Like most Southerners, I don't like dumplings very much. I think that rice is rice, food is food, and rice and food should be separated. When eating, one bite of rice and one dish, or two bites of rice, the ratio of rice and dish, each person according to the taste, independent allocation. Rice and vegetables are served separately, clear and bright, and you can eat freely. I don't quite understand the way dumplings are eaten by mixing the staple food with the dish. I have lived in the north for many years and rarely take the initiative to eat dumplings.
In the south, the winter solstice is an ordinary solar term, and few people pay attention to it. But in the north, it's different, many people attach great importance to it, and there is even a saying that the winter solstice is greater than the year. The winter solstice sun shines directly on the Tropic of Capricorn, and the sun's rays hit the northern hemisphere in the most oblique way, which is the day when the northern hemisphere receives the least amount of solar energy. If only the radiation and reception of energy are considered, this should also be the coldest day in the Northern Hemisphere. However, this is not the case, and the winter solstice is followed by the number nine cold winter. I think it may have something to do with the accumulation and dissipation of energy in the soil, as well as atmospheric circulation. The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night in the Northern Hemisphere, the end of the year when sunlight turns from strong to weak, and it is also the starting point for sunlight to change from weak to strong. The northerners who live in the ice and snow attach so much importance to the winter solstice, which should be celebrating, and the warmth that is about to sprout from the return of the sun's rays. If you think about it, the winter solstice is indeed a sign of recovery. After the sun has moistened the southern hemisphere, it is about to start pampering the northern hemisphere again. Although the cold will continue due to inertia, the sun's rays have begun to return, and spring is about to wake up. Yawn a little more, and spring is about to take a step into the Northern Hemisphere. The sun is abundant in the south, and the thickness of the clouds tends to be greater than the inclination of the sun's rays. There are flowers in the south in all seasons, and the four seasons are evergreen, and people feel that spring never seems to go far, which will also dilute the desire of southerners for spring. I think that's probably why northerners and southerners don't treat the winter solstice exactly the same.
Get off work at five o'clock and drive home. didn't go far, and my mother-in-law asked in the group if she would go back to eat dumplings today. My wife hesitated for a while and said, either let's not go first, today Friday, there will definitely be a traffic jam on the road, and it will be at least seven o'clock there, don't let a large family sit at the table and wait for us. Although my wife politely rejected my mother-in-law, I knew that she really wanted to eat dumplings. When I arrived at the community, I parked the car, I asked my wife to go back first, and I went to the supermarket by myself, bought bundles of leeks, and bought some minced meat.
Tian'er is very sensitive to quantity, in order not to have or to have as little as possible. Before making dumplings, he would count the amount of food each of us to eat in advance, and then ask us to prepare the raw materials according to the amount he counted. It worked so well that since then, we haven't had any leftover dumplings in our fridge. Another advantage of making dumplings is that it requires a family to work together and work together. When Tian'er is at home, I buy, Tian'er and noodles, and my wife mixes stuffing. Then there is the wife rolling the skin, me and Tian'er Bao. Now Tian'er is studying in other places, and only my wife and I are the only ones who make dumplings and eat dumplings. Wife and noodles, I mix the stuffing, my wife rolls the skin, and I wrap it.
In the interval between making dumplings, I took a ** and sent it to our small family's group, @了天儿, with the text "Your mother called you home to eat dumplings". After a while, Tian'er also replied with a **, on the campus dining table, a plate of dumplings, a bowl of dipping sauce, a pair of chopsticks, and the text was "I have eaten". The wife asked Tian'er what kind of stuffing it was, and Tian'er replied that it was chicken. I thought about it for a moment, and it seems that I have never eaten dumplings with chicken filling. My wife said that whatever stuffing she wants, we can make it. Think about it, dumplings in the north are like hot pot in my hometown, everything can be stuffed in the north, and everything in my hometown can be hot pot. In the north, slightly more solemn days are inseparable from dumplings. In my hometown, in winter, as long as it is a reunion, there will be a table full of all kinds of small hot pots.
After washing the leeks, in addition to the dumplings, the wife kept half of them and cut them into sections. She also cut some bacon for me that my mother had sent from her hometown. She asked me to make a fried bacon with leeks. Before our dumplings came out of the pot, in my wife's family group, each family posted dumplings with various fillings. This winter solstice is really a lively dumpling festival.
Recently, I've been caught up in a bit of a "bad habit" and often drink two sips of wine in the evening. My wife doesn't object, and often adds two side dishes for me. The atmosphere is very good tonight, the dumplings are wine, and this drink is still full of mood. A dumpling, a sip of wine, a sip of side dishes, a sip of wine. I feel more and more like the ancient peasants in the north, who like cats at home in winter, enjoying this pleasant little wine and hot kang head.
The dumpling filling is pork with leeks, and the main dish is fried bacon with leeks. The bacon made of local pork in my hometown naturally tastes different from the meat filling in the supermarket, but why is there a difference in the taste between the leeks in the dumpling filling and the leeks in the stir-fry?They all came from the bundle I bought from the supermarket, but they were randomly split into two parts. Taste, taste, taste, taste, taste, the leeks in the dumplings, the taste is really fresher and stronger. Why is that?Eat two more bites and smack and touch. I think that because of the wrapping of the dumpling skin, the flavor of the leeks in the dumpling filling and the fatness of the pork have a deeper integration. It is this fusion that makes dumplings unique. Stir-fried bacon with leeks, while the delicacy achieves each other, they are also spreading outward, and without the wrapping of dumpling skins, their mutual integration will not be as deep as dumpling filling.
People who have never seen dumplings may think that they are just piles of blandly noodles when they see dumplings piled up on a plate. Only when you bite into the dumplings can you feel the warmth and fragrance in the dumplings. It turns out that this dumpling skin is the home of the dumpling filling, under the protection and wrapping of this family, the fillings in the dumplings are warmly integrated with each other and achieve each other.
Slightly drunk, I looked up at the white wall of my home, thinking about the cold wind outside the window, and suddenly felt that we were also dumplings, this tangible physical wall and invisible inner "wall", just like dumpling skin, blocked the cold wind "outside the dumpling" for us, and kept the warmth of our body and heart. I finally understood that in the cold north, the winter solstice is really to eat dumplings.