Siheyuan's Journey Through the Ages

Chapter 14 The Boring Trap

"Since ancient times, Sichuan has been the land of abundance. Do you know what the land of abundance means? Do you know what it means: "There is heaven above and Suzhou and Hangzhou below"? No, these two places are the head and tail of the Yangtze River, and they are both excellent places. Shanghai cuisine is thick with oil and red sauce, rich in color and flavor. Are the people here poor?"

Sha Zhu continued, "Besides, whether the chili is expensive, the Sichuan pepper is expensive, the star anise is expensive, and the oil is expensive, your family is desperately trying to add ingredients that are more expensive than the food itself just to make it go well with the rice. Isn't that stupid? Since ancient times, the truly poor people don't eat anything. They just cook the food and eat it. Adding a little salt is considered New Year's Day."

"So what you mean is that food in wealthy places tastes strong." Someone was not convinced.

"Hey, you are setting a trap for me. I never said that, but only in wealthy places, not just places with a lot of rich people, but also places where ordinary people can live a good life, can they come up with new ideas for cooking. After all, rich people don't cook themselves, and cooking is still a job for poor people."

"Then why is it that there is no Beijing cuisine in Beijing, but only Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, and Cantonese cuisine? Beijing can't be considered poor, right?"

"This matter is complicated to explain, do you want to hear it?" After finishing his meal, Sha Zhu made a gesture of holding a cigarette with his fingers, and everyone understood it immediately. One of them quickly handed him a cigarette and lit it.

"I've said it before, cooking is a job for the poor. You can't do it without a broad base of poor people. But this requires three conditions to be met. First, you can't be too poor. If you are too poor, how can you care about the variety of food? It's hard to even get enough to eat, so why bother about variety? Second, you can't be too busy. Liuzi, you come from the countryside, so you must know what the hardest job is for farmers."

Liuzi spread his hands, bewildered.

"You fool, the hardest job for farmers is irrigation. I haven't been to other places, but I've been to Baoding, and it's the same as our BJ, the air is dry, the soil is dry, everything is dry. The most tiring part of growing crops is watering. My master's family is from Ya'an, Sichuan, and he told me that they don't have to worry about watering when growing crops there, and they have nothing to do when growing crops. All they have to do is loosen the soil and weed the crops on time, and they have to strictly control the number of times they do it. They eat dry food when they're busy, and liquid food when they're idle. If they grow more crops too often, it won't be enough to make up for the extra food they eat, and they'll still lose money when they settle accounts at the end of the year. It's better to take a break and save some food."

Sha Zhu took a deep puff of his cigarette and said, "Look, the four major cuisines are basically all from places with sufficient rainfall and well-developed water networks. Farming is much easier for the common people than in the north, especially in the northwest. The common people in these places are so tired from farming that they don't have that much time to focus on improving food. After working in the fields, they just want to lie down."

"The third condition is that the ingredients must be rich. In fact, the coastal cuisines have a lot of advantages, with a wide variety of ingredients. Cantonese cuisine has the most variety of ingredients because of the abundance of seafood, and pursues variety and freshness of ingredients. Huaiyang cuisine has a lot of inland rivers and river seafood. Since ancient times, salt merchants have been arrogant and officials and businessmen have been integrated. They pursue elegance, focusing on knife skills, plating and small flavors. Needless to say, Shandong cuisine has a long history and has been passed down from Confucius. It emphasizes the doctrine of the mean. It is the least distinctive cuisine but is also the one that can be accepted by the most people. As for Sichuan, the ingredients are much inferior to those in the coastal areas. Not to mention vegetables, the meat is basically a dead end with pigs. Pork itself has a strong flavor, so Sichuan people have developed seasoning to the extreme, with more than 20 flavors, not just spicy."

Ma Qing couldn't help but applaud at the side, "Brother Zhuzi, I didn't expect you to be such an expert."

"That's right. I have thought through everything related to cooking." Sha Zhu said proudly.

Ma Qing told Sha Zhu the purpose of their visit. Sha Zhu said that he was done with his work as well, and they wanted to go back to the courtyard to pray together. Ma Qing agreed, as it was great to have a companion.

After returning home, Ma Qing sat at his desk and reviewed what happened this afternoon. He felt that he was impulsive and should not have followed Wu Guoren out. Although logically he should be safe, such things are not 100% certain. Things have been going too smoothly recently and he has not been cautious enough. He should look for his head teacher tomorrow. After all, he is his most beloved disciple, and his brother-in-law is the deputy director of the police station, so he can use their relationship to help.

Ma Qing took out "My Motherland and I" from the drawer and made up his mind to add a safety lock to himself, improve his social status, and increase the cost of crime for criminals. After reading it for so long, he didn't find anything wrong with the lyrics, especially the words of this song, which are beautiful, simple, and a little naive. It's not wrong to say that he was written by a junior high school student. It was tailor-made for me. Thank you Zhang Li, rest assured, the composition will be left to Mr. Qin Yongcheng.

Ma Qing took out the letter paper and began to write the letter in a proper manner:
Dear editor:
I am an orphan. At the beginning of this year, my parents died in a car accident while on duty in the factory. In this great grief, the factory leaders and my parents' colleagues enthusiastically helped me to handle my parents' funeral and let them rest in peace. The factory also issued a pension for my parents and a monthly living allowance for me in accordance with the national pension policy. The street and police station handled my household registration, which solved my worries and made me feel the love of the Party and the people for me.

I am now a student at Red Star Middle School. During the spring outing, our school organized a tour of Tiananmen Square and paid tribute to the Monument to the People's Heroes. Looking at the portrait of Chairman Mao on the Tiananmen Tower, I love my hard-earned life even more. A kind of power surges in my heart, that is, a sense of historical mission to breathe and share the fate with my motherland. I have a song to sing to her:
My motherland and I cannot be separated for a moment. Wherever I go, a song of praise flows out.

……

I sing of every mountain,
I sing of every river,

There is smoke from cooking stoves, small villages, and ruts on the road.

……

My country and I are like the sea and the waves.
The waves are the children of the sea, and the sea is the support of the waves.

……

You are the sea that never dries up,

Give me forever, the clear blue waves and the song in my heart.

The above is the song in my heart. I want to sing it to our most beautiful motherland, but I don’t know the tune at all. I would like to publish it in your magazine and seek a musician who can compose a perfect melody for this song. I would like to dedicate it to my dear motherland on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the National Day.

Best regards.

1959/ 5/ 1

Ma Qingzi

Ma Qing finished writing in one breath, thinking about which newspaper to submit it to, the Beijing Daily, the People's Daily, the Workers' Daily, or the China Youth Daily. Forget it, only children make choices, I want them all, it's just a few stamps, it's a drop in the bucket. I can afford it.

Ma Qing then copied two more copies and said, "Forget it, I won't submit it to the Beijing Daily. I'm sorry, it's not that you are not good enough, it's just that I have high standards."

Ma Qing is actually a person with a really bad taste. Based on the quality of this song, he could have just submitted it to one publication. But maybe he was bored by his current boring life, so he submitted the same manuscript to multiple publications, but he didn't mention this at all in his letter, just to see if he could catch any fish.

(End of this chapter)