Rice tea is mellow.

Being in a foreign land, in dog days, I can always think of rice tea in my hometown.

In order to understand my desire, my wife imitated my hometown and made rice tea. Although rice is light yellow, tea has a faint fragrance and tastes like that. Compared with rice tea in my hometown, I always feel something is missing.

What is missing? I asked myself. Is the rice too fine? Clean water? Or the heat of frying in a cauldron? I don't think so. What is lacking should be a pure fragrance, a touch and a yearning.

02

Rice tea in my hometown is a unique local snack in Hubei. It is very popular in my hometown and several surrounding counties and cities. From early summer to late autumn, rice tea can be seen from farm tables to hotels and restaurants. Because it is fragrant and delicious, slightly sweet but not light, slightly astringent but not bitter, it is eaten with steamed bread to satisfy hunger and thirst, and is deeply loved by people in hometown.

Li Shu, a native of Jiukou Town in his hometown, once sang "Mother's Rice Tea" in his hometown dialect, which was once popular on the Internet. It allows more hometown people to understand the pure fragrance of rice tea in their hometown and their mother's feelings in the local accent; And the wandering outside can evoke a yearning. Homesickness, mother's figure and face, and rice tea cooked by her mother will all come to mind in an instant and linger in my mind.

The production of rice tea is not complicated, it is very simple. Stir-fry the rice until it is yellow, put it in boiling water, cook the rice until it cracks, put it in a basin and cool it before eating. There is also hot food, but it is not as delicious as cold food; It is also fermented and sour overnight before eating. This taste is like sour plum soup, and it has a unique taste.

Although it is a local feature, it has always been elegant. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, it was a court food, and Empress Dowager Cixi regarded it as a summer delicacy. At that time, Wang Xing, the biological father of Emperor Jiajing, was enshrined in Anlufu, Hubei, which is my hometown Zhongxiang. When his biological mother, Jiang Huaijia Jing, was emperor, she was afraid that she could not eat anything, and all kinds of delicacies were not to her taste. Just as Wang Xing was furious, a chef brought Chiang Kai-shek his own rice tea. Unexpectedly, after eating, Jiang's appetite was wide open and he ate two or three bowls in a row.

As a result, the rice tea of folk farmers entered Wang Xing Palace; Later, Emperor Jiajing entered the Palace Bauhinia City, and his mother Jiang Ye brought it into the palace, which became an essential diet for the royal summer. It is said that the rice tea made of other tribute polished rice can't keep up with the taste of Zhongxiang brown rice. Since then, my hometown brown rice has also become a tribute.

My hometown is the hometown of longevity in the world, and the selenium content in the soil is extremely high, which makes the grains and beans grown in the soil rich in nutrition, so the rice tea made by Zhongxiang brown rice naturally tastes better than polished rice. I think the rice tea fried with polished rice that I ate in different places should be the same, not as fragrant and refreshing as brown rice.

03

The most authentic rice tea at home is made of wheat and rice. At that time, there was little rice in the plain area, and the rice harvested from Shan Ye every year was only used for steaming rice, and it was reluctant to be used for frying rice and tea. No one makes it from wheat and rice anymore. First, there is no large-scale cultivation of barley in rural areas; Second, with the improvement of living standards, people don't like the rough feeling of wheat and rice, but use brown rice in rice instead.

Rice tea made of wheat and rice, especially about my grandmother and rice tea, left a deep impression in my memory.

First, grandma's hard work in preparing barley and rice. Every year after the summer harvest, my grandmother will put the recycled barley on the drying basket to dry, and then put it on the stone mill to grind off the hulls of the barley when the weather is good. After the barley is dried, it is bagged for later use.

Grinding barley and rice is troublesome and hard. Barley skin is so thick that it needs to be ground three times to completely separate the skin from the wheat grains, and then the wheat skin and the wheat grains are separated by a sieve.

Adjacent to my home, there is a mill on the table of Xiangma's house. The villagers nearby all use this plate to grind barley and rice. Our home is near the water. Grandma has been busy grinding barley and rice since morning.

Put the cow on the mill stand, put the barley on the millstone and sprinkle a layer of water. Grandma followed the cow with a broom, driving the cow and sweeping the barley and rice that fell on the edge of the millstone. Under the tall elm tree, the old cow circled around the rice mill, the creaking sound of the rice mill frame and the sound of the little grandmother sweeping rice around the rice mill were deeply imprinted in my mind. Now that I think about it, it's sweet.

After the barley skin is loose, it can't be ground any more. They should be cleaned and put in a dry basket on one side. After drying, wheat bran seeds should be screened out with a sieve. After screening, put it on a grinding disc for grinding. Grinding, drying, screening, etc. After grinding for three times, the chopsticks are ground barley and rice by removing the last layer of wheat skin.

Second, my grandmother cooked rice tea and steamed steamed bread, which was extremely hot and very hard. Every morning in dog days, grandma will make breakfast and start preparing fried rice, MC Davi and rice tea in the kitchen. The heat and high temperature, the lack of ventilation in the kitchen, the fire in the earthen stove and the hot air in the hot pot make the whole kitchen look like a big steaming room. A spoonful of barley and rice has not been fried to golden brown, and my grandmother is already sweating.

In the gap between cooking rice and tea in the pot, grandma has to prepare steamed bread with rice and tea. This kind of steamed bread is called "bench leg" in my hometown dialect. When making, mix the noodles first, and then put them in a basin to wake up. When the noodles are hairy, cut them into long tubes, cut them into small pieces of Fiona Fang with a knife, and steam them in a steamer. This steamed bread is shaped like the leg of a bench chair where farmers sit, hence the name. This method is simple and time-saving, and villagers make it in busy farming season or hot summer.

Eating rice tea with this kind of steamed bread has both the sweetness of steamed bread and the freshness of rice tea, and the feeling on the taste buds is very wonderful. In summer, this kind of diet is very popular in rural areas, and every household arranges lunch and dinner in this way. This has also become a big hobby of mine!

After the wheat and rice in the pot are boiled and blossomed, the rice tea is almost ripe. Grandma put it in two big porcelain pots, covered it with gauze and let it cool. One is for the whole family to eat at noon and the other is for dinner at night. When the rice tea is cooked and the steamed bread is cooked, grandma will go to the garden to pick melons and beans to prepare for the vegetables of the day.

04

As far as I am concerned, grandma is always busy. Either busy in the kitchen or working in the garden. I once naively asked my grandmother, "Why not cook two more pots of rice tea and steam more' bench legs'?" In such a hot day, you don't have to cook and steam every day! "

Grandma's answer was that the rice tea cooked that day was delicious, so as not to turn sour overnight. Sour rice tea is afraid of bad stomach. Steamed bread is easy to get moldy after a long time. There are so many people in the whole family, only by preparing every day can we ensure that everyone is full! Just warm up and sweat!

My grandmother said it easily. I didn't understand my grandmother's intention at that time.

After dinner, I sat under the tree with my grandmother, who told me some stories and legends. Among them, the legend about rice tea also makes me unforgettable!

One summer long ago, the area where my hometown was located was very dry. A tenant farmer of a landlord's family could not pay food and was beaten by the landlord's family. The tenants are indignant. One night, a big fire destroyed the granary of the landlord's house. When the landlord saw the burnt wheat and Gu Mi, he could neither eat nor sell them, so he had to throw them into the wild.

Hungry farmers pick up these burnt grains of wheat, Gu Mi. After washing with clean water at home, put it in a pot and add water to boil. After cooking, it smells good, tastes sweet and the soup is delicious. From then on, the villagers were inspired by the burning rice grains, and put wheat grains and Gu Mi into the pot to cook, thus deriving rice tea, which has been passed down to this day!

05

My grandmother died many years ago, and I have left my hometown for many years. Grandma's rice tea can only appear in dreams, search in memories and recall in imagination.

In today's dog days, eating a bowl of rice tea in my hometown not only refreshes me, but also calms my mood and makes my thoughts fly!

Rice tea is really fragrant, just like the fragrance of lost years.

I never forget the rice tea in my hometown and yearn for it. ......