Mother's Pickles

Mother is a master pickle maker, she will pickle several jars of pickles every year.

When I was young, the family's living conditions were poor and there was nothing to eat. However, with these pickled vegetables, the meal suddenly became a delicacy, life also became a taste, there is interest. At that time, the food was simple, but the taste was rich; at that time, the life was poor, but the days were prosperous by us.

My mother was very handy, and she tried to adjust the style of pickled vegetables. The first thing you can do is to put half a spoonful of oil in a hot pan, fry the fragrance of chili peppers, pour the pickles in, add green onions and black beans, and then steam them over rice, and they become a delicacy; or stew, buy three or so pieces of tofu, split into triangular pieces and fry them slightly for a while, half a spoonful of water, a handful of pickles, mixed with the tofu, the pickles have raised their value, and they taste delicious; pickles stewed with pork, the surface of which is suspended in a layer of oil. As if a blanket of rich aroma covered in pork and black shiny pickles, color and flavor; catch some fish one day, pickles are useful, pickles boiled out of the fish fishy taste small, soup fragrance, that taste that taste is really called "times cool"!

Occasionally, my mouth has a craving, but also when adults are not at home, quietly grabbed a pepper radish, two pieces of lettuce to satisfy the craving, although the spicy I "giggle" tongue, straight to tears, but the crunchy sweet salty taste is still hitting my taste buds, so I can not stop, while wiping tears, and put The "sinful" little hand into the altar. Therefore, the pickle jar has become the best food place in my childhood.

When I was fifteen years old, I carried the dream of washing my feet on the fields, from the field paths of my hometown, to the dusty gravel roads, and then to the wide city roads. Life kept changing with a tense and busy chapter, farther and farther away from home, more and more difficult to eat my mother's pickled vegetables. Although the pickles still appear on the table from time to time, but that is not the taste of my childhood, my mother's pickles have become my hang-ups, my longing, my nostalgia.

In the winter of 1988, I stood for more than ten hours on a crowded train, with eagerness and excitement to return home from Guangzhou. When I stood in front of the house with my luggage, my mother was full of joy, welcoming me into the house, rubbing her hands together, walking back and forth in the house, chanting what to make for me to eat. I didn't know what to do, so I stared at her blankly. My mother is old, and her white hair is very arrogantly stabbing me in the eye on her head. My niece Ling told me, "Ninth Uncle, during these times when you are away from home, whenever the telephone rings, Grandma will rush to answer it." Third sister-in-law continued, "Jiu Man, you're too cruel!" I was speechless, my son does not mind his mother's ugliness, but what about me, what am I doing? What have I done?

When eating, I looked at the table full of large fish and meat, chopsticks but hesitant to move, as if looking for something ...... right, missing mother's pickles! I asked my mother, "Mom, is there any pickles? I want to eat!" Mother froze for a moment, and then became happy, and hurriedly said, "Yes, yes, I'm going to get it!" So, my mother trembling from the kitchen to bring out a plate of pickled vegetables, long and thin radish strips, the surface wrapped in red hot chili peppers, good guys! The rich childhood memories of a brain to my nose, I hurried to pick up a into the mouth, salty in the spicy, spicy and a few sweet, this is how familiar the taste ah. That's right! This is the taste of childhood, mother's taste, the taste of nostalgia, my happiness index immediately increased a lot.

The first time my wife went to our hometown, she tasted my mother's pickled vegetables and was overwhelmed with praise. After that, every time she went back, she had to eat her mother's pickles, and she had to take a big bag back to Guangzhou. She said, "Mom's pickled vegetables taste good, no dishes, as long as there are pickled vegetables, I have to eat two more bowls of rice!" In the process of steaming and frying and packing pickles over and over again, I read my mother's expectations and care for her son.

The mother is old, and she can no longer give her son more material things. But in her heart, as long as I still like the pickles she cooked with her own hands, it means that I am still her son and that I haven't forgotten her as my mother! The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who are not able to get the best out of your own home.

Why chicken, duck, fish and meat can eat tired, my mother's pickled vegetables is not tired of eating it? The pickled vegetables from the selection of materials, ingredients, production to completion, to go through several processes. The pickled vegetables have mother soaked in a large basin over and over again washing to and fro, mother add ingredients constantly tasting forget raw perseverance, mother bottled pickled vegetables to me worried about the taste of apprehension ...... it is mother with strong affection, accompanied by a light smile and the heart's concern to extract the morning wind and night dew The food is made! I understand! The mother's savory dish tragically combines the mother's care for her son, which is incomparable to any other dish, so that it has become the best taste on earth and my favorite. I will feel very solid because of my mother's pickles around me, even if everything does not belong to me, even if everything has left me, at least, I still have my mother's pickles, have my mother's simple and unadulterated care. If the pickles are there, mother's love is there!

One morning in the summer of 2010, I was ready to leave for Guangzhou. My mother got up early and cooked a big bowl of pickled vegetables noodles for me, fished out a few radish strips from the altar, cut them into sections on the counter, then fried them for me in a hot pot, mixed with some red peppers and edamame, and quickly served them with a choking smell into a canning jar. When I left, my mother told me to take care of my health and not to be homesick.

That February, my mother, an old man who sent me from the countryside to the city, in a cold windy morning, finally could not bear the ravages of the years, finished her 94 years of life journey. From then on, my mother and her pickles went into the time tunnel of history and drifted away from me...