I relived my old dream that the apricots were ripe.
Ge Sheng
When I dreamed last night, I went back to my childhood memories.
It's apricot ripening season again, and it's raining in my dream.
Apricots on the apricot tree in front of grandma's house,
It's all ripe. The apricot is golden yellow, and there seems to be some fine fluff on the epidermis, which is quite big and attractive.
I sat on the kang, waiting for the apricots to fall. Soon there was the sound of apricots falling, one, two, three, about half an hour.
I didn't care about getting wet, so I got off the kang and carried the basket and ran out to pick up apricots.
Apricots are probably the earliest fruits in Qingyang, which are listed in large quantities in April and May every year.
There are almost no apricot trees in our family, but almost every household in the attached small hometown will plant several apricot trees more or less.
When the apricots are ripe, in every market, villagers put apricots in baskets with bicycles and shelves for sale. The market on our street,
The opening day is a double day, only 1, 4 and 8 days.
The market here doesn't have a fair every day.
Generally, it takes turns during the day, and several nearby towns have gatherings and rotate with each other.
Early in the morning, men, women and children came from all directions. At that time, it was a sea of people and traffic, which was really spectacular for the rural market. At that time, the market was full of baskets of apricots.
There are also many varieties of apricots in my hometown, which are separated from the epidermis and smooth.
There is another kind, recently bought, with some fine hairs on the skin. We call it Maoxing.
There are several varieties of glossy leather: one is red when it is ripe and the other is golden yellow.
There is also a yellow-white skin, a very small one,
Generally speaking, apricots with smooth skin are sweet, especially small white apricots, which have small stones and are very sweet.
This is our favorite apricot.
Secondly, golden apricot is also sweet, but the taste is slightly worse than small white apricot. Red-skinned apricots are sweet and sour, with thick pulp, which is connected with the stone, a bit like plums.
Prunus mume is also golden yellow, and the flesh tastes a little light, not very sweet but not sour. This kind of apricot sometimes meets sweeter ones.
Generally, we don't like to buy hairy apricots. We can eat the kernel of naked apricot. If we peel off the shell of the kernel, almonds taste a little sweet. Most of the seeds of plums are inedible. It is bitter and has a strong almond flavor.
But whatever apricots are, they are much sweeter than those bought here.
In the eighties and nineties, apricots of that fellow villager were very cheap.
Generally, one or two cents a kilogram (measured in metric system in rural areas),
It depends on the quality of apricots.
When there are many apricots, we sometimes put a basket for several people to eat.
There is a 10 kg, 20 kg, two or three yuan.
Then everyone shares it, which is generally more cost-effective than weighing.
When apricots are ripe, we like to go to Laozi and Zhuangzi village next door by bike when we are free. We all know that country people are hospitable.
Walking into Laozi and Zhuangzi village, you can see locust trees and willows planted on the roadside: locust trees stand tall and welcome everyone like sentries; Willow is graceful and seems to be dancing to meet us.
Against the background of blue sky and white clouds, it is refreshing and pleasing to the eye. A few apricot trees can be seen in the yard of fellow villagers, which are almost invisible to outsiders. Only the villagers' local dogs barked at us. Looking from a distance, I always feel that the scenery seems to be the rural pastoral scenery in the paintings I have seen before, which is a bit gratifying, especially when the leaves and the earth turn golden in autumn.
At that time, villagers' homes were generally adobe houses with flat roofs and open doors all day, as if welcoming us.
As soon as I entered the room, I saw almost everything in the room. My hometown is very simple: the house is very small, and a big kang occupies almost half the room. There is no furniture except a few cabinets. There is a big sheet on the kang, with several quilts on it. There is a stove on the edge of the kang, and there is a fire under the kang.
There is a wooden frame in front of the house, covered with green vines. There is a big wooden bed under the wooden frame, where villagers usually like to relax and enjoy the cool.
There are many apricot trees planted around and behind the house of fellow villagers, and golden apricots are covered with treetops.
When they arrive at their home, they will warmly entertain everyone, whether they know each other or not.
The host immediately picked a large plate of apricots and put them on the big wooden bed.
Then, first bring a big water hyacinth, which is filled with clear water.
The host pours water with a gourd, greets everyone to wash apricots underwater, and then greets everyone to eat apricots until you are full, which is free.
We will eat apricots roughly until we don't want to eat them.
In the 1980s, the culture of fellow villagers was very low, and many of them were illiterate and wussy.
Apricots don't mature for a long time, and they can't be seen until the end of May and the beginning of June.
However, a large number of dried apricots are listed, and the dried apricots that villagers can't eat and sell are all dry. That dried apricot is also golden yellow and sweet, which is my favorite.
Fresh apricots can't be eaten, but dried apricots can be bought, so I often buy some dried apricots to eat.
There are also two kinds of dried apricots, one is naturally air-dried without special processing. This kind of dried apricot is not very beautiful and has no bright color, but it has a natural apricot fragrance and sweetness;
Another kind is specially processed, with a bright and transparent appearance. You can see the yellow and white almonds inside, which are sweet and sour, and citric acid may be added during processing.
I made dried apricots myself, but I just can't make translucent dried apricots. I really can't figure out why.
Many years later, I once bought dried apricots from an aunt.
She also sells translucent dried apricots there, so I asked her how she did it.
She told me: dried apricots should be steamed first and then dried, which will become translucent.
But then I never tried to dry dried apricots like that, because dried apricots were cheap at that time, and I was too lazy and inconvenient to do it myself with a little salary.
I still like dried apricots, but I don't eat dried apricots with translucent buns anymore. I'm afraid there are additives such as pigment and essence in processing, which are not as natural and safe as dried apricots.
It's the ripe season of apricots again, which reminds me of my childhood involuntarily, so I can appear in my dreams.
Write these words as a memory of the past!
Li Jie (a rural native of Zhengning, Gansu), now living in Xi 'an, Shaanxi, male, pen name: Li Mohan!
I love poetry and prose, and now I work as an editor in China Dangdang Cloud Reading Platform, China Writers Association Network, China prose net, Phoenix Poetry Society, Today Headline, Writers Network, Baijiahao, China Hong Kong Poetry Society and other paper poetry magazines, Tianya Forum, Today Headline, American Literature, Baidu Post Bar, Welcome to the World and Modern Poetry.