Before five o'clock in the afternoon, parents began to gather at the gate of Huangmei No. 1 Middle School in Huanggang, Hubei Province.
Holding a small plastic bench in one hand and a bag full of insulated lunch boxes in the other. Taking advantage of the fact that a large number of people have not yet arrived, the first batch of parents took the lead in using plastic chairs to occupy the best position next to the school fence, sitting and chatting in twos and threes, waiting for the children to come out of the fence and find them as soon as possible.
At 5:30 a.m., the bell rang for the end of class, and the high school students sprinted to the fence at trot speed. There is also evening Xi, and they don't have much time to eat. Parents cooperated and came up with their own tricks: stepping on marble to climb to the top of the iron railing and throwing lunch boxes into the schoolyard;Passing the lunch boxes to the children one by one through the iron railing. The high school students who received the marching chairs and lunch boxes handed by their parents sat in a row around the wall, gobbling up and eating soup and noodles heartily.
In addition to hot dry noodles and beef noodles, there are also fish noodles made by their parents that are familiar to local children.
Juanzi, the proprietress of a private restaurant specializing in handmade fish noodles, said that in the past few years, almost all of her regular customers have been these parents who deliver meals. "How powerful Huangmei No. 1 Middle School is, the daughter of the tea shop next door was admitted to Tsinghua University in Huangmei No. 1 Middle School a few years ago. "I heard that both of them accompanied the husband and wife to study until they divorced..."Mothers who come to the shop to eat fish noodle hot pot sometimes come here to exchange their family trivia and other people's life stories. Juanzi is a big character, sometimes enlightening them, sometimes spreading new gossip.
There are a lot of parents who come to me to accompany their children in the college entrance examination, and I have heard everything in the past few years. Juanzi proudly introduced to us.
Out of Huangmei, there are fewer people who know fish noodles. Objectively speaking, there are not many people who know the county seat of Huangmei.
When locals introduce themselves to the outside world, they will only emphasize two labels that may easily arouse the interest of outsiders: one is the birthplace of Huangmei tune;The other is that it belongs to Huanggang City, Hubei Province (the surrounding area of Huanggang Dense Volume), and the college entrance examination results are very good.
Although it is not as famous as Huanggang Middle School, as the first school in the county under Huanggang City, Huangmei No. 1 Middle School has a very good reputation and reputation. In 2020, a small county high school, with limited financial resources, will have 268 students with a score of 600 or more, and the passing rate of a school will be 944%, 4 people passed the qualification line of Tsinghua University and Peking University's "Strong Foundation Plan".
Huangmei County, Huanggang City, Hubei Province, "Only Chu is talented." Juanzi and her friends couldn't help but praise the education in their hometown all the time, "Teacher Huang Mei is very willing to dedicate;Parents too, pay special attention to their children's education;The kids in our neighborhood are really trying, too. "The alcohol stove where the fish noodles were cooked kept burning on a low fire, and Juanzi kept urging us to hurry up and eat.
I think that Huangmei's children are smart and can read, which probably has something to do with their love of fish. ”
Juanzi's hometown is in Xiaxin Town, 10 kilometers away from Huangmei County, the birthplace of yellow croaker noodles. It is close to Longgan Lake, a national wetland reserve, with good water of natural mineral water level, and good fish freshness. It is said that the people in the towns and villages near Huangmei eat fish with their mouths, and the fish in the market are not good, so they want to eat fish, so they go back to the town and village to catch dozens of fish and go back to the city, calling friends to eat.
Fish noodles are also called hammer fish noodles by the locals, at the beginning only the Chinese New Year can be eaten, about seven catties of grass carp is the best, there are also miscellaneous fish fish noodles made with Anhui fish or warped mouth: the fish is scraped and beaten into the gills, peeled, spine and belly white meat, pounded into fish paste with stone grinding with Dushan Town's flour, rolled into noodles, steamed, dried, shredded into noodles...After a series of complex processes, the fish flesh becomes invisible, and you can't smell a little fishy smell in your hand.
The sun-dried fish noodles look like pasta, hard and can be preserved for a long time, the thickness is uniform, the arc is smooth, and the layers of rotating circles are mysterious, like the sun and the moon walking in the noodles.
The locals like to cook fish noodles with pork ribs, a pot of soup stewed to a rich and snow-white color, the boneless and thornless fish noodles only leave the freshness of the fish, and the fat of the pork ribs is like a match made in heaven, while heating and eating, the whole family drinks the soup and eats the noodles in a big bowl to taste fresh and dripping. The fish skin and fish bones removed when making fish noodles are not wasted, and the clever Huangmei people wrap the fish skins together with the fish bones, chopped green onions and minced ginger, and fry them in rapeseed oil until golden brown on both sides, and the fish meat is fried to a fragrant and delicious taste.
In the past, it was eaten during the winter solstice and the New Year, and the fish noodles were expensive, who had the conditions to eat them every day. Now it's different, as long as the child has a **, parents are willing to come and buy it. Juanzi lamented that the competition among college entrance examination candidates is fierce, and the competition for parents' logistical readiness is also getting more and more progressive.
After the child was admitted to Huangmei No. 1 Middle School, the family happily invited relatives to a banquet, and then Aunt Xu followed her daughter to Huangmei County and rented a house next to the school. Now send dinner three times a week, sometimes stew some chicken soup, sometimes make some lo-mei, yesterday the child called ** and said that she wanted to try fried fish noodles, she hurried up to Juanzi to ask for advice.
As long as she wants to eat, Mom can do it. This seems to be the number one criterion for being a good mother in China. No matter how fast the Internet economy delivers, it is not as fast as the high school student's mother's meal box, which may be the world's most responsive reservation and ordering system.
After the fish noodles are steamed, put some red pepper shreds, fungus, and shredded meat and stir-fry, add some seasonings and you can eat, your daughter will eat it, so that the nutrition is balanced. Juanzi enthusiastically taught Aunt Xu.
The children's ordering system is also becoming more and more "outrageous", and the traditional pork rib fish noodles are now often required to be made with sour and spicy, tom yum gong, curry...Every time they heard these requests, parents couldn't laugh or cry, but they turned their heads and obediently went online to learn new recipes and practices.
At first, mobile phones were not allowed at school, and parents and children agreed on a time and place to meet before each school day, and parents and children would discuss the next week's menu a week in advance. Now the school can bring the elderly machine, "often the child calls in the morning, and the mothers can change it within a few hours, and they can be delivered on time before lunch." ”
Aunt Xu has always praised her daughter for being sensible, and she doesn't ask for much, and occasionally she just wants to eat a bowl of hot dry noodles outside, or fried chicken wings in the fried stall. Aunt Xu was sometimes too busy, so she bought a bowl at the small shop outside the school and handed it in, and the children ate happily.
I always remind her to eat slowly and not to be in too much of a hurry. Aunt Xu said that it is also very particular to put the rice in the insulated lunch box, it can't be too cold, the child is not comfortable to eat, and it is not good for the stomach. It can't be too hot, so that the child will not eat quickly, and he will complain to his mother when he looks back.
I heard that two classmates in the class were sent to Hengshui for a year of exchange, and when they came back, they were as white as vampires, they said that they basically ran to eat dinner, and they ran back after eating in five minutes, and they said that dinner was basically eaten by running, and there was no sunlight at all. Aunt Xu sighed at the high school gossip she heard: "Of the two classmates who went to the exchange, one of them came back with a broken bone because everyone had to run when they went downstairs and didn't pay attention to falling down the stairs." ”
What is this, I heard that the children of several middle schools in Hebei cut all the boys' heads, because they didn't have time to blow their hair after taking a bath, so it was better to cut their hair than to sleep with their heads wet. ”
Aunt Xu, who graduated from a junior college, also admitted that in Hubei, children's academic qualifications are the hard threshold to enter society, although everyone knows that education is endless, and learning Xi is a lifelong thing, but they cannot ignore the whirlpool of college entrance examination education, and will inevitably be involved in competition. "If the children around me don't have a book, if you don't roll it, you won't be able to catch something that people can feel safe. ”
Therefore, in the fixed cognition of almost all parents, only if the child has good grades, the choice of future life can be greater. Those "lifelong stomach problems that left behind after five minutes of eating" or "missing out on sitting and eating with parents as a teenager and building a close family relationship" can eventually seem to be covered by good grades.
It would be nice to hold on for another year", Juanzi was relieved while filling Aunt Xu with a pound of fish noodles, she said that every accompanying parent could not sleep well for three or four years, but the optimistic Aunt Xu replied, "It's worth it, everything is for the children." ”
There is a landmark building in the center of Huangmei town, the stone tower, the dense eaves type brick tower built during the Tianxi period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the stone carving plaque of the Qianlong period is embedded on the lintel of the niche, and the book "ancient miracles are re-glorious".
Similar to the fate of the fish face, although the ancient tower has the complex craftsmanship of the two-story hand-to-hand arch and the corner column, it is not famous in Hubei Province, and there are not many tourists who come to visit. Only on the eve of the Chinese New Year's Eve and the college entrance examination, there is an endless stream of believers who come here to burn incense and worship the Buddha. They consciously lined up, chanting words and sincere thoughts around the ancient pagoda, begging for all the best in the new year, and most importantly, the title of the gold list of their children and grandchildren.
In the afternoon of daily life, there will be some folk artists here who come to the tower to sing a few songs of Huangmei tune, and the old people smoke hookah while playing cards, and listen to the music very happily. That afternoon, stepping on the minor tune of Huangmei Opera in the distance, I saw two middle-aged women in the distance praying and praying reverently around the pagoda over and over again.
Is this any special belief of your Huangmei people?"I was curious and asked the uncle who was playing cards at the table. One of them said with a cigarette in his mouth, "Probably their children are going to take exams." ”
A few wisps of winding smoke, in the county town of the ancient stone tower and the sound of pious prayers, constitute another scenery of the city.
At the last meal of Huangmei, Juanzi recommended us to try other special delicacies of Huangmei, such as stir-fried sauerkraut with wild duck, fried eel slices with green beans, spring rolls with soybean oil skin, and red lotus from Dushan, all of which are characteristics that you can't taste when you come out of Huangmei. I lamented that I had never heard of these dishes outside. Juanzi continued: That is, if you don't go out in this small city, who knows.
Back in Wuhan, we mentioned to our friend the fish noodles that Huang Mei had eaten, and he hurriedly sandwiched a few Jingzhou fish cakes in our bowls, saying that this was the big dish for the banquet, and then looked at us suspiciously: "What do you say, fish noodles?"Huangmei ** has fish noodles?”