In rural areas, the elderly are extremely serious about eating.
Especially at the wedding reception, they wear clean and plain clothes that young people think are out of date. Old ladies are all straight collars, and their short hair is fixed smoothly behind their ears with hairpins. Old people will never forget to mend the edges. Most people should have a flat head and shave before the wedding reception, and refrain from smoking if they like it. When the younger generation comes to worship cigarettes, they will be shy to smoke one and get angry at places they are not used to. Old people will try their best to make their image behave appropriately. Afraid of offending the main family because of words and deeds, I am even more cautious when opening the table. They sat at the table early, but waited patiently for the young people who ran the table to put rich dishes on the table, and then handed out chopsticks unhurriedly. They drink very little, probably because they are afraid of making jokes because of drunkenness and gaffes, or maybe the current liquor blending has long been out of their appetite. As for beer, gouty old people are afraid that most rural wedding banquets do not drink red wine. They think this is the habit of city people. Before eating, every old man should eat a bowl of rice. Everyone smiles and interacts, and slowly puts the food into their bowls. The action of eating is extremely elegant. Although most old people have no education, you can hardly see the vulgarity of the country people. Although sometimes there are rice grains left on the chin and oil stains flowing out of the mouth, they will soon be told by the old man on the other side, quickly handle them with paper towels, and then continue to eat with a smile.
They eat rice and vegetables slowly, and even if their teeth are bad, they will not spit out mutton without a rake. They will also remind each other: "I can't eat any more", so some people stop chopsticks and look for something to eat. Sweet boiled white is popular, glutinous rice is soft and glutinous, and pork belly melts in the mouth! Old duck soup is also good, probably because you don't need teeth to drink soup. Old people are happy to use it to soak rice, although it is not good, but they have long been used to it, which is also the habit of Sichuan and Yunnan people. However, because the old duck soup is too hot, some old people have to give it up for fear of burning their throats. The best soup is actually pea and sauerkraut soup, which is simple, sour and appetizing. Old people can use it with rice to scrape the bottom of the bowl! Then they will continue to stuff their rice bowls, which are still full. In the cheers of young people eating wine and guessing fists, the second bowl of rice was destroyed by them!
I have carefully observed the behavior of the elderly at the wedding banquet, and I have never understood why they like rice so much when their living conditions are good. Why don't they eat vegetables like young people? They can enjoy wine and delicacies, big fish and big meat, but their appetite is amazing, and some old people can eat a third bowl! Young people will continue to give food and rice to older people. What kind of temptation is there in rice? Worth their love!
Later, I asked my mother, and her explanation was: "When I was a child, many people didn't have enough to eat, worked for a day, earned a work point, and only got one or two meters a day"! My father once recalled his painful experience: "I crawled out of the dead-I was starving when I was a child, and I stole bean leaves and sweet potatoes from the commune at night." I was almost caught once, and the child who was caught was killed because I had half a handful of bean leaves in my hand! When my father was a child, he would eat all the rice in the bowl, even if there was only a bowl of pickled vegetables, a lump of milk tofu and a plate of sauerkraut on the table! He said these are all good things. He ate Guanyin soil when he starved to death. As a result, he suffered from constipation and later from rectal cancer. I didn't believe these stories at first. Later, I read Mo Yan's prose and said it was in Shandong. In the early days of liberation, some people ate coal. What will it taste like? How to swallow it! My aunt and father said that when he was a child, he lived in the mountains and ate bark and roots instead of eating. Later, he learned a lot about Chinese herbal medicines. Several cousins often recall that when they were young, they had no food, so they had to eat corn rice, a kind of coarse grains. Now most of them are only used to raise pigs. They say why the neck is so long, that is, corn rice is too choking to swallow, so it's probably a bit like that. So the neck is getting longer!
Later, my understanding was that those old people actually got a disease, a sequela of hunger, a treasure of happy rice after poverty and suffering, a feeling of always respecting a better life, or a precaution. They are afraid that life will break their word and that one day, the painful days will come again!
Then, we can see the old people bargaining in the vegetable market, rummaging in the garbage, and quietly putting the leftovers in the refrigerator. They may no longer be short of money and hungry, but they have to live in a different way from young people! It is difficult for us to see old people and young people sitting in front of hot pot tables and barbecue stalls. They may not enjoy this luxurious life, or they may not accept it. Every time my friends and classmates come to our house and have a hot pot barbecue, my mother quietly hides in the kitchen to eat simple dishes. Be sure to eat enough! Every time I feel guilty, I can't accommodate my mother's feelings!
A few days ago, there was news that the price of rice was going to rise in the supermarket. My mother nervously asked me to prepare some bags of rice. I don't think so. I said that the national news reported that the grain production increased year by year, and the national granary was full of rice. How could the price increase? She said: "In recent years, the country has used land everywhere to build houses. More and more people grow fruit trees, and fewer and fewer people grow food. Where will it increase food? " It's ridiculous to think about it. Even an old woman can't cheat such news! If you don't count food imported from abroad, you are probably just comforting yourself!
? China people grew up eating white rice, but now they don't like it any more. Wine and meat pass through the intestines, and delicacies are always better than rice. A few people will still remember the poem "Who knows that every Chinese food is hard"! I always feel guilty when I see those old people who eat seriously. This is a feeling of guilt. I'm glad to live in this era, and I'm also afraid! Because the plague has not gone far, war may trigger at any time, and more people are not rich. What is even more frightening is that we don't even have the experience and courage to eat Guanyin soil, coal, bark and roots!