolutely more than those big meat stew.

There are many girls called lotus in the water town, and there are also many girls called Ling, Hongling, Qiuling, and there is an unfortunate girl named Xiangling in "Dream of Red Mansions". Xiangling was originally the daughter of Zhen Shiyin, whose name was Yinglian, who was abducted and trafficked when she was a child, and was later occupied by Xue Pan as a concubine and died in childbirth. Jia Baoyu has "Song of Zilingzhou": "The pond is cold in autumn overnight, blowing away the red jade shadow of the lotus; ""芰", that is, Ling, "Lisao" has the sentence "making the lotus as clothing". The amorous poet Li Bai has the chant of "Lingge Singing Can't Win Spring". However, Lu You fell into the land all his life, and in his later years, he was debauched and slacht, and he sang to himself, "The eighty-year-old man is as stubborn as iron, and the wind and rain are three more and the Ling returns".