People who live in the Wuling area must be familiar with fern. It is an annual herb with leaves similar to other ferns. Don't underestimate it, it is full of treasures. The tender stems that have just sprouted are a rare delicacy. When I was young, every time spring came, I would make an appointment with a few friends, go to the mountains to pick some and bring it back, stir-fry it with pickled red peppers, and add more oil. It was not only delicious, but also very appetizing, so I left. My hometown has been here for a long time, and my nostalgia for it has grown day by day.
The second is the fern root, which is buried about two or three feet underground. It is a bit like a black vine and is rich in starch. The fern root glutinous rice cake is made from it. There are many ways to make this kind of glutinous rice cake. It can be fried with sugar or stir-fried with chili. No matter how it is cooked, it is loved by people for its unique flavor. Every autumn, when the fern leaves begin to turn yellow, people in the mountains will dig them up with hoes to make fern root glutinous rice cakes. They either eat them themselves to satisfy their cravings, or go to the market to exchange for some money to supplement their family income.
I have many unforgettable memories. Among these memories, the scene of my father making fern root glutinous rice cake may be something I will never forget for the rest of my life. Our family was very poor at that time. After my mother passed away, my father had to raise our four brothers and sisters by himself. It was very difficult. Because of this, he could not go out to find money to supplement the family income. Therefore, after the autumn harvest was completed every year, he would go to the farm with others. Go to the mountains to dig fern roots to make fern root glutinous rice cake.
Making fern root glutinous rice cake is very hard and the process is complicated. Every day before dawn, my father would get up secretly by himself, then run to the kitchen, stew pig food in a hurry, make breakfast, finish breakfast in a hurry, and then set off. It takes more than an hour to get to the place where fern roots are dug from home, and the mountain road is rugged and densely covered with thorns. If you are not careful, you will fall and be scratched with bloody marks everywhere by the thorns, which will cause burning pain. Therefore, during the season of fern digging, , my father’s body is always scarred, and often the old wounds are not healed, and new wounds are added. We see it in our eyes and feel pain in our hearts. It was okay when I went up the mountain, because I was traveling lightly, but it was difficult when I came back because of the weight of more than 100 kilograms on my shoulders and hunger. It is not difficult to imagine the difficulty. It is difficult for people who have not had this kind of life experience. imaginary.
When you get to the mountain, you have to dig soil and dig roots non-stop, with no rest in between. Therefore, even in the coldest month of winter, the people digging fern roots are sweating profusely. Several times, I followed my father up the mountain to help him pick up fern roots, so the sight of him sweating profusely was as clear as yesterday. It took about five or six hours of digging before they tied up the fern roots and hurried down the mountain.
When I returned home, I hurriedly threw the fern roots by the river, then hurriedly returned home, ate lunch in a hurry, and then hurriedly came to the river to wash the fern roots without stopping. Because there are too many people digging for roots, there is only one stone slab for pounding fern roots. If we don’t hurry up, some people will not be able to beat the fern roots well that day.
Pumping fern roots is more laborious than digging them out. After washing, the fern roots should be turned over and beaten many times until they become powdery. Beating the fern roots is hard. The hard part is that you have to use a very big mallet, which weighs about twenty kilograms. Therefore, as you pound the fern roots, you will feel that the mallet is getting heavier and heavier. After a while, you will Will be out of breath from exhaustion. Beating fern roots is very efficient, so those who dig the roots will help each other beat them faster, and the sound of their hammers, one high and one low, is monotonous, but it is like a beautiful farmhouse song; sometimes, I would also go up to help, but often the success was insufficient and the failure was more than failure - I had little strength and affected others; even so, they would not blame me, because we pay more attention to the cultivation of children in farming.
After pounding the fern roots, the next step is to filter. The tools for filtering are two large wooden barrels, one large and one small. The larger one can hold two tons of water, and the smaller one requires about two people to surround it. The small barrel is at the top and the large barrel is at the bottom. And use a big bamboo slip to connect them. Use straw as a filter in the small bucket, and use brown clothing as a filter on the big bucket. This process takes about an hour, so after filtering, night falls, and my father is exhausted by this time.
When filtering again the next day, drain the water. What remains at the bottom is fern root starch, which is about ten pounds every day. Every time, my father would carefully put it into a small wooden bucket brought from home with a spatula, fearing that a drop would fall to the ground. If a little bit fell to the ground, he would carefully put it back into the bucket - -After all, it is the crystallization of sweat, hard work and even hard work!
The last step is to make glutinous rice cake. This is our brothers and sisters’ favorite, because while making it, we can have a tooth ceremony. So every day before going to the market, we would rush to help my father, such as helping him grind fern root water (starch will melt when it meets water, but you have to keep stirring, otherwise it will precipitate quickly), and help him put it in the stove Risechai et al. He poured the fern root water into the big pot, and then stirred it constantly with a wooden stick. Slowly, the fern root water will turn into a big black ball - this is fern root glutinous rice cake! Due to our poor skills in making firewood, my father would often be in tears due to the smoke, but not only did he never blame us, but he would also share the crispy rice with us very lovingly. This kind of crispy rice is particularly delicious, don’t look at it. It's as black as charcoal, and as soon as you put it in your mouth, it becomes sticky, especially chewy, and has the unique aroma of earth.
When the heat reaches a certain level, you can pour it on a dustpan, dip it in rice flour, and make small glutinous rice cakes as big as your fists. They are round, dark, and look particularly cute!
After the glutinous rice cakes have cooled down the next day, my father can pick them up and sell them at the market. Moreover, it is very easy to sell and the price is good. It will be sold out in a short time. Every time he comes back from the market, he will buy something that our children like to eat. Therefore, every time my father went to the market, we would stand at the entrance of the village, eagerly awaiting his return.
It has been a long time since these things happened, and my father has left us forever. However, the scene of my father making fern root glutinous rice cake is still vivid in my mind, and the unique fragrance of fern root glutinous rice cake is still wafting in my mouth.
In that era full of hardship and helplessness, my father relied on fern root glutinous rice cake to support our dreams. Without him (it), perhaps we would not be happy today!