I like wild vegetables, like digging and eating wild vegetables, looking for them all over the mountains and plains.
My hometown is a small mountain village, surrounded by hills of varying heights and with many wild slopes, where wild vegetables grow.
Shortly after the Spring Festival, there was a southerly wind for a few days, and some wild vegetables quietly sprouted. After a spring rain, the wilderness turns green in a few days, and wild vegetables soon fill the wilderness.
At that time, after school, I would carry a basket and go to the wild to pull wild vegetables. Whenever I saw a green, huge bitter vegetable, I felt excited in my heart. At that time, wild vegetables were not eaten by humans but fed to rabbits.
After graduating from college, I went to a place far away from my hometown. The working mining area is surrounded by fertile land and rolling mountains in the distance. There are more and more luxuriant wild vegetables here than in my hometown.
Like some people in the mining areas, I also like eating wild vegetables.
In early spring, green shepherd's purse grows on the roadside and in wheat fields. On weekends, I took a shovel and a convenience bag and went to the wheat field outside the dormitory to dig shepherd's purse.
In the watered wheat field, shepherd's purse looks like baby spinach, green, big and tender. It takes a few dozen minutes to dig a large convenience bag full. Using shepherd's purse to make dumplings and porridge has a fresh taste, which can whet your appetite. You can eat half a plate of dumplings and drink an extra bowl of porridge.
Wash the shepherd's purse and eat it with dipping sauce. The fresh shepherd's purse and the sweet sauce taste sweet and delicious. It is a good dish to go with wine.
Before the Qingming Festival, I would ride my bicycle on weekends and go to the foot of the mountain to dig bitter vegetables, white mugwort, mother-in-law pods, purple-flowered pods, noodle vegetables, and rehmannia leaves.
"Spring is late, and the flowers and trees are luxuriant." Walking in the fields, bathing in the spring breeze, digging bitter herbs, white wormwood, and wild vegetables, it is a very pleasant experience to go out and dig wild vegetables.
Bitter greens dipping sauce can clear away heat and detoxify, while white wormwood and mother-in-law are good for the liver. Add peanuts and diced porridge to make porridge, which is rich, fresh and delicious; scramble eggs with white wormwood, which is fragrant, soft and glutinous, and leaves a fragrant mouthfeel.
Sometimes, I also encounter small white garlic. Small white garlic, the leaves are like leeks, green and upright, with a white stem in the soil, and at the bottom is a crystal-clear garlic head as large as a bean. Small white garlic is called Ganoderma lucidum in dishes by the ancients. Scrambled eggs with small white garlic, minced and mixed with salt, all have a special taste.
In late spring, sage, gray cabbage, yinqing cabbage, etc. are blanched in boiling water, mixed with minced garlic and sesame juice, and are very delicious with rice.
In late spring, the best wild vegetable is none other than bittern. Shu Yuexiang, a poet of the Song Dynasty, once said in a poem: "There are few good fruits after green plums grow, and no good vegetables come out of bitter bitters." I don't care whether this is a bit too much. However, some people do like bitter vegetables.
"Shanjia Qinggong" records that when Liu Yi scholars have a banquet, they must ask the host to prepare bitter vegetables. When Duke Di Wuxiang was young and commanded the border, the border counties were in trouble. One day at a banquet, Yi and Duke Di of Han and Wei sat across from each other. Occasionally, this dish was not served, and they insulted Duke Di to the point where he died.
Liu Yi was a student of Hu Yuan and a water conservancy expert in the Song Dynasty. Every time he attended a banquet, he asked the host to serve bitter vegetables. Once, he went to Di Qing in the northwest border. Di Qing hosted a banquet, but he could not find bitter vegetables. Liu Yi was in a very unhappy mood. He sat opposite Han Qi and continued to abuse Di Qing.
Kuquya is called Ququya in my hometown. It is also a wild vegetable that I like very much. The leaves of Ququya have serrated edges. In late spring, the newly emerged buds have white stems and green-gray leaves with red color, which are very textured. When broken, white juice gushes out, with a slightly bitter fragrance, which is good for dipping in sauces and cooking. Ququ buds grow in sheets, and when you encounter one, you can dig a lot.
I like wild vegetables and also like to read articles about wild vegetables. Some articles about wild vegetables have a strong rural flavor. They are so familiar to me and arouse many memories for me.