(阖丰).
My hometown is in the south of Shaanxi, in the "Xunyang" of the Qinba Mountains. Because it is located in the south of the Qinling Mountains, the climate is mild, there is no scorching heat in summer and no severe cold in winter, which is very suitable for the growth of sweet potatoes.
People here have grown sweet potatoes for generations, and there is also the Xi of processing and eating sweet potato vermicelli, at least for as long as I can remember, almost every household in my grandfather's generation must make some sweet potato flour for their own consumption. In the local area, people like to grow sweet potatoes in the shape of turnips, with red skin and white hearts, because this kind of sweet potatoes taste better both in terms of eating and flouring. Every year in September of the lunar calendar is the harvest season of sweet potatoes, at this time all the courtyards of all the houses are stacked with sweet potatoes dug back, after some selection, some are stored for human consumption, some are used as pig feed, a small part is used as seeds for the next year, and the rest are all processed into sweet potato powder.
When I was a child, there was a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes one year, and my grandfather began to clean the sweet potatoes to prepare for sweet potato starch after the farm was busy in the tenth lunar month. The weather was not very cold at that time, but the water temperature was already relatively low, and it was basically cold and biting, but in spite of that, he and his grandmother washed thousands of pounds of sweet potatoes with rough and chapped hands, and used his hunched back to send all the baskets to his neighbors, where they were processed and extracted with a crusher. When the crusher crushes the sweet potato, after repeated rinsing, filtration, precipitation, and cooling, there is a snow-white sweet potato starch, which takes about a week to complete at that time. Grandpa said that in the past, when there was no grinder, tools made of neat and dense holes nailed in the iron sheet, and sweet potatoes were rubbed on top of it in the hand and used as a grinder. Often a small amount of sweet potatoes takes a long time to crush, and the hands are covered with blood blisters and scars. After the fresh sweet potato starch is made, my grandmother will first make cold noodles for us to eat, basically mixed with sesame oil in chili sauce or stir-fried with pickled sauerkraut, even if I have eaten two large bowls, I always feel that I have not eaten enough, and the feeling of eating cold noodles has never been felt in many years to come.
The best season for making sweet potato vermicelli is the 39th season of the lunar month every year, which is called "leaky noodles" in our local area, and the leaking noodles are generally carried out at night, and in many cases they will be busy in a relatively cold environment for several days and nights, because the traditional production process is to naturally freeze the sweet potato vermicelli just out of the pot, and then naturally freeze it at night when the temperature rises below zero, and then thaw it naturally or artificially assisted thawing when the temperature rises during the day the next day to reach the level of high-quality sweet potato vermicelli. At that time, my grandmother would make an appointment with several neighbors in advance to help out, and then ask for a leaky powder master with the same surname as ours. That master is also my grandfather's generation, he has a certain amount of powder leakage technology, it is said that he has been working in the flour room when he was in the production team, and he also has a powder leakage machine similar to the hand-pressed dumpling noodles, although the machine looks very shabby, but it was relatively advanced in the countryside at that time. I heard my grandmother say that in the past, the gourd scoop was drilled into a small hole and used as a tool for leaking powder, at that time, the technical mastery and labor intensity of leakage powder was very large, and it was often not much sweet potato starch but it required several strong people to take turns to take turns to take turns to complete the scoop.
Before the leakage starts, you need to boil two large pots of boiling water on the big stove, and then thicken the sweet potato starch with boiling water in a certain proportion and mix it into a dough, and then put the dough on the powder leaker that is supported on the pot in advance, manually twist the spiral of the flour press to squeeze the noodles into the boiling water in the pot, and after the noodles are boiled until they float, they are scooped up and put in cold water to cool down and neatly put on the bamboo pole to drain and freeze ......The whole process is clearly divided and orderly, just like a production line in a processing workshop. When the thawed vermicelli dries a little, grandma will evenly and neatly roll the vermicelli on the bamboo pole into countless small rolls. Then use our local palm leaves to roll up one by one, each small roll is like a delicate and dazzling white marble or jade ornament. Each roll is also about the number of a plate, and after a few days of drying, all the vermicelli production is completed, usually grandma will give the made sweet potato vermicelli to neighbors, relatives to try some fresh, the rest are stored in bags, in my impression there are very few sold to others, if the vermicelli is more often can be stored for more than two years without any problem.
After the fresh sweet potato vermicelli is ready, grandma will often soak it in warm water for one or two laps in advance, and stir-fry it with lean pork, shredded sour radish, and pickled pepper to eat ......I still remember that whenever I went to my grandmother's house, she liked to make vermicelli soup with bacon, cabbage, and garlic sprouts, which was very delicious no matter which way of cooking. The vermicelli is crystal clear, strong and elastic. The smooth and fragrant taste is always the purest hometown taste. Many years later, my grandfather and grandmother, as well as my grandfather and grandmother, have passed ......awayAnd the grandfather who used to help us leak vermicelli also passed away, and his son (my uncle) inherited his craft ......Later, my father's generation felt that the traditional process ......of making sweet potato flour was too cumbersome and hard, so few people gradually made sweet potato flour anymoreSince then, I have been working in other places, rarely going home, and whenever I see sweet potato flour on sale in the supermarket, I will buy some, but I can never eat the delicious and unforgettable sweet potato flour feeling of my hometown.
In recent years, I heard my father say that the uncle who leaked the powder planted a lot of sweet potatoes every year and carried out a certain scale of sweet potato vermicelli processing, and he also retained the traditional production process, the only difference is that he now uses more advanced electric mechanized equipment, which replaces the previous manual drive mode and improves the processing efficiency of sweet potato flour. Every year, he processes a lot of sweet potato vermicelli for online and offline sales, and creates his own brand of "Laofengjia Sweet Potato Noodles". The sweet potato vermicelli he processed is not only well-known in our local area, in short supply, but also has a good reputation, and even exported to other places, and has been well received by customers!
I still couldn't go home for the Spring Festival this year, my father helped me order 20 catties of sweet potato vermicelli from my uncle and rushed it to Shanghai in the week before the Chinese New Year, when I ate the sweet potato vermicelli mailed from my hometown thousands of miles away, I couldn't help but shed tears of excitement ......It is still the indescribable rich and mellow flavor of sweet potato flour that I have eaten since I was a child until I grew up, which evokes my nostalgia for my deceased relatives and also reminds me of my hometown.