In the eyes of the villagers, any humble ingredients in the mountains can be cooked with the simplest fire and water collision. While enjoying the gifts of mountains, they use wisdom to make them easier to store and carry. Baba was their invention. This kind of easy-going food can be mixed with any kind of ingredients to create thousands of staple foods, which is the most stubborn and familiar taste in the taste system of mountain people. The word "Baba" is also stored in people's daily speech and has become a unique warm memory of southerners.
△ buckwheat flower
The word "Baba" pronounced with the first sound belongs to the south.
"The moon Baba, sitting in your belly, going out to buy food, sitting in your belly with grandma, grandma came out to embroider, embroidered Baba ..." In this Changsha nursery rhyme, there is something we want to say.
"Ba" is a later word. From the structure of rice and Ba sound, it reveals the original intention of the lyricist-recording pronunciation and the origin between ba and rice. In fact, in the Yangtze River valley of China, especially in Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places, Baba is a kind of cake-shaped or spherical food pounded with glutinous rice or other grains. But the word "Baba" is not the patent of southerners, and there are differences between the north and the south. In the south, "Baba" is flat and its pronunciation is soft and waxy, just like the fog in the mountains. But there is no such food in the north. Baba is just misspelled by the population in the north, which means the same as poop. Baba, with the fragrance of rice, is destined to belong to the south between mountains and rivers. Just like itself, it is round and sticky, which is not only satisfying, but also a symbol of perfection and wishful thinking.
△ Artemisia
The word "Baba" in the south is inclusive, which can be seen from those words derived from Baba. Add verbs before and after the word "Baba" and you will have Baba, Baba, Baba, Baba, Baba, Baba and so on. Add nouns and you'll have Baba with shredded radish. Therefore, a full Baba can always give comfort to southerners, especially in the cold winter, when the family bakes Baba around the stove and watches Baba swell up when it is heated on the fire, and slowly wafts out the fragrance, the cold weather will warm up.
Baba is sacred to southerners.
In the rice-rich south, Baba is sacred, and it appears on many grand days.
△ pumpkin
People in rice-growing areas in mountainous areas are inseparable from Baba, and there is even the custom of Baba in Xiangxi. Southerners use Baba to express their good wishes, friendship with relatives and friends, and reverence for the gods. The custom of using Baba as a gift is particularly popular in western Hunan, and this kind of Baba is mostly represented by auspicious Baba. Baba is regarded as an "ingot" in Longtan area. When visiting relatives and friends, Baba is often given a base of 4, and the host takes Baba back, only less than the guests, otherwise it will be said that he looks down on the guests. When marrying a wife in Xupu Yao Village, besides money and pork, the matchmaker must also bring two bamboo baskets to Zhang Yue's home. In the old society, on the night when Tujia and Miao people in Xiangxi married their daughters, the man had to prepare the woman's family to marry Baba in tears. "Dowry Baba" is popular among Dong people in northwest Hunan. In addition to marriage, sacrifice is also inseparable from Baba. In Xiangxi, the vegetarian meal for sacrifice is made of two parts of indica rice and one part of glutinous rice, which is the staple food of gods and ancestors. After the sacrifice, Zhai Ba will eat separately, which means good luck.
Looking from the two lakes to the west of Yunnan, you will see another Baba world. In the old version of the eighteen eccentrics in Yunnan, there is a bait block. On the ancient tea-horse road, because it is easy to carry and preserve, it became the spare dry food for caravans, which witnessed the history of exchanges between ethnic minorities in southwest China and early international trade.
△ Pteris pinnata
Southerners always classify Baba very finely. According to the use, there are sacrificial Baba, sacrificial Baba, snack Baba and so on. In terms of time, there are year Baba, Dragon Boat Festival Baba, Chongyang Baba and so on. Baba was given different roles in different places and different occasions. Cold food festival, southerners use Alba (Youth League) to commemorate meson push; The Dragon Boat Festival commemorates Qu Yuan with Zongba. During the light snow season, Hakkas offer sacrifices to the cow god with Ciba, praying for a bumper harvest; On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, some places sent Kitchen God to heaven to report his work. Among Tujia people, the 28th of the twelfth lunar month is the signal of the New Year.
Even in today's rich material, the southerners' love for Baba is undiminished. In Changsha, if you walk into an alley casually, you may encounter sugar and oil Baba head-on. When sticky Baba is mixed with honey and oil, the taste buds will be greatly satisfied. In the streets of Guizhou, you can always see potato Baba from time to time. If you get up earlier, you can still see the children with schoolbags chewing while walking, while holding Baba.
△ sorghum
Baba the clown "someone always understands."
In the hands of ingenious southerners, Baba is versatile and can always satisfy people's appetite to the maximum extent. With glutinous rice and indica rice as the base, all natural gifts can be integrated into Baba. Mixing sweet potato, pumpkin and glutinous rice to make sweet potato Baba and pumpkin Baba; Coarse grains such as buckwheat, sorghum, corn, millet, etc. Combined with glutinous rice, it is coarse grain and has a moderate taste. The bitter and unpalatable fresh wormwood and mouse grass mixed with glutinous rice and indica rice is another delicious food with online value and taste. These are not enough, then wrap Baba with tung leaves and zongzi leaves to penetrate the fragrance of the leaves. If you are tired of eating Baba made of glutinous rice and indica rice, it is not a problem. Southerners who are good at making Baba look for fern roots, chestnuts and so on. From mountainous areas, and through the steps of pulping, filtering, precipitation and so on, it is made into powder suitable for Baba. After blending with water, it is extremely delicious whether steamed, fried, fried or boiled.
Different cooking techniques have different Baba temperament. Baked Baba, the shell is golden and crisp, the inside is white and soft, and it tastes a bit sweet; The fried Baba is more sticky, like a soft and sweet child; The cooked Baba fully absorbs the essence of the soup, and it will have different tastes according to different soups, like a mature woman with a variety of customs; Bombing Baba is all human fireworks. ...
△ child production
In this way, the special feelings of southerners for Baba were written into the genes and passed down.
Have taste and personality at the same time. Because of the different raw materials and practices, the specific forms and tastes of Baba vary widely from place to place. As far as Hunan is concerned, although Baba is mostly round, the sugar and oil Baba popular in Changsha is oblate, the size of a steamed bread, while the onion and oil Baba is concentric circles like doughnuts. The annual Ciba of Tujia people in western Hunan is "shaped like a full moon, with a diameter of about five feet, an average of about four inches, and a thickness ranging from three points to eight points". In Huarong County, Baba is wrapped in various ingredients in jiaozi, and in Yaoxiang, Xinning, Shaoyang, Baba is also cut into pieces.
The harmony of Baba not only wraps the wet glutinous rice in the south, but also defiles the temperament of Baba people. When it comes to the table, someone always understands.