Growing up in a water town in the south of the Yangtze River, I liked catching fish, shrimp and snails best during that growing period. In my hometown at that time, there were snails where there was water, just as there were fish and shrimp where there was water.
Rivers or rice fields have not become a regular place to contact snails. Snails in the river are sparse and not big enough to reach a bowl of vegetables for half a day, which is inefficient. There are fewer snails in rice fields, and three or five snails are rarely seen in endless water. But snails in rice fields are as big as children's clenched fists. Pick out the meat and cut it into pieces-if you don't cut it, you can make a green pepper and stir-fry snails.
The best place to touch snails is the pond in front of and behind the village. The water near the pond is not deep, only waist high. Through the crystal clear water surface, we can clearly see that the mud surface at the bottom of the pond is covered with dense snails, just like the stars in the sky on a summer night. When the water comes down, half of the body shrinks in the water, and the left hand holds the washbasin floating on the water, and the right hand sweeps along the mud surface, three or five at a time. One morning or one afternoon, you can fill the large iron bucket placed on the shore for holding snails, which has a unique sense of accomplishment.
Snails are also crawling in the cracks by the pond. Cracks are one of the habitats of snails. The wall of the crack was covered with snails of all sizes. If you reach in, you will find one. You can roughly choose to put the small snail back into the pond and the big snail into the washbasin or bucket.
Occasionally there will be fish in the crevices, even as big as a palm-sized stone crucian carp. As the name implies, the favorite place of this kind of crucian carp is the crack-the crack is the home of crucian carp. Stone crucian carp loves to eat small snails, which are simple and honest, grow fast, hide in cracks, stay at home, and can eat and drink. As soon as there is any trouble in the water, the stone crucian carp looks for it in a panic. Fortunately, it is safe to hide in it. Stone crucian carp did not expect that the safer the place, the more dangerous it is. The stone crucian carp curled up in the gap was blocked by our hands, and there was no chance to escape. Touching the stone crucian carp is an unexpected gain. Fortunately, a snail can catch ten eight-stone crucian carp, weighing two or three pounds, which is enough for a bowl of big dishes.
During the production team, the villagers were very diligent. At the end of each year, when the pond dries up, the silt must be removed. So the water in the pond is very clear and clean, and you can see groups of fish swimming in the middle layer of the water. The water is so clear that people occasionally drink it-in summer, we like to swim in the pond, have fun, have a water fight and have a mud fight, and we have to choke a few times every time, so we don't have to worry about diarrhea. In order to take care of the appetite of the villagers, the owner of the contracted pond tacitly never releases herring. Black herring likes snails best. As long as there are a few black herrings in the pond, snails will be eaten up. Now, no one goes to the pond to touch snails, and pond or reservoir contractors like to raise herring. Under the nourishment of snails, herring grows rapidly. He was a punk at the beginning of the year. When it was salvaged at the end of the year, it was already fat and strong, weighing seven or eight kilograms, and the pole was long. Black herring is delicious and expensive. From an economic point of view, it is the favorite of pond reservoir breeding contractors.
It is a very happy thing to touch snails in the pond in dog days. At two or three o'clock in the afternoon, the sun is like a stove. There is no wind. It's too hot to hum. There is no air conditioner or fan. The only two cattail leaf fans are patented by adults. The pores on my body are like Koizumi's eyes, sweating all the time. At this time, the best place to cool off is the pond. The whole family, regardless of sex, acted in unison, carrying iron drums and washbasins and set out for the pond. The man was topless, wearing floral underpants to hide his shame, and the woman went into the water with clothes on. The water in the pond is hot, but it is much cooler in the water than in the water. Put iron drums on the shore to store snails; The washbasin is placed on the water, followed by people, and used to temporarily hold snails. When a snail has half a pot, it seems to sink. Arrange a person to go ashore and pour the snails in the washbasin into the bucket on the shore. There are many snails and many people, and it feels fast. In less than two hours, the bucket was full and the basin was full. At this time, the weather was not so hot, so I surfaced, climbed ashore, carried buckets and basins, and returned with a full load.
There are mussels in the pond, the small mussels are in the mud near the shore, and the big mussels are in the mud far from the shore. My parents and sister touch snails on the shore, and my brother and I like to catch mussels in the middle of the pond. We kept stepping into the soft mud and exploring the hard mussels. Step on it, stand still, dive into the water and dig out the mussels under your feet. Mussels are generally as big as the palm of your hand, and some are as big as two palms together, which is very heavy to hold in your hand. Every time you catch mussels, it's an unexpected harvest. Surprise and sense of accomplishment are directly proportional to the size of mussels, and far better than touching snails. In my opinion, mussels are more delicious than snails. Snails have only one taste, while mussels have three kinds: the main meat "axe foot" looks like an axe, which is hard and takes a lot of effort to chew; There is a layer of meat in the middle of the axe foot, which is powdery and tastes like crab yellow; The most delicious is the mantle of mussels, which is as soft and continuous as a ribbon. At that time, I was very eager to find pearls from huge mussels and make a windfall. I caught thousands of giant mussels, but I never found pearls.
Old grandma is not idle either. She has filled the biggest pot on the wooden stove with water and is ready to make a fire to cook snails. Rinse snails and mussels with well water, pour them into a pot and boil until the water boils. Under the high temperature, snails and mussels involuntarily opened their mouths, revealing dazzling white meat. Focus on women's families-threading a needle is a woman's strength. The family moved to a toad stool and sat in front of a hall to pick snail meat with an embroidery needle. This is a meticulous job, only grandma and mom who like sewing all the year round are extremely patient, meticulous and serious; We become impatient after picking snails for a while-picking snails is far less exciting than touching them.
Smelly flies danced around us when they heard the news, taking the opportunity to grab something to eat. But flies cherish life and don't bite the snail meat in the sieve or basin, for fear of being fan-killed. They like to climb on the abandoned snails after being picked up, and even get into their shells. They can eat and have no competition with others. At sunset, a large basin of snails was finally picked up. Snail meat in a sieve or washbasin, green and white, layer upon layer, makes people drool.
There are few dishes in the evening, which are very rich. A bowl of boiled stone crucian carp with green peppers, a bowl of pickled peppers or fried screws with sour beans are all rare delicacies. The food is spicy and salty, which is very appetizing. Seven or eight people, two or three bowls of vegetables, everyone wolfed down and ate enthusiastically. A basin full of rice was blown away by the wind. Finally, pour the dishes without rice, rice and soup into half a spoonful of rice and lick them clean. Everyone is still wanting more, looking around with bowls, reluctant to put them down.
Autumn is coming, the northwest wind is getting stronger and stronger, the weather is getting colder and colder, and there are fewer snails in the pond. Under the greedy mouth, there are also warriors. After staying in the water for half an hour, their lips turned purple with cold and their bodies were covered with goose bumps. After landing, I held my arms in my hands and trembled all over. In late autumn and early winter, snails have another way to eat. My father likes to catch snails with a net called "triangle tapir" in the country. The triple net is wide and triangular, and the handle is very long, which is very laborious to use. Hold the long handle of the triangle ring, put it into the bottom of the water, shake it along the mud surface at the bottom of the pool, push it forward and float as soon as possible. Part of the tapir is exposed to the water, and then it is shaken vigorously, and the mud in the tapir is screened out, and the bottom of the tapir is full of inescapable snails. Sometimes one or two bowls can be fished up at a time, and the iron drum will be full after walking along the pond for half a circle. Along with snails, there are all kinds of small fish and shrimp, especially a native fish that looks like a scavenger. This kind of fish is not big enough, and it is also called wannian fish in rural areas; No thorns, also called meat fish. Meat fish is stupid, stupid and slow, always thinking that it will be out of danger if it moves, but it is still in the cage.
One of my favorite ways to eat is spindle snail. Wash the snail, soak it in clear water overnight, prick a hole in the snail's ass with a vise, then wash it, put it in a pot, stir-fry it with red pepper, ginger and shallots, and then take it out. When eating, hold the snail's ass with your hands, put your mouth to the snail's mouth, and suck hard. The snail meat hidden in the shell shoots into your mouth like a bullet. This feeling is refreshing. It is best to have three or five confidants when eating snails. On a starry summer night, we chatted while eating snails and drinking beer. That's when there was no fireworks in eat drink man woman.
I remember when I was studying in Changsha, I became bosom friends with three or five like-minded literary friends. Who collected the manuscript fee and shouted, gathered at the school gate at eight or nine o'clock in the evening, sat in an open-air meal and ordered two pots of snails, ordered three or five bottles of beer, sipped snails, talked about literature and talked about life, much like Li Qingzhao's feeling of "I don't know the way back when I am intoxicated, and I will return to the boat in the bustling night". Among those people, there is a Hunan girl who is gentle and generous and talented, and quite recognized by her brothers. While drinking heartily, they all forgot their gender and called themselves brothers. Sometimes when the snack stalls are closed, they reluctantly say goodbye and go back to the dormitory. The dormitory door has long been closed. Ask the doorman to open the door. Will be registered in detail, affecting performance appraisal. So under the influence of alcohol, you helped me climb the high fence and jumped down. That scene, the memory of youth, is still vivid and stirring people's hearts.
In the past twenty or thirty years, earth-shaking changes have taken place in the countryside. Due to disrepair, the ponds in front of the village and behind the house have been filled with silt, some of which have become wasteland and some have become dry land. At that time, the water in the pond was clear, blue waves rippled, fish swam around in the water, and the pond full of snails disappeared. The only consolation is that there is a big pond two or three hundred meters behind the house. People in that yard protected it well, built dams with cement, and used excavators to clean up silt every three to five years, which is a symbolic existence for childhood memories. Now in summer, no one has touched the snails in the pond, and the owner of the contracted pond has released a lot of herring. Every year when I go home for the New Year, enthusiastic villagers send herring home, saying that I grew up eating snails. Looking at the big herring, I think that the growth of a big herring must at least eat thousands of snails. Black herring loves snails, so do I. Maybe I was a big herring in my last life.
Menstrual sons, still farming in that field, dug a pond culture with an excavator. Every year in the dry pond, under the care of the menstrual period, they pick up the snails, pick out the meat and keep it for me, saying that I have loved it since I was a child. However, the water in the pond is not as pure as before, and the snail smell obviously has a smell produced after being soaked in sewage all the year round, which is completely different from what I remember.
June 2020 18 Beijing Youanmen