A glimpse of the times

The only mutton offal soup I ate in a state-run restaurant when I was a child.

Text: rotten wood

When people reach middle age, it is easy to have nostalgia complex. Teenagers are ignorant and reckless, young people are ambitious and work hard wholeheartedly. They just plan the future and have no leisure to look back. However, the bits and pieces of the past years have been deeply imprinted in my mind, quietly silent there, even though I didn't realize it.

However, after years of traveling around Qian Shan, my youth has passed away, my temples are frosty, and my memory is like a window. If I push it away, I will be in trouble. Don't talk about occasional leisure, sit still and meditate; Or see something, talk about it; Even if you drive on the road, you will suddenly get lost in thought. The past of the past years will always emerge inadvertently, lingering and evoking dusty memories.

Not long ago, I went back to my hometown and passed by the town. I saw many buildings, but at the crossroads, a new building was being built. As far as I can remember, this used to be a state-owned hotel. My sister said that it is now a private property, and now it is rebuilding the facade for rent. Seeing the busy workers in front of the building, I can't help thinking of my childhood.

It was in the 1970s, when people lived in poverty and lacked materials. It's good that ordinary people can eat and wear warm clothes. Going to a restaurant is really a luxury. Besides, hotels were all state-owned at that time, which was very rare. Eating by ticket required food stamps and cash. For ordinary people, the food stamps exchanged for work points every year are not enough for their families to fill their stomachs, let alone go to restaurants.

Our town is a famous historical city, which existed as early as the Warring States period, and its name has not changed. It was not until the 1950s that it merged with another county that it was changed to a town. The ruins of ancient city walls and temples abandoned when I was a child are still there, and the town is very large and prosperous. Every month, there is a party on March 369. On the day of the party, people from ten miles and eight townships nearby come one after another, which is very lively.

There is only one state-run hotel in my memory in this town. This is a restaurant, but it is actually a small restaurant. The food is just home cooking, and there are staple foods such as steamed buns and jiaozi noodles (never eaten). But the signboard of the state-run hotel is mutton offal soup. As soon as the market day arrives, tables and stools are set on the roadside, and business is booming.

The mutton offal soup in our town belongs to local flavor, with unique production technology and secret seasoning, which is completely different from the mutton offal soup in other places. In Shaanxi, the main ingredients of mutton buns are mutton and vermicelli. , without sheep offal. These cakes are dead cakes. When eating, they pay attention to breaking the buns and cooking them. Most of the ingredients are sugar garlic and Chili sauce, which is quite famous in the country.

But we Jin people prefer to eat mutton offal, probably because mutton is more expensive, but mutton offal tastes different in different parts of the province. For example, Yanbei and Jinzhong are often called mutton chop, and the mutton chop in northern Shaanxi is represented by Yanbei Datong, which is relatively rough. The cauldron is ignited, and the soup is cooked in the pot, regardless of the form. Jinzhong Yitai was originally a representative, paying a little attention to it, adding onions, ginger, parsley and so on. Add vermicelli and tofu to the soup. In a word, the seasoning of mutton offal in the north is very strong.

Jinnan is different from Yanbei and Jinzhong. It's not called mutton offal, but mutton offal, mutton offal soup, mutton offal soup, mutton offal, miscellaneous spicy dishes and so on. Relatively speaking, it is more exquisite, especially the soup, which pays attention to the original flavor. However, there are two kinds of Jinnan, and Linfen and Yuncheng are different. Because Yuncheng is close to Xi 'an, the taste of mutton buns and mutton offal tends to Shaanxi flavor. Mutton steamed stuffed bun is similar to Xi 'an's, and the ingredients are mostly vermicelli. Mutton offal is different from the north. There is no tofu and vermicelli, mainly soup and vegetable code.

In Linfen area, although the practices of miscellaneous sheep in various counties and cities have their own characteristics, they are generally the same. Among them, the mutton offal soup in our town is famous, and most families will make it by themselves in winter or Spring Festival as delicious food. We don't call it mutton offal locally, it's called mutton offal mala Tang, which probably means mutton offal mala Tang, and we can also make steamed bread dishes, hence the name.

The production of mixed salad dishes is more particular. First, clean up the sheep offal. Generally, after cleaning for 3 or 5 times, such as intestines and stomach, it should be opened, evenly coated with alkaline surface, then scrubbed, and finally rinsed with clear water for later use. When cooking, put cold water into the pot. The ingredients are pepper, aniseed, onion, ginger, garlic, pepper and so on. Bring to a boil with high fire, skim off the floating foam, simmer with low fire until cooked, remove the mutton offal, and peel and slice the meat for later use.

Then pay attention to cooking soup. Generally, a pair of sheep skeletons need to be cooked for about a day. After cooking for 2 hours each time, the soup is poured out until the skeleton is finally broken and the bones are stewed to white. Finally, put these soups together. If it is winter, the mutton soup will condense into a white solid and then be stored in a vat. Every time you eat, add boiled mutton offal to the original soup.

As for the ingredients, there are sheep blood, tofu, vermicelli and so on. Among them, vermicelli is the most distinctive one, which is different from Yuncheng vermicelli and northern Shaanxi vermicelli. The thick vermicelli of local specialty sweet potato is as thick as chopsticks, crisp and greasy, and delicious. As for condiments, there are chopped green onion, chopped green onion, coriander, sheep oil pepper, spiced noodles, edible salt and so on.

If you eat spicy food, you can't help eating cakes, but the local cakes, called baked cakes, are different from Xi 'an in Yuncheng. Their cakes are dead cakes and need to be broken and cooked. Local fires are cakes made of dough, but they are also different from those in Beijing and other places. The fire in Beijing, though exquisite, is stingy, not hungry and tender, and can only be called a snack (I don't know much about old Beijing, in my humble opinion).

The fire for eating mixed vegetables is to use dough, ferment it with warm water, divide it into steamed buns, then roll it for many times, mix it with chopped green onion, oil, salt, pepper and other ingredients, make it into cakes, press it into multiple layers, and barbecue it with an autocratic earthen stove. After cooking, both sides are golden and crisp, and the inside is crisp and tender, which shows that it is steamed in winter. With spicy food, it can be soaked in a bowl or chewed alone, which is very delicious.

The main ingredients, ingredients, heat and seasoning of mixed salad are all prepared in advance. Every gathering day, the soup stock is added with water, stewed in a large iron pot and then sold. What needs to be said here is that there was no gas hood before, and the stoves used in restaurants often used to arrange stoves, that is, to make a fire, the flue leads to the chimney, and three or five pots are discharged along the way to make full use of the residual fire. The temperature is the highest near the fire and the lowest near the chimney. High-temperature iron pot mutton soup is boiled, which is used to add cooked mutton offal and other ingredients, and is sold in bowls at any time; In the distance, it is used to preheat the old soup and soak the vermicelli, so that the soup can be continuously added to the front from the back pot, which is methodical and very scientific.

When customers come to the door, they first buy tickets with food stamps and cash, and then they can queue up to buy tickets. In the 1970s, they probably spent 22 food stamps and 15 cents, which was necessary, plus 5 cents to make a fire. Because everything is prepared in advance, it is very fast. Just ask if you want Chili, and the chef will give you a bowl soon. As for sheep's blood tofu, we can't be picky in the past.

When scooping mutton offal soup, it depends on the master's face. I remember that the bowls used at that time were all large porcelain bowls, and the master in charge of scooping mutton offal took a public bowl and a flat spoon, spread the mutton offal and poured it into your bowl, indicating that it was all the same, but it was not.

Because it takes skill to scoop meat, the trick is on the spoon. If you are an acquaintance, the master will stir a few times in the pot, wipe the bottom and scoop it up, and then knock at the side of the pot. Because vermicelli is slippery, it will fall into the pot, and the rest is mostly meat or mutton offal, and vermicelli is rare; If you are not familiar with or interested in you, you won't knock on the side of the pot, so there will probably be more vermicelli and less meat in your bowl. In this way, even the leaders who play tricks cannot blame them. This is probably the cunning of chefs.

The advantage of eating mala Tang in state-run restaurants is that you can add mutton soup at will, and it is free. As long as you spend 22 food stamps 15 cents, you can eat a bowl of hot soup, and you can add soup at any time, which is very cost-effective for the poor who went to the market at that time.

I only ate in a state-run restaurant once, and my grandfather took me to eat. Grandpa was born in a rich family, but his family declined after the war. During the Anti-Japanese War, he was shot from behind by the Japanese and scored from his right eye. He was also a fortune teller. He was treated free of charge by the National Military Hospital, but he was blind in one eye and deaf in the other. From then on, he devoted himself to farming, never cared about the world, was kind-hearted and kept aloof from the world, and won a good reputation in his hometown.

Grandpa is just a common people, and his life is very regular. He gets up at five o'clock in the morning, either to farm in the fields or to collect firewood and cut grass. He never stops when he comes home. He does housework and repairs utensils, works during the day and has a little leisure time at night. He always reads poetry books, writes and practices calligraphy there, never goes out to chat, and rarely goes to other villages. This habit remained until his death in the 1990s.

Grandma died early and died in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Although grandpa was in his prime, he didn't continue to get married for fear that his father would be wronged. Dragging my father to live alone. When we have several grandchildren, grandpa will pour all his love into us, work hard, contribute silently, make us happy as much as possible on weekdays, and tell us historical stories and simple life philosophy when he is free.

At that time, seven people in the family were all supported by their father's salary, so there was no money at home. And because the whole family only has one bicycle, my father uses it to go to work and can only walk to the town to go to the market, so my grandfather seldom goes to the town to go to the market, and even if he does, he just strolls around and buys nothing. However, if our brothers go to the market with grandpa, they will definitely buy some candy or something to make us happy.

I remember that time I went to a state-run restaurant to eat spicy soup. It should be winter. Before I left, my grandfather put some noodles and steamed bread in his wallet to satisfy his hunger. At that time, my grandfather was over 60 years old, holding my brother's hand all the way, and I rode around his neck all the way. Looking back now, it's really unfilial to let grandpa walk so hard behind my back, but I'm only a few years old and I don't know if grandpa is tired. I just think everything is amazing, asking questions.

It may take a long time to go shopping. At lunch time, I was thirsty and hungry. Grandpa thought twice and took his brothers to a state-run restaurant to eat spicy food. At the restaurant, grandpa bought a bowl of spicy food, asked for two small empty bowls, and then divided one bowl into three bowls for the master to add soup. My brother and I are both dry goods such as miscellaneous sheep, and there is only soup and a little chopped green onion in grandpa's bowl. My brother and I each ate a piece of sesame seed cake, and Grandpa soaked himself in the soup.

That is the most spicy dish in my memory. I watched the steaming mutton offal rolling in the cauldron. Bright red pepper, slightly yellow thick vermicelli, green chopped green onion and milky white mutton soup were mixed together, just like a beautiful ballad, which was very appetizing. Moreover, the mutton offal is delicious, the vermicelli is greasy, the taste is spicy and the soup is mellow. After eating, my head sweated and my whole body was warm, and all the chills disappeared immediately, which was very comfortable.

This time I ate in a restaurant, which was also my sourest time. I remember grandpa's gray hair, gray beard, rickety body and embarrassed expression. He seems to have done something wrong when he asked the master to add soup. Moreover, with his kind smile and considerate manner, the master specially brought a little sheep blood when adding soup, which made our three generations eat and drink enough, which was reassuring. This expression has often appeared in front of me for decades, and it makes me cry every time I think about it.

After the 1980s, state-run hotels ceased to exist. With the reform and opening up, people's lives are getting better and better. Later, I went to school and went to other places, and basically never went to catch a party again. Until my grandfather died in the 1990s, I never went to a restaurant with him again. The warm memory of the only time I went to a state-run restaurant to eat mala Tang has been deeply branded in my mind and will emerge from time to time.

Nowadays, food and clothing are abundant, and even the pavement of the old state-run hotel has been pushed to a new building. The ingredients are still those, and the soup is still those. However, it's hard to taste that delicious food again, and something seems to be missing. This is probably the smell of relatives.

(The picture has nothing to do with this article)

2020/8/8 Yumuzhai