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Hometown persimmon cake

memory

By SondJamPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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My hometown is a small, isolated village in Yongji, Shanxi Province, which is poor but has an unforgettable name - Changdi Village.

The persimmon cake made from the persimmons produced in my hometown is a delicacy of great color and taste.

Our village is located on the edge of a ditch surrounded by three sides of "Wolf Ditch", "West Ditch" and "South Ditch", like an "island ". The village is not big, with a hundred or so families and seven or eight hundred people, and the land is thin and barren, with hills and unevenness. The two-foot-deep ditch accounts for one-third of the total land area. To grow crops in the ditch, people pull and carry the crops on their shoulders, which is both hard and laborious. The government called for "reasonable planting according to local conditions", planting wheat and peas on slightly larger and better plots, and planting corn, corn, beans, sweet potatoes and cotton in fall crop rotation. The slope of the ditch, along the ditch, ditch fork, and the end of the world, planted peaches, plums, persimmons, apricots, and jujube trees. South of the village north of the road on both sides, east and west of the road are planted with two rows of fruit trees, which villagers call "South Park" and "North Park". When the fruit ripening season, peaches, apricots and plums hanging on the branches, quite attractive. The North Garden belongs to our team and is planted with persimmon trees, which are full of persimmons. In late autumn, the red persimmons become golden, just like small lanterns hanging on the branches, which is very beautiful. Naughty children quietly climb up the tree to look for the early "soft-egg persimmons", whose juice is extra sweet. If you don't pick them early and eat them, the "soft-boiled persimmons" will fall off on their own, which is a waste and a waste. That's why no one interferes.

Fresh persimmons from the tree are dipped in a pot of warm water to remove the astringency, and then eaten crisp and sweet. Persimmons can also be stacked in a tank or jar, or dig a soil cellar pile, and then put a few apples or pears to remove astringency, within a few days, hard persimmons astringent persimmons become "soft egg persimmons", juicy, bite full of sweet mouth. In addition to this "physical deacidification method", the best way to process persimmons is to peel off the skin, sunlight into persimmon cake and persimmon strips, then, into the jar or into the tank, sealed for several days, when the persimmon cake and persimmon strips covered with persimmon frost, eaten especially sweet and cool, but also easy to store slowly eat. I especially like to eat persimmon cake as a "snack".

When I was a child, I could only see and eat persimmon cakes during the New Year's holidays, and they were a delicacy that could only be eaten on the tea plates of family and friends and at banquets.

The persimmon cakes from our hometown were especially beautiful and flawlessly white, just like a thick layer of frost, which people called "persimmon frost". These persimmon cakes are soft in the mouth and have a strong chewing texture. In his hometown, we all know that the town of Puzhou has a persimmon woods growing persimmons, made of persimmon cake taste is particularly unique - that persimmon cake to the tip soak into the tea can be melted into juice, drink a mouthful of such "jelly", both the fragrance of tea, but also the sweetness of persimmon cake. Legend has it that in ancient times it was used as a tribute.

The process of making persimmon cake in our hometown is very simple, but it is the result of the wisdom of working people for thousands of years. They are purely natural, have no additives, are perfectly safe to eat, and can be stored for up to two months. I have made them twice myself. The first time, I carefully peeled and dried the fresh persimmons on the roof of the bungalow, covered them with a white cloth at night, and then opened them again the next day when the sun came out, and so on for six or seven days, until the persimmons were soft enough to be sealed in a jar. A week later, when you open them, you will find persimmon cakes covered with white frost, with a soft, sweet bite. Some of my classmates' wives had the idea of frying the persimmon cakes in a frying pan with a strainer on top, which was both fragrant and sweet, and tasted even better. The second time I was at my daughter's house in Shenzhen, my hometown sent me a box of fresh persimmons, and I made them just like that, but because the "fire" was not mastered, and the sun was so strong in Shenzhen that I overdried them, they looked white and frosty, but tasted much worse. Lesson learned: the degree of drying is the key, otherwise you can't "brew" a good persimmon cake.

In recent years, my wife and I have alternated between Beijing and Shenzhen as migratory birds, and the metropolis is full of all kinds of goods and everything. But the persimmon cakes we buy outside don't look as good or as tasty as the ones back home, unfortunately!

This year, during the Spring Festival, I received a large package from my relatives back home, and when I opened it, it was my favorite food, persimmon cake.

I was so happy!

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About the Creator

SondJam

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