Fern Starch Cakes: The Revived Old Taste
Source:Shaoyang International CultureWriter:Liu RyuijunTime:2014-07-08Clicks：次
In the west of Hunan in South China, everything takes on the colors of golden yellow, gray yellow and maturity when season turns into winter. Then the mountains lose its colorful splendidness with red, green and yellow nuts and berries disappearing. But this does not mean that nature has stopped presenting humans with wealth. Instead, according to its internal principle, nature factually fosters all the creatures on the earth. Mountain people familiar with forest secrets are able to find treasures in mountains in any season.
This time the treasure that mountain people want to find is fern roots. As the new year is approaching, chicken, duck, fish and meat gradually loses their abilities to excite people’s tired appetite. Then reasonably and naturally, smooth and savory fern starch cake come out of people’s memory. It used to be cheap but delicious food that saved countless lives. Many old people have an emotional complex about it. It is a long course from searching for fern roots to making fern starch cakes and it demands such great strength and energy that a woman cannot achieve the whole task. And it is not effective work. Because of this, fern starch cakes have disappeared for years. This year the whole winter is warm with the sun shining in the sky and people do not need to stay around a fireplace to keep warm. So an idea hits the mountain people. Since it is an idle season and especially, so many people cannot forget the taste of fern starch cakes, they would like to make some as a temporary measure to memorize the past starving and suffering years.
In terms of plants, fern is a wild perennial sporogony herb, wich flourished in the Carboniferous Period. Today it still covers plains, forests and hills as a power in the plant world. In March of spring mountain people will pick tender fern stems as food. But now what they want to find is its old roots. The older the better, as the old saying goes, “The old is stronger”. They are easy to find but sometimes they are hard to find. The reason for easy finding is that where there are withered fern leaves there are roots in soil. There is also a reason for hard finding. If you do not know about fern, you cannot wait to brandish your hoe and dig. As a result what you dig out is just thin roots that have grown for only one year or more and contain little starch. Your work is a waste of strength. However, the mountain people who had mixed well with land all their lives were confident in this job. They went up to a slope where grew fern with only a few leaves. They were certain that it was not what they wanted most.
Finally they chose another slope, where the soil was soft and humid, and which was thickly covered with abundant fern leaves. In this place, the people said, it was even probable to dig out “the forefathers” of fern roots, which contained the richest starch. And soft soil required less labor of digging. All the people were expecting the true appearance of fern roots. But it was more difficult than expected. They abandoned thin roots in the surface soil without hesitation and continued digging deeper and deeper to the depth of their kneels and then to their upper legs. It seems that fern roots have the same character as lotus roots, that is, they both go into depth. Finally brake roots could be seen, black, rough and thick like mountain people’s skin. They had hidden underground for many years and fully accumulated white starch. Digging fern roots is a hard physical job. The roots are well developed across each other under the ground, So it is not easy to get a load of fern roots. But the mountain people said they would not give up to let their carrying poles feel ashamed now that they had began.
They did not stop till the sun sank town the west kill. The mountain people, with their clothes wet through, carried the fern roots singing delightedly love songs learned when young all the way home. They put the roots in a pond to leave the yellow soil on the roots being washed by the clear water. The day’s tiring work ended for the moment.
The next day, it was sunny as it had been the day before. The mountain people picked out the roots from the pond and cleared the remaining soil. Then they put them on a large slabstone to be smashed. Two men did the smashing work with hammers. The work required strength. A green hand would have his arms shocked to feel pain and his hands to feel numb. It made the people see the destiny of a traditional skill. Young generation can make computer programs but can not swing their father generation’s wooden hammers. In the course of two men’s perseverant smashing, the roots gradually became small pieces in an ideal form..
On the level rice-sunning ground, women had prepared two large wooden vats, one for filtration and the other for precipitation. The people put the smashed roots into the filtrating van to have them thoroughly washed so that the starch would get dissolved. Then the water with dissolved starch was poured in the precipitating van. The van was left there to wait for wonders. It did not take much time. One night later, on the bottom there was a thick layer of what was gray white. It was fern starch, which is not as white as sweet potato starch, but even finer and smoother, and can meet your strict demand for food.
Women poured out the water carefully and got out the starch with a dipper. A perfect food material of a well-known dish was ready. It could be prepared in several ways. It was made into cakes as food for husbands who were about to travel afar. Or it was dried in the sun for a long preservation. The fern starch cake permeated with the taste of sunshine might be more affective and attractive.
(translated by Yi Daoqun)
This time the treasure that mountain people want to find is fern roots. As the new year is approaching, chicken, duck, fish and meat gradually loses their abilities to excite people’s tired appetite. Then reasonably and naturally, smooth and savory fern starch cake come out of people’s memory. It used to be cheap but delicious food that saved countless lives. Many old people have an emotional complex about it. It is a long course from searching for fern roots to making fern starch cakes and it demands such great strength and energy that a woman cannot achieve the whole task. And it is not effective work. Because of this, fern starch cakes have disappeared for years. This year the whole winter is warm with the sun shining in the sky and people do not need to stay around a fireplace to keep warm. So an idea hits the mountain people. Since it is an idle season and especially, so many people cannot forget the taste of fern starch cakes, they would like to make some as a temporary measure to memorize the past starving and suffering years.
In terms of plants, fern is a wild perennial sporogony herb, wich flourished in the Carboniferous Period. Today it still covers plains, forests and hills as a power in the plant world. In March of spring mountain people will pick tender fern stems as food. But now what they want to find is its old roots. The older the better, as the old saying goes, “The old is stronger”. They are easy to find but sometimes they are hard to find. The reason for easy finding is that where there are withered fern leaves there are roots in soil. There is also a reason for hard finding. If you do not know about fern, you cannot wait to brandish your hoe and dig. As a result what you dig out is just thin roots that have grown for only one year or more and contain little starch. Your work is a waste of strength. However, the mountain people who had mixed well with land all their lives were confident in this job. They went up to a slope where grew fern with only a few leaves. They were certain that it was not what they wanted most.
Finally they chose another slope, where the soil was soft and humid, and which was thickly covered with abundant fern leaves. In this place, the people said, it was even probable to dig out “the forefathers” of fern roots, which contained the richest starch. And soft soil required less labor of digging. All the people were expecting the true appearance of fern roots. But it was more difficult than expected. They abandoned thin roots in the surface soil without hesitation and continued digging deeper and deeper to the depth of their kneels and then to their upper legs. It seems that fern roots have the same character as lotus roots, that is, they both go into depth. Finally brake roots could be seen, black, rough and thick like mountain people’s skin. They had hidden underground for many years and fully accumulated white starch. Digging fern roots is a hard physical job. The roots are well developed across each other under the ground, So it is not easy to get a load of fern roots. But the mountain people said they would not give up to let their carrying poles feel ashamed now that they had began.
They did not stop till the sun sank town the west kill. The mountain people, with their clothes wet through, carried the fern roots singing delightedly love songs learned when young all the way home. They put the roots in a pond to leave the yellow soil on the roots being washed by the clear water. The day’s tiring work ended for the moment.
The next day, it was sunny as it had been the day before. The mountain people picked out the roots from the pond and cleared the remaining soil. Then they put them on a large slabstone to be smashed. Two men did the smashing work with hammers. The work required strength. A green hand would have his arms shocked to feel pain and his hands to feel numb. It made the people see the destiny of a traditional skill. Young generation can make computer programs but can not swing their father generation’s wooden hammers. In the course of two men’s perseverant smashing, the roots gradually became small pieces in an ideal form..
On the level rice-sunning ground, women had prepared two large wooden vats, one for filtration and the other for precipitation. The people put the smashed roots into the filtrating van to have them thoroughly washed so that the starch would get dissolved. Then the water with dissolved starch was poured in the precipitating van. The van was left there to wait for wonders. It did not take much time. One night later, on the bottom there was a thick layer of what was gray white. It was fern starch, which is not as white as sweet potato starch, but even finer and smoother, and can meet your strict demand for food.
Women poured out the water carefully and got out the starch with a dipper. A perfect food material of a well-known dish was ready. It could be prepared in several ways. It was made into cakes as food for husbands who were about to travel afar. Or it was dried in the sun for a long preservation. The fern starch cake permeated with the taste of sunshine might be more affective and attractive.
(translated by Yi Daoqun)