Memories of the New Year Every family eats candy cubes and sunflower seeds during the Chinese New Year, a custom that has continued since I can remember. During the Chinese New Year, the melon seeds with a lump of sugar in the mouth are sweet and fragrant, which is very delicious.
When I was young, that is, in the seventies and eighties of the last century, the candy bars for the Chinese New Year were bought, and most of them were hard candies, and there were very few gummies and milk candies, because the types and flavors of sugar were very limited. Sunflower seeds, commonly known as melon seeds, are grown by their own families, and sunflowers are accompanied by us from flowering to seeding. When the sunflower seeds are ripe, they will use a sickle to cut off the sunflower head full of melon seeds, put it on a dry and clean ground to dry thoroughly, and then use a wooden stick to knock down the melon seeds, and when the melon seeds are laid, the sunflower head should be buckled on the ground, so that the melon seeds are easy to fall and will not be broken at the same time. Sometimes we also eat a handful of raw melon seeds, and the fresh raw melon seeds have a hint of sweetness.
Often after eating the New Year's dinner at noon on the Chinese New Year's Eve, the melon seeds begin to be fried. Stir-frying melon seeds is a slow job, and the pot at home is generally not too big, so it often takes a whole afternoon to fry one pot at a time.
At that time, there were fewer peanuts, and relatives in Shandong's hometown who planted peanuts during the Chinese New Year could only eat them when they came by mail. Sometimes some dried sweet potatoes are also mailed, which are very rare.
Slowly, sunflowers are no longer planted at home, and melon seeds are bought directly, and they are fried and fried. There are shops selling peanuts, melon seeds and other dried fruits in the streets or markets, and the machines for frying melon seeds are convenient and fast, and the amount of fried melons at one time is large, and the heat is easier to control.
There are also quite a variety of sugar cubes, not only fruit candy with better taste, but also sorghum candy, halva, toffee, chocolate candy, etc., in short, there are all kinds of fragrant and sweet candies with different flavors.
Many years later, I still can't forget the scene of fried melon seeds at home during the New Year, that kind of childhood memory, that kind of New Year's memory, always in my heart.