Text: Zheng Xueliang.
No matter this year, whether you are happy or poor, earn a lot of money or empty sleeves, the New Year, the whole family reunites, eat a delicious and hearty Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, temporarily forget the past troubles and sorrows, enjoy the reward of hard life, but also pray for the transfer and expectation of the New Year, which is probably the greatest meaning of eating a reunion dinner for the New Year.
In today's era, the market is rich in materials, people do not worry about food and clothing, most families prepare a table of Chinese New Year's Eve meals is not difficult, and eating a group New Year's meal, no longer particularly care about the enjoyment of the tip of the tongue, more concerned about spiritual satisfaction, this point, compared with forty or fifty years ago, is still very different.
Forty or fifty years ago, during the period of large rural collectives, social development was relatively backward, materials were very scarce, and people were indeed living relatively poor. At that time, what was the situation of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner of the members of the production team? Is it really like what Mo Yan said, after the Chinese New Year, you can't even eat cabbage dumplings?
After the great writer Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature, his mother's claim that she was beaten for gleaning ears of wheat and eating coal cores was widely questioned. There is such a very interesting paragraph in the article "Selling Cabbage", saying that he planted 104 cabbages at home, and sold 101 cabbages, and the 3 cabbages hanging on the wall were originally used to make dumplings for the New Year, but when the Spring Festival was approaching, his mother ruthlessly took these 3 cabbages to the big market and sold them.
So, during the period of the big collective, what did the members of the rural production team eat for the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, is it really as Mo Yan's work said, so poor that they can't eat cabbage dumplings for the New Year?
It is a southerner, born in the mid-to-late sixties of the last century, his hometown does not eat dumplings for the New Year, eats rice, and from the experience of childhood, in the era of the production team, despite the usual hardship, the Chinese New Year's Eve meal for the New Year is a high-profile luxury.
The views and impressions of the production team period can be summed up as bitter, tired, and poor, as far as the "eating" of survival is the first place, some people say that they can't even eat enough at that time, and they have a lot of hungry days, and some people say that they can basically eat and dress at that time, otherwise how can they give birth to so many children? It makes sense, the level of poverty and living standards vary from region to region.
When I was sensible, it was already the seventies, and I felt that the economic conditions and daily life were okay at that time, and on the issue of eating, rice supplemented with sweet potatoes, pumpkin and other grains could ensure that I would not starve. But eating well is everyone's dream, and it is people's hope and motivation, according to the current fashionable saying is people's yearning for a better life, at that time the most expected is to be able to have fish and meat to eat, but such opportunities are too few and too few, children are greedy, sometimes want to eat meat dishes are inevitable not to complain, parents are half scolding and half coaxing and saying: It's not the New Year, what fish to eat, the New Year, eat with you.
Therefore, in those days, people looked forward to it day by day, month by month, looking forward to the early arrival of the New Year. During the Chinese New Year, every member of the family will do their best to prepare a sumptuous reunion banquet to reward the whole family. During the period of the production team, in the hometown area, the most common and common New Year's dinner of the members mainly had three major dishes: preserved pig's head, stewed chicken vermicelli, and braised fish.
I like to eat pig's head in my hometown during the New Year, and it is a preserved pig's head, and it is still the same. Pig's head, the hometown people are commonly known as "Caitou" or "Wang Fairy", "Cai" and "Wang" mean beautiful, now there is a special dish in the hotel called "Hongyun Dangtou", which is steamed pig's head, just in line with the meaning of the New Year's celebration, and becomes the main dish of people's reunion banquet.
During the production team, where did the pork head meat of the members come from? There is another issue involved here. Now, some people say on the Internet that during the production team period, the New Year is approaching, and the production team collectively kills a pig and distributes it to the members' families for the New Year, which makes it particularly puzzled. Eating pork during the Chinese New Year has to be solved collectively?
In that area, the peasant families feed their own pigs, generally feed one to two, one head to sell food station, called "task pig", one head to keep their own New Year's food, called "New Year's pig", the task of feeding pigs is basically contracted to the children at home, and playing pigweed has become the main housework of children at that time.
Hometown loves to eat bacon, generally at the beginning of the month to kill the pig of the year, after killing the pig, the whole pig is used to smoke bacon, in time to enjoy the Spring Festival. The pig's head is used for the New Year's banquet, and the rest of the bacon and sausages are eaten slowly during the Spring Festival to entertain the guests and the whole family. As for individual families with small populations or poor health conditions, there is no need to worry about feeding pigs, relatives and friends will sponsor them. Therefore, in the era of the production team, the pork of the members for the New Year is still guaranteed.
The second main course is stewed vermicelli with chicken, which means "good luck" and vermicelli means "long and long", which is delicious and auspicious. As for chicken, this one is better, during the production team, which member doesn't feed a few chickens?
For example, in the feeding of livestock and poultry, some people said that members were not allowed to feed pigs, chickens and ducks, and said that they wanted to cut the tail of capitalism, which was a bit of nonsense. The only restriction is that these can only be used as side jobs in the family, mainly fed by the elderly and children in the family, and the main business of adult members is to participate in collective labor to earn a share of the work.
The third main dish is braised fish, which is better understood, "more than every year", compared to the two ingredients of pig and chicken, the New Year's fish of the members' families is not worried, there is no shortage, because the production team has to dry the pond to divide the fish, as a welfare to the members' families.
At that time, each production team has one or two ponds, these ponds have the function of washing, irrigation, breeding, in the spring, the production team collectively buys fish fry and puts them into the pond, feeding are carp, grass carp, silver carp and other home-cooked fish, to the end of the month of the New Year a few days before the dry pond.
When the dry pond divides the fish, it is the last collective carnival of the whole production team of men, women and young people, after the pond is drained, pick up the size of the fish, and then divide it to each household according to the size of the species, each household can get seven or eight catties of fish, the New Year is more than enough, choose a carp weighing two or three catties for the New Year's dish, and the other is smoked into dried fish like pork, and individual members with poor family conditions will also take the fish of the production team to the market to sell, in exchange for pocket money for other uses.
Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed. The ingredients for the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner are ready, just waiting for the arrival of Chinese New Year's Eve. On Chinese New Year's Eve, the whole family was busy. Chopping wood to make a fire to boil water, burning a pig's head, killing chickens and cutting fish, a faction of joy and liveliness. In those days, although the dishes of the Chinese New Year's Eve were simple, but the New Year paid attention to abundance and abundance, the dishes were not enough to make up, each dish was filled with two or three bowls, if the conditions were good, in addition to pig's head, chicken, fish, lamb, dried beef, etc. would be added, so that there would be a ** bowl of dishes, full of tables.
When the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner is set on the table, the family begins the annual feast. In those days, although it was usually difficult to taste meat, this day's Chinese New Year's Eve dinner made you let go of your belly to eat, and you ate it until your mouth was oiled and your belly was round.
In the era of the production team, although the Chinese New Year's Eve meal of the peasant members' families was only ordinary ingredients such as pig's head (meat), local chicken, and fish, and there was no complicated and exquisite cooking, compared with the daily shabby and poor life, the Chinese New Year's Eve meal could be regarded as "luxury" and "luxury", allowing hard-working and thrifty people to enjoy a gluttonous feast, and giving people infinite comfort and motivation to move forward in difficult times.