The white pepper

When I got home from work, I received a big bag of dried white chili peppers from my mother.

My mother grew a lot of chili peppers in the vegetable garden in my hometown. When the peppers were hanging on the trees, she picked out the good ones and chose a sunny day to dry them into white peppers.

I grew up in a large mountain in western Hunan, the men and women of my family love to eat chili, if there is no chili on the table one day, it will feel bland and tasteless. Will pour boiling water into an earthenware bowl, and then sprinkle into the red chili powder, plus salt, a stir, two bowls of rice immediately wind up like a belly. Sometimes, I even think, this world seems to be the only chili pepper to tempt my taste buds on the tip of the tongue. My table, from time to time, there are chopped peppers, sour peppers, white peppers, ring peppers, pickled peppers and other kinds of dishes, every time I eat up, the spicy sweat, open mouth exhale feeling is simply drenched.

It is said that chili peppers were produced in the Andean highlands of America and were introduced to China at the end of the 16th century. In the Ming Dynasty, Gao Lian wrote in "Zunsheng Bazhan", "Pepper bushes, white flowers, fruit like a bald pencil, spicy taste and red color, very impressive." At first, pepper was only cultivated as an ornamental plant. According to the old people, about the Ming Jiaqing period, the old family has begun to eat pepper. According to the "Qing Taibao", at the end of the Qing Dynasty, people in Hunan and Hubei had become spicy eaters and even put chili peppers in their soups.

Having lived in Yangcheng for many years, I like the city, the climate, the winter when the trees don't fall and flowers bloom everywhere. Of course, I also feel the city's unique food culture: fresh ingredients, sophisticated cooking, and all kinds of delicious specialties.

On weekends or holidays, I often invite my friends to a popular restaurant near my home, find a window seat and order a few plates of exquisite snacks: double-skinned milk, ginger milk, phoenix claw, durian puff, siu mai, shrimp dumplings, steamed pork ribs, sausage noodles ...... and friends while eating and chatting, while enjoying the scenery on the street. Occasionally, I also eat Chaoshan cuisine, Shunde cuisine, as well as other local cuisine, such as Shaanxi mutton bun, Wuhan hot dry noodles, Beijing duck, Taiwan salt crispy chicken, and sometimes try Japanese cuisine, Korean kimchi ......, but more often, when ordering, although my eyes look at the menu, my mind still floats in the old home those floating red red I always think that spicy is the real soul of the dish.

I remember once, my friend and I went to play in the nook of a big mountain, and saw a villager at the foot of the mountain was selling dried white chili peppers from his own sun. As soon as I saw the white peppers, my eyes immediately lit up and I bought five pounds at once. But since we had to go to other places at that time, it was really inconvenient to take with us, so I gave the villager 200 yuan and asked him to send it home for me.

My friend kindly reminded me: what if he does not send you? Hearing this, I was not sure what to do.

However, when I returned home a few days later, the white peppers arrived first. The dried white peppers were carefully wrapped in a plastic bag, with a generous portion, and a small note stuck inside saying thank you for my trust in him to buy so many of his white peppers. He rode more than 20 miles to town that afternoon to send it to me.

I ate this big bag of white peppers for a long time. The hot and spicy chopped fish head, spicy chicken, and fried bacon with chili peppers, each of them brought me back.