Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 590: The authentic Laba Festival in Beijing, Master Lu is going to shoot a martial arts film?
On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in Beijing, in addition to eating Laba porridge in the morning, people also make Laba garlic.

According to Professor Zhu, an expert in the second most particular food at home, purple garlic is the first choice.

He said this kind of garlic has plump cloves and a strong spicy flavor.

So, according to Professor Zhu's instructions, my elder sister went to the vegetable market a few days ago to pick out purple garlic with smooth skin and firm cloves.

Used as an ingredient for pickling Laba garlic.

After finishing the call and coming out of the study, Fangyan went to the kitchen and saw his elder sister, daughter-in-law and sister-in-law gently peeling the garlic skin, leaving only the white cloves, and then putting them into clean glass bottles one by one.

Rice vinegar is another key here. Ordinary rice vinegar is carefully selected to lay the foundation for the unique flavor of Laba garlic. Rice vinegar is slowly poured into the glass bottle containing garlic cloves to ensure that each garlic clove is immersed in the vinegar. After the bottle mouth is carefully sealed, the glass bottle is placed in a corner.

As time goes by, under the influence of low temperature, the garlic cloves gradually undergo wonderful changes, slowly turning from white to light green, and finally to emerald green, as attractive as jade.

As the old saying goes: After Laba Festival, it’s the New Year.

When it comes to eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year, Laba garlic and Laba vinegar come in handy.

At that time, the whole family will sit together to make dumplings. After the dumplings are cooked, they will be taken out and put into a bowl. Pick up a dumpling, dip it in Laba vinegar, and then take a bite of the green Laba garlic. The sour and spicy taste will instantly spread in your mouth, which not only neutralizes the greasiness of the dumplings, but also adds a unique flavor.

Laba garlic is often used by the people to treat some minor illnesses. It has a certain effect of stimulating the appetite and helping food. For people with poor spleen and stomach digestion function and loss of appetite, eating a moderate amount of Laba garlic can stimulate appetite and help digestion.

This is consistent with the concept of traditional Chinese medicine that promotes digestion by regulating the spleen and stomach functions.

After Laba Festival, people start making preparations for the New Year. Then, during their free time, they go to the market or shops to buy New Year's goods.

For adults and children, candies, melon seeds, and peanuts are indispensable, as well as the word "Fu", door gods, and a portrait of a teacher with a red background, which are all the purchasing targets.

A group of people in the kitchen were making Laba garlic while discussing this matter.

The time for this year's New Year has already been decided, and we will spend it in Fangyan's large courtyard home.

It's lively and crowded, and the place is spacious. It has water, electricity and gas, so it's much more convenient than other places. After the New Year, everyone goes to college, and then this place becomes deserted.

If we want things to get lively again, we can only wait for the family gatherings every weekend.

Fang Yan said to the people at home:

"By the way, the school will be here in a few days to deliver the admission letters. We will have to hold a ceremony and do some interviews and photo shoots. I'm telling you in advance so you can be prepared."

The eldest sister smiled and said:

"See, what did I say before? The top scorer in the college entrance examination will definitely not receive the admission letter quietly. The schools are so close, so they will definitely make a big fuss about it."

Zhu Lin said to Fang Yan:

"Did you call the school to ask?"

Fangyan nodded:
"Well, I wanted to ask when the specific notice would be sent out, but they just told me to come and hold a ceremony in a few days. I didn't want to do it, but since they said so, I'll just treat it as publicity for the school and help promote traditional Chinese medicine."

Zhu Lin nodded, and then asked:
"By the way, didn't you say that a lot of people came to see you for medical treatment this afternoon? Why are you back now?"

Fangyan explained to his wife:

"Not many people came. I came back after seeing the doctor."

At this point he remembered something and immediately added:
"By the way, there is a famous writer among the patients today. If Fang Chen is interested, he can be brought to visit the old man."

The elder sister at the side asked curiously:
"Who is it?"

"Contradiction." Fangyan responded.

Hearing this name, the eldest sister was stunned, and the sister-in-law beside her asked:
"The one who wrote so many novels?"

"Yes, it's him." Fang Yan nodded.

Only then did the elder sister react and exclaimed:
"Oh, he is really a great writer."

The other two nodded. This man is older now and not as active as he was in previous years.

However, his influence in the literary world is still quite large, and many people will mention him or his works.

At this time, Zhu Lin asked curiously:

"By the way, what's wrong with him?"

Fangyan did not mention that his lungs were already festering, so as not to scare his family. He simply said:

"As he got older, his immune system weakened. He caught a cold in the winter, which led to lung disease. Western medicine couldn't cure him. Then someone from the Writers Association went to visit him, showed him my essay, and recommended him to me for treatment."

As expected, after hearing Fangyan speak so easily, everyone stopped paying attention to the condition. Instead, Zhu Lin asked Fangyan curiously:

"Did he comment on your college entrance examination essay?"

Fang Yan nodded and said:
"I've reviewed it. The old man said he wanted to see me because he wanted to see if someone who writes such good articles is also good at Chinese medicine?"

When Zhu Lin heard this great writer praising her husband like this, she immediately smiled and said:
"Then this is just a compliment to you on your good writing!"

Fangyan smiled and shook his head:
"Maybe they are just being polite to me. After all, they came to see me for medical treatment, so I should at least say a few nice words, right?" Fang Yan's words made his wife laugh. Zhu Lin said happily:

"Haha, you think the great writer is just saying nice things just to cure his illness?"

Sister-in-law Zhu Xian also said happily:

"That's right, brother-in-law...you're so funny. I can tell from the articles the old man wrote that he is definitely not that kind of person."

Even the eldest sister nodded in agreement, thinking that the dialect was ridiculous.

Fangyan was also helpless, as he was saying that the old man was polite.

But then again, Fangyan remembered that the old man said at the time that his perfect essay would be published in the magazine "People's Literature", but he didn't know exactly when that would be.

Fangyan planned to go to the ward after dinner and ask the old man for some information.

After preparing the Laba garlic, I started to cook lunch.

The Laba porridge eaten in the morning will definitely not be eaten at noon. Of course, some families eat it all day, but Fangyan’s family is an exception. The family members get together with great difficulty, so of course Fangyan still has to cook a good meal for everyone.

As a result, when Fangyan was cooking, someone knocked on the door.

When the family opened it, they found out that it was the dean, who came to deliver Laba noodles today.

This Laba noodles is relatively rare. In the past, in some places in the capital, especially those families who did not grow rice and lacked rice, would choose to eat Laba noodles.

The wife of the dean grew up in a rural area near the capital, and this habit has been maintained until now.

Today, the dean's family sent over a large bowl of noodles and a large bowl of臊子.

The臊子 is made of diced carrots, white radishes, cabbage, bean sprouts, tofu, etc., plus diced meat prepared in advance, and then fried in a pan to make a bowl of臊子.

Don’t worry about how it tastes, this is sent from the dean’s home.

You have to collect it anyway.

Not only do you have to accept it, you also have to return the favor.

It just so happened that Fangyan had cooked a lot of dishes in the kitchen, so she used her home lunch box to pack several dishes for the dean's home.

This completes the exchange ceremony.

Here, there is a custom of giving each other Laba porridge as a way of building relationships and enhancing neighborly friendship. Fangyan immediately thought that someone else would come later.

So after seeing off the dean and his wife, we immediately went to the kitchen to prepare some more dishes. Sure enough, Director Hu and his wife from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Peking Union Medical College also came. They brought Laba porridge with the characteristics of their hometown, which contained ingredients such as water chestnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, Euryale ferox, red dates, chestnuts, black fungus, green vegetables, enoki mushrooms, etc. It was also the first time I heard the local dialect.

Later, Director Feng from the subdistrict office also brought Laba porridge.

Fortunately, Fangyan prepared a lot of dishes, so we were able to complete the holiday gift-giving with them.

Then Fangyan thought of the two big sponsors of the hospital. Although the hospital would certainly prepare holiday meals for them, Fangyan also had to express his gratitude. They had given so many gifts, and he certainly could not forget them during the holiday.

So he called his wife, and the couple took the home-cooked dishes to the hospital to deliver them to the Zhou and Hu families.

If it weren’t for the fact that Mr. Shen is not suitable to eat these things at the moment, Fang Yan would even want to send him some.

After sending the baby off, Fang Yan and his wife returned home, and the family had lunch.

Originally we were just going to eat food cooked in the local dialect, but three families came to give us gifts, so now the Laba Festival lunch has become a hodgepodge.

But the taste is actually quite good.

After lunch, Fangyan and his friends heard a lot of firecrackers outside.

It's not like before where they were getting closer and closer, but now they are being placed in all directions.

When I went out to take a look, I found that some families who had received the notice were setting off firecrackers to celebrate.

There were at least five or six families setting off firecrackers, and there were quite a few slums around. From this, we can calculate that the admission rate is indeed a bit low.

Of course, the notification letters from various universities are not sent out at the same time, so it is possible that for example, Fangyan’s notification letters have not been issued yet.

A little later, Master Lu Donghua called Fang Yan and told him that Xu Feng, who had been there last time, was in much better condition now.

Now I can express my meaning clearly, which shows that my dialect judgment is very accurate.

In addition, Master Lu Donghua also revealed some explosive news.

According to him, early this morning, a director from the Beijing Film Studio came to his home and invited him to shoot a movie, to be a martial arts instructor and also to play a cameo role.

It was the first time Fangyan heard of such a thing, so he asked the master what movie it was.

The old man said the name of the movie is "The Mysterious Big Buddha", the director is Zhang Huaxun, and it is said that the filming will be done in Leshan, Sichuan. The person who recommended Mr. Lu was his old acquaintance, Director Chen's father Chen Huaikai.

(End of this chapter)