Taro is soft and fragrant, sticky and refreshing. Who hasn't eaten in a water town? There are many ways to cook taro. Taro burns meat, taro burns lentils and pickles, or chopped with tofu, shrimp and diced meat to make taro soup, sprinkled with garlic, put a spoonful in your mouth and immediately slipped into your stomach. It's delicious, dear! I bought taro once, but it didn't cook well. Later, my wife said that it must be the taro mother, and the taro mother couldn't burn well.
Taro mother is used for breeding. It is planted in a field by the river, watered and germinated, and the young leaves of hope will grow out. Green leaves grow as big as a day and then as big as a dustpan. There are several grape-like crystal drops on the leaves, which reflect colorful light rhyme in the bright sunshine. Think of the graceful taro in the green island field surrounded by clear water and feel the idyllic scenery with green fragrance. Isn't it beautiful?
It seems strange that taro doesn't bloom, but as long as the thick and huge leaves keep smiling at you and are dug up in the season, the big guy with brown hair and mud all over must be taro, the fruit that the cultivators have worked hard for a long time and looked forward to for a long time. Land doesn't lie. As long as you plant hope and sweat, you will surely get rich harvest. Why don't you care if it blooms or not? Taro really has no vanity; Taros are as simple as the farmers who water them.
It is said that Zheng Banqiao, the magistrate of Qipin County, likes the saying that "holding a lamp behind closed doors will make it fragrant and dawn". Perhaps many of Mr Banqiao's excellent works are inspired by the taste of taro and improvised in the aroma of taro? In fact, there are many literati who love taro. They nicknamed it "the crouching owl" (the owl in ancient books): Mo Wen, the prime minister of the world, crouched in the ashes and smelled the fragrance. What kind of prime minister? It's not as fun as baking taro. How cool! This is as real and crazy as the immortal poem "The son of heaven can't get on the boat when he comes". In "Xiang Yu", perhaps facing the raging fire with Kong, a new discovery was suddenly made and a wonderful chapter was conceived. It is surprising that ordinary taro has such a temptation in literati's works. In the life of people in water towns, it is just an extremely common vegetable. I remember when I was in high school, a classmate told me many stories about selling taro, which was very bitter. Indeed, there are many big ships selling taro to us every autumn. When asked, it is a pile of fields.
When we were children, we often baked taro in the wild. Dig out the taro, wash it, dig a hole, burn the dead branches and leaves, and soon the taro in the fire will give off an appetizing fragrance and drill straight into the nostrils! Can't wait to take it out, tear open the black skin, and the heat suddenly diffuses. Dip a little sugar prepared in advance, and the gods will envy it! If you don't like sweetness, simply switch to fine salt, which is as fragrant and delicious. It is this kind of snack, shared by the whole family, and it is also a kind of taste: lighting a fire in the middle of the night, the muddy family sitting in a ball. Cooked taro, the son of heaven is not as good as me Still so crazy! However, it is really beautiful and enjoyable for the family to talk around the stove at night and taste taro while chatting. This family may still live in a rainy alley at the bridge of a small town.
I remember when I was a soldier in northern Shaanxi on the Loess Plateau, it was difficult to eat taro. That place doesn't know what taro and Ji are, just as people in the water town don't know what kohlrabi and flax are. Once the canteen emptied a sack of taro out of nowhere and burned it once. Few people liked it. Later, I simply stopped burning, and it was too much trouble to scrape the skin. So, I take out a few from time to time to my single dormitory, put some water, sprinkle some salt, cook and eat with a small electric stove, and write my light essays while eating. At that time, in the local daily newspaper and evening paper, there were my small tofu blocks in three or two days. Slowly, the comrades-in-arms really couldn't resist the smell of cooked taro, but they all consciously gathered in my dormitory to share my cooked taro, chatting while eating and saying that this happy day was really enjoyable! In this way, that sack of taro was cooked by me with a small electric stove.
In the water town, eating taro on New Year's Eve is a must. It's a custom, every family does. When you are away from home, you can meet good people. I spent the Spring Festival this year in Kunshan, southern Jiangsu. When I left, my sister repeatedly took care to bring some taro, saying that the taro there was not as delicious as my hometown. So I bought a bag of snakeskin taro excitedly. On New Year's Eve, I ate a lot of taro. I hope I can meet some good people and my stomach will be full.