Street fortune teller _ street fortune teller

Tomb-Sweeping Day's fragrant grass

In my impression, most herbs are bitter. Even if it is not bitter, the taste is not easy for taste buds to accept happily. For example, the Sanguisorba that looks like mulberry tasted in the jungle of Genting Mountain Scenic Area in loufan county is bitter and astringent; Another example is Polygonatum sibiricum produced in Gujiao Huye Scenic Area, which has the effect of invigorating spleen and moistening lung. Stewed in chicken soup, even the soup tastes like medicine. Sweet grass is an exception, especially the sweet grass just dug out of the soil in spring, which is not so dry and full of water. It chews in the mouth, and a special sweetness permeates the cheeks.

Before Tomb-Sweeping Day, go to Gujiao Forest Park to explore the breath of spring. I accidentally saw people in twos and threes on the hillside behind the park. They are digging herbs, and the cold mountain wind spreads the faint sound far away. At this time, the farming in the fields did not move, but there was a scene of interaction between people and nature on the hillside wasteland, which added a little business to Shan Ye, which had been silent for a winter.

At this time last year, in the forest park, I met several primary school students in school uniforms. They dug sweet grass with shovels, and the loess around them turned into hills, with sweat hanging on their little faces. Digging sweet grass is hard work. I am surprised that these spoiled children can bear such pain! Because of "meritorious service", the children gave me a piece of sweet grass and taught me how to distinguish sweet grass from yellow grass.

In his early years, he studied Lu Xun's "From Baicaoyuan to San Tan Yin Yue" in class. At that time, I envied Lu Xun as a child. After studying, I have my own paradise. Today, I still remember the contents of the book. Cicada in the leaves, wasp on cauliflower, and the son of heaven who jumped from the grass to the sky ... For these children, it should be a hundred herbs garden like Lu Xun.

This spring, I ate fresh sweet grass just unearthed, and my colleagues came back from market research, holding a thumb-thick sweet grass in their hands, washing it with water, cutting it into several sections, tearing it along the lines and making tea for everyone. Drinking a clear yellowish tea soup is sweet and refreshing, which is the wild interest in tea that Pu 'er and green tea before the Ming Dynasty could not give.

I haven't been to Tomb-Sweeping Day. There are several stalls selling vanilla in Taoyuan Community, Little Square, just outside the city. Sweet grass with different thicknesses is classified and bundled, neatly placed and waiting for a price. March to April is the best season for vanilla every year, and the vanilla dug in Tomb-Sweeping Day on this day is regarded as the top grade. This statement is not elegant, but it is recognized by ancient friends.

In this Little Square, besides Master Yan's fortune-telling booth written by Wen Jianwei, there are also vendors selling earth eggs, sesame oil and pear toffee. The vendors each took a piece and crowded on the sidewalk. They do business when there is business, and their parents kill time briefly when there is no business. When you step into the streets of Little Square, you can see the image of a bustling city. Among all the stalls, the sweet grass stall is the most popular these days, and there are many onlookers.

I took a fancy to the red-brown sweet grass with a length of 1 m, but the stall owner charged 50 yuan a piece. Ask him why it is so expensive? He replied that the reddish-brown sweet grass was dug from the soil of red clay, and the skin of the sweet grass was probably dyed the color of red clay, and pointed to a pile of yellow-brown sweet grass next to it and told me that it was dug from loess and could be sold cheaply if necessary.

Red clay belongs to clay. In my hometown of Lvliang, this kind of red clay is used by children to knead clay, and it is also the soil mixed with coal dust to make briquettes in early years. There is only one place in my hometown where there is red soil. I remember a plant called goat milk tea growing on the ridge of red soil. When digging red clay, you have to go through a slope for fear of slipping. I always grab the vines of goat milk tea and sometimes tear them off.

It's not easy to be a small vendor. Digging sweet grass is hard work. Digging a complete sweet grass sometimes requires digging deep soil, and it will be broken accidentally, and the broken sweet grass will depreciate. I bargained a little and decisively bought some sweet grass the size of my little finger. There is also a sweet grass with a thick thumb on the stall. The thicker the vanilla, the better. This can be regarded as the "sweet grass king". I don't know who is the lucky one. According to the stall owner, his thumb-thick licorice is called "hammer" and it is the most valuable. It has grown for at least four or five years and is his "treasure of the town". The asking price is so high that it doesn't matter whether others buy it or not.

Mei, a poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote a poem called Sima Jun's Licorice Stick. There is a sentence in the poem: medicine is called old age, and I am too lazy to cure it. This man named Sima Jun gave the poet May a vanilla extract that can be used as a crutch, which is probably an eternal legend in the field of vanilla extract. The "old country" mentioned in the poem is vanilla In fact, sweet grass has many names. In Compendium of Materia Medica, Li Shizhen gave many names to sweet grass, such as sweet, honey grass, beautiful grass, knowledgeable and old country. If you don't know that there are so many names of sweet grass roots, your understanding will be quite different when reading ancient poems about sweet grass roots.

Many plants, due to geographical and dialect factors, many people play the trumpet, each with its own tune and different names, so I don't know it if I change my vest. Sweet grass is an example. Fangcao took photos from walk on by in the Book of Songs, Tang Poetry and Song Poetry, and also in Er Ya and Meng Qianbitan. I prefer the name "Lao Guo" to "Mei Cao", which has a long history and is a maverick.

Sweet grass is a kind of plant that grows randomly in rural areas like Setaria viridis and Artemisia capillaris. It belongs to leguminous perennial herbs. Its stems are upright and branched, with opposite leaves, small purple flowers at the top, pods split in late autumn, seeds scattered with the wind and naturally propagated. After seeing the vanilla extract in early spring, I was curious about what the flowering vanilla extract looked like, so I went back and forth to the forest park several times. There are too many plants with unknown names around me. I like to look at the plant atlas. I'll follow the picture after reading it. When I have nothing to do, I will drive to the wild. I will identify the plants all over the mountains and correct the names of unknown flowers and plants. For people in plants, this is a kind of enjoyment.

Sweet grass can be used not only as medicine, but also as tea. Every spring, I plant pots of mint grass outside the window, mix them with sweet grass to make tea, or drink them myself or entertain guests. In midsummer, gather a few literary friends, take a piece of vanilla, push the window and pinch a few mint leaves from the flowerpot, and boil water to make tea. The tea soup is yellow and green, and the color is warm and moist. Take a sip. The sweetness of sweet grass and the coolness of mint are the best ways to relieve summer heat. Then in the topic of words, spread out the dragon gate array of vanilla mint tea and watch the sun slowly disappear into the boundless twilight clouds outside the window.

This spring, the sweet grass for making tea is ready, and I am waiting for the mint in the flowerpot to be unearthed.

Zhang: A native of Jiaocheng County, Shanxi Province, works in Gujiao Tobacco Monopoly Bureau. Member of Shanxi Writers Association, vice chairman of Gujiao Writers Association, and special editor of Gujiao Wen Yuan. Over the years, it has been nourishing the soul with the spirit of literature. Since 2003, his works have been published in Oriental Tobacco Newspaper, Peony, Liupanshui Family, Shanxi Tobacco, Golden Week, Shanxi Market Guide, Taiyuan Daily, Taiyuan Evening News and other newspapers.