For the six-and-a-half-year-old Yang, the winter solstice of the twenty-first year of Qin Wangzheng made him unforgettable for the rest of his life.

Yesterday, the middle father and the uncle, with the newly made "stepping mill", scooped a stone of rice in one go, of which two-thirds was indica rice and one-third was glutinous rice. It was not enough to lick the brown rice, and it was licked until the evening, and the bran was sifted several times before all the bran of the rice was removed, and the white polished rice was obtained.

The middle father took 2 buckets of indica rice and glutinous rice each, put them in a clay pot and soaked them in cold and clear well water, and then hugged Yang and his sister Yue one by one, kissed each of them, and boasted that he would make food for them tomorrow......

Just for the words of the middle father, it is the greedy Yang who has not fallen asleep very late, and has been wondering what the middle father said about the deliciousness.

"It's caramel candy! I heard that my middle father sent my uncle to the village market to buy caramel candy! ”

His younger sister, Satsuki, who was only five years old, had her eyes wide open, and Yang seemed to be able to see her forehead hair and eyes full of stars. They can eat sweet and delicious caramel two or three times a year.

"It must have something to do with those rice." Yang thinks so.

In his eyes, the polished rice is already delicious. Yang is the age when it is easy to get hungry, ** rice can be swallowed in a big gulp, do not have to worry about being shaved by rice bran sore throat, but on weekdays, the father has to drag a wounded leg to the ground, and the mother is also very busy, both to clean up the housework and weave and take care of the mother, how can there be time to lick carefully.

In full anticipation, the two children fell asleep in a daze, and when the sun opened their eyes again, it was already the next day, and the winter solstice had arrived......

For their family, the winter solstice is not only a solar term, but also a special day.

The kind eldest mother (grandmother) always likes to hold the sun and the moon and talk about the past.

She said that her middle father was born on the day of the winter solstice. Coincidentally, his uncle was born two years later on the winter solstice, and his birth was purely accidental, when the eldest mother went to deliver food to the eldest father, she was startled by a rabbit that ran past her and suddenly came to this world......

Therefore, the eldest mother often joked about this incident, saying that the uncle was surprised to be born in a hurry because he was born on the same day as the middle father.

Every time he hears this, Yang and Yue will ask curiously, how was the child born, jumped out of the stone? Or was it fished out of a well? Or is that rabbit a changer?

In this regard, the adults all looked at each other and avoided talking about it.

But for the fact that Heifu and Jing were born on the same day, the aunt who lived in the township, although she was illiterate but knew the "Book of Days", and often set the time for people, decided that people who could be born on the same day and in the same month must be connected by lifeblood, and Heifu and Jing were not only brothers, but also destined to live and die together...... It sounds like a god's chatter.

In short, the winter solstice is a little special for their family, and this year is even more special, all because of the middle father!

When Yang rubbed his eyes and walked out of the door, he found that his mother and aunt were busy in the kitchen, burning a kettle with a wooden retort for steaming rice. When the water in the pot boils, the soaked and white rice is scooped into the steaming wooden retort and steamed over a strong fire.

After a while, the kitchen was steaming, and the thick aroma of rice was constantly overflowing from the kitchen, and the smell of Yang was drooling.

At this time, the middle father also bent down into the kitchen, their family is poor for generations, but they don't know what the strange rule of "a gentleman cooks far away", the middle father ignored the fireworks and choked his nose, squatted next to the stove and fanned the fire, while paying attention to the fire.

When he shouted yes, my uncle and the others came in, lifted the wooden retort, and poured the steamed rice into a cleanly washed stone mortar.

Next, it was the time when Yang felt the most fun, but he saw his uncle take off his winter clothes, bare-chested, holding a big wooden mallet, and his middle father stepped on the newly made "stepping on the mill".

The two of them were on one side, first smashing the rice in the stone pot, and then the uncle raised the mallet and pounded it vigorously, and the middle father also saw his rhythm and raised his feet to step on it. The stone hammer and the wooden mallet fell into the mortar one after another, constantly smashing the hot rice, making a "bang, bang" sound, turning it into a sticky rice ball......

Oh, it shouldn't be called rice balls, the middle father said to Yang, this thing is called "rice cake".

"I didn't eat it during the New Year, so I had to eat it on the winter solstice." Father Zhong said with a smile, but Yang didn't understand, since this is the case, why not call it "Winter Cake"?

In this process, the middle father also allowed Yang He, who had just woken up, and the four-year-old daughter of his uncle and aunt, "Chen", to grab a handful of glutinous rice from the stone mortar in their hands and run to the side to eat it with relish. The three brothers and sisters were covered with sticky rice grains on their hands and mouths, and finally pointed to each other's appearances, giggled, and began to chase and fight in the yard, and then the big yellow dog in the front yard also joined in.

The uncle also looked at them and laughed, and in normal times, this little child Wang had already come over to play with them, but at this moment, he was assigned a task by the middle father. Squatting beside him, every time the mallet fell, my uncle quickly wet his palms with water, reached into the stone mortar, turned over the unbeaten rice balls, and covered the beaten parts.

And so on and so forth, and finally, it has been hammered into a large ball of solid water before it can be considered good.

By this time, Yang saw that his uncle was already panting like a cow, saying that this work was really tiring, his arms were sore, and his mouth was numb. On the other hand, the middle father, who operated the stepping, did not blush or panting, just like no one.

However, he saw that the middle father continued to instruct everyone, kneaded the large rice cake that was placed on the long board after scooping it several times, and then kneaded it into several long strips, smoothed out the wrinkles on it, and then evenly applied a little hot ointment. Finally, with a knife, I cut the long strips into roughly equal dozen pieces, and then pressed them with a cutting board, and the round rice cakes that resemble saucers are presented in front of you.

The middle father even carved a seal with hail (radish) with great interest, holding the sun and the moon, and asked them to use their small hands, pinch the seal, and vigorously put the seal on the cake, and a round and moon-shaped seal appeared on the cake......

"I want it too."

Xiao Chen of my aunt's family was also brought to the case, and the middle father made one for her, covered it on the rice cake, and left a five-pointed star......

"The round is the yang, the curved is the moon, and the five-pointed star is the chen, isn't it fun?"

"It's fun!"

Yang and Yue sat in the middle father's broad arms, and couldn't help but widen their eyes, and Tatsuya rode on the middle father's neck and cried out happily.

For the first time, the children discovered that the rice they ate every day could be so much fun!

"It's not just fun, it's delicious." Hefu had three children hanging from him and laughed.

Over the next 2,000 years, the recipes of the land of China will gradually change, and millet will slowly retreat from the leading role. Eventually, the north will become the world of wheat, while the south will always be the kingdom of rice.

The Chinese like reunification, and the country does not distinguish between the north and the south, but in terms of eating, they divide the north and the south, and fight the party.

In the eyes of northerners, southerners "rice, soup and fish", what a hard day it was, and they would even feel sympathy for them.

But if you let the southerners themselves say, the rice is delicious fish soup, life is delicious, and eating steamed buns and dry buns every day is called boring!

For southerners, steamed bread and noodles can be used for breakfast and supper, but the staple food of the main meal must be a bowl of hot white rice to manage the fullness of the day. In their eyes, rice is like an old wife, who enters the house hand in hand, and they can't get tired of eating it for a hundred years; The noodles are concubines, waiting outside, and you can try them once in a while. Northerners feel that this relationship is reversed......

To put it bluntly, the difference in diet is just that one side of the water and soil raises the other side, no matter what is planted in the ground, it must be made tasteful, sound and colorful, this is the true color of a foodie country.

In the same way, northerners have their way of celebrating the New Year, and southerners also have their own ways of celebrating the New Year. Northerners have dumplings, and southerners have rice cakes for the New Year.

Heifu was an authentic southerner in his previous life, and it just so happened that this southern county Anlu is also the extreme southern county of the current Qin State. The crops are half corn and half rice, and there are even some glutinous rice, but the wheat is less.

So Heifu recalled the scene of celebrating the New Year in his hometown when he was a child in his previous life, and copied the lively scene of rice cakes to more than 2,000 years ago......

It's a pity that he doesn't have time to grind it, he can't grind the rice into flour and then steam, and he can't make a proper rice cake.

However, the kind of New Year's festival scene that Heifu wants, where the whole family works together to lick the rice cakes, old and young, laughs and laughs, is real.

The children especially like this kind of scene, the three of them are chasing me in the yard, you shouting at me, eating and playing, so happy.

The family has to be really warm and heart-to-heart, so that they can make sticky rice cakes!

"That's the life I want." Heifu couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

……

By this time, the physical work was almost done, Heifu picked out a part of the rice cakes, and asked the sister-in-law and sister to go back to the kitchen to steam them.

I was so shocked that I pulled a ball and stuffed it into my mouth, but it was so hot that I screamed. Heifu slowly blew it cool before putting it in his mouth, and couldn't help but close his eyes, the soft and glutinous feeling made him extremely familiar and nostalgic.

In addition to vegetarian food, you can also dip some malt caramel that he bought in the township market, not to mention how sweet it is, the three children especially like it, and they can't eat it together.

Xiaoyue also sensibly held a piece of rice cake dipped in starch candy, handed it to Heifu's mother, and said in a milky voice, "Big mother eats", and her mother took it with relief, but this rice cake is a little sticky and not very friendly to the old man with shaking teeth. Mother just ate a little casually, and continued to serve the porridge, looking at the scene of family reunion, this is the best delicacy as a mother......

Of course, rice cakes can also be dipped in sauce and salt, but Heifu does not advocate that way of eating.

"Sweet rice cakes are orthodox, salty, and heretical!"

Heifu began to pull his nephew and niece and say something strange, but in his surprise he ate a piece of rice cake cooked with anointing oil and salt in front of him, and said that it tasted better than sweet......

Others also ate with round stomachs and praised the taste of the rice cakes, saying that they were glutinous, fragrant, and delicious.

In the past, they were happy in bitterness, but today, they are in the midst of sweetness.

The whole family sat around to solve the meal, although the nobles of this era all implemented a separate meal system, and each had a few cases in front of them, and Zhong Ming Ding ate. But the Heifu family has been poor for generations, and there is not even a table for eating, so there is a wooden pier in front of him, and he can eat by squatting on the ground, where is there so much?

Heifu likes this kind of atmosphere, this is also as a later generation, deep-rooted thinking, I think it's good to sit in the group, lively, intimate, after eating, you can still sit and chat with Kanshan. The alienation of the noble family, the brotherly wall, does not exist here.

Poetry Cloud:

Ur beans, the gluttony of drinking. Brothers are both harmonious and happy.

The wives are well together, like drums and harps. Brothers are both harmonious, harmonious and Zhan.

Although there are no bells or wine, the laughter of the family is more beautiful than any drum and piano in the world......

The night is getting darker, and Heifu is happy today, and he is still eating N kinds of popular science rice cakes for his brothers.

"The leftover rice cakes can be stored for a long time when they are dried in the winter, and they can be sliced, boiled, or grilled when they want to eat. As long as three or five slices, eat the tube and be full in the morning. ”

Heifu was talking here with great interest, but after listening to it with a smile from the eldest brother for a long time, he suddenly said with some melancholy: "My family has not been so lively for a long time since my father died......"

For a while, the whole family was silent, indeed, in the past few years, a lot of things have happened to their family, and finally fell from a good Chinese family to the food and clothing line.

Then, he got up and made a gesture at Heifu!

"Brother Zhong was in the county that day, and he told me that he would make life better and better at home, I didn't believe it at the time, but now, Brother Zhong, I really believe it!"