Pastries are "revived" again, retro New Year's fruit ceremony, sweet at four o'clock.
Every recent year, I always think of the scene when I went to my relatives when I was a teenager. My father took me on a snow-covered road and creaked forward, and he was going to take me to my uncle's house to pay New Year's greetings. In my hometown, the relatives of uncles and nephews are particularly important, on the second day of the Lunar New Year, you must go to your uncle's house, the season must be accurate, outdated and disrespectful, even if you go to the third day of the new year, your uncle's family will be unhappy with a straight face. I also like to follow my father to relatives, and I can eat some delicious food that I can't eat at my relatives' house.
New Year's greetings are essential. My father carried a fruit wrapped in brown paper, "fruit" is the name of my hometown, and it is generally wrapped in sweets such as honey three knives, oil dates, golden fruits, sugar dumplings, etc., usually four kinds, indicating the sweetness of the four seasons and the wealth of the four seasons. The fruit is packed in an open paper drawer, wrapped in kraft paper, and the kraft paper is covered with bright red fruit posts, dazzling red paper, which is printed with the New Year's painting of Fu Lu Suxi, as well as the name of the fruit, which is usually stained by the oil oozing out of the fruit, and has a shallow Chinese painting texture. Most of these fruits are tied with a rope made of pulp and tied into a cross buckle, representing a unique sense of ritual in that era.
To be honest, my father walked with the four bags of fruit in his hand. He was wearing a military coat and a Lei Feng hat, striding forward, the swing was not large, the four bags of fruits were swaying back and forth, against the backdrop of the snow field, it was extremely dazzling, and there were red fruit posts on a mass of yellow-brown kraft paper, and I was a little dazzled when it was shaking.
However, the fruit was really fragrant, and when my father shook the fruit, a sweet fragrance was brought to my nose by the wind of the wilderness, and the sweet, fat, sesame, and glutinous aroma of rice cakes was almost followed to my relatives' house ten kilometers away.
When I arrived at my uncle's house, I usually had to kowtow to my elders for a New Year's gift. After the ceremony, my uncle will take out the New Year's money and stuff it in my trouser pocket, and then open the fried fruit of my own house, the sweetness of honey three knives, the crisp of oil dates, the crispness of the golden fruit, the stickiness of sugar dumplings, and chew it.
I have seen my mother fry the fruit.
Honey three knives are made of flour, after mixing the noodles, wake up the noodles for 15 minutes, knead them into strips, press them into strips with a rolling pin, press them together, cut three lines, cook them until golden brown, and remove the oil; Then boil the sugar over low heat to make syrup, and after the fried honey is rolled on the syrup, sprinkle with fried sesame seeds, and it is ready. During the whole process, the stove was full of sweet fragrance.
As for the oil jujube and the golden fruit, the method is roughly the same, they should be mixed with glutinous rice flour and flour, with edible oil and noodles, after resting, kneaded into peanut-sized strips, the oil jujube is directly fried, wrapped in syrup, sprinkled with powdered sugar. The glutinous rice flour used for the big golden fruit is more, fried out, the size of a fist, and after a little syrup, sprinkled with sesame seeds. The taste of both foods is very similar, both are crispy and delicious, and you have to touch them with your hands, otherwise, you will fall into a sweet dregs.
Sugar dumplings are the sweetest, kneaded into lace dumplings, after cooking, immersed in the syrup, and when the syrup is almost cool, take it out, so it has the most sugar content, every time you eat one, you need to use boiled water to accompany it, otherwise, it will be sweet to the bottom.
In the old days, ordinary people's New Year's greetings were nothing more than these, and the sweetness that fell on weekdays was desperately made up for during the Spring Festival. The most interesting point is that the New Year's greetings are generally interchangeable, you carry it to his house, he carries it to your house, there are some interchange sweetness meanings, sweetness is superimposed on many layers, and the blessing is multiplied many times.
The times are developing, and many old delicacies have gradually faded out of people's field of vision, and there are always nostalgic people who invite them out to reminisce. In recent years, many pastry shops have "resurged" again, launching retro New Year's fruit gifts, which are usually cartons and old-style fruit posts. During the Spring Festival this year, I carried a few bags of fruits home to show my father, and although my father, who was almost old and didn't like candy anymore, he also asked me to open it like a child, eat a honey three knives, and squinted his eyes very happily - "Well, it's still the old taste!" My father sighed: "After so many years, I didn't expect anyone to remember these fruits ......."”
The spring breeze sent three knives of honey, the golden fruit was swollen and the oil dates were small, and the New Year's gift was mentioned today, and the sugar dumplings were paid in the old New Year. "This is my father's old limerick poem, and when I read it, I also think it is as sweet as the fruit of the New Year's greeting. (Li Danya).