Why is the taste of home at rural banquets so unforgettable?

In rural areas, whenever there is a happy occasion, a banquet is held to treat the neighbors. The dishes in rural areas are especially abundant, and many dishes can only be eaten when a banquet is held. Rural banquets also have another characteristic: the portions are large enough to guarantee that everyone eats their fill, revealing the down-to-earth nature of rural people. In my memory, rural areas were not wealthy. At that time, being able to eat such a sumptuous banquet felt especially happy. Although life is better now, I still always miss the taste of those days.

When a family has a happy occasion, relatives and friends all come to help, creating a scene of harmony among neighbors and villagers. Rural people hold banquets not for the gift money, but simply for the liveliness and joy. Any neighbor can come to the banquet, even without bringing anything; some people bring rice or similar things. People over sixty years old do not need to give gift money, and even if they do, it will be returned later. Whenever a family has a happy occasion, the host family starts preparing early. The pigs are pigs raised at home for a year, and the ones they eat themselves are not fed feed. The pork bought outside now simply does not have this taste.

Among rural dishes, pork knuckle is definitely a must. These pork knuckles are smoked with sawdust, giving them a hint of wood fragrance. When cooked, they taste even better and the color looks even nicer.

Rural areas in the Sichuan region are certainly familiar with this. Fatty slices of meat are cut and placed in a bowl, sugar is added on top, and glutinous rice is placed underneath. The steamed meat is not greasy at all, and saying it melts in your mouth is not an exaggeration at all.

Every rural area has its own master chef. These master chefs can cook for hundreds of tables of banquets in a year, and their skills are absolutely beyond question. Look at how focused this master chef is while chopping meat filling. With two knives flying up and down together, ordinary people cannot do this.

Steamed cake is my favorite dish. It is usually not available, and making it is very troublesome: finely chopped minced meat, plus deboned fish meat, mixed well and steamed. Brushing the surface with egg yolk is truly intoxicating.

Most rural cooking is substantial meat dishes, and they look delicious. The garlic sprouts are all grown at home, truly green food. After being cooked into a plate of braised pork by the master chef, how fragrant it is!

Steamer baskets are a major feature of rural areas. There are all kinds of steamed bowls, and the methods are all very complicated. Steamer baskets must be made of bamboo to be good. Bamboo steamer baskets ensure the dishes are cooked at the same time. If stainless steel ones are used, the cooking times differ, and the ones on top are actually the first to be cooked. Bamboo steamer baskets can be said to be a rural specialty; in the city there is no chance to see such a scene.

Rural areas are now wealthier, and the food is more abundant too. Northerners like meat, while southerners like soup. The turtle soup made by the master chef tastes excellent, and turtle soup is very nourishing.

Every rural master chef has his own special skill, the one dish he is best at making. Although they do not have chef certificates, this is the taste of home, which the great chefs in the city cannot match. A master chef who has cooked for a lifetime blends all kinds of flavors of life into it. What you eat is not the dish, but nostalgia.

The master chef first uses a wooden stick to repeatedly beat the pork, pounding the meat into a paste. This is delicate work, and also physically demanding work. The meatballs made this way are extremely delicious. Pair the finished meatballs with green vegetables and make a pot of soup; just thinking about it makes my mouth water.

In rural areas, the finished dishes are all held in large basins and then divided onto each plate. In the north, people pay attention to eight cold dishes, eight hot dishes, and so on, implying smoothness and good fortune. Rural people are very particular. What they show is not how well they eat or dress, but that the relationships among neighbors are full of human warmth.

The finished rural dishes are all arranged like this, waiting to be carried to the table plate by plate after the banquet begins. The neat, orderly dishes look clear and bright. This is because the rural air is good, there is none of the restlessness of the city, and the sanitary conditions are also very good, so you can eat with peace of mind.

In rural areas, people value human warmth, and such a scene is certainly rare in the city. There are even dam banquets with a thousand people at one seating. Neighbors and villagers each talk about the interesting things in their own lives. Although holding a banquet once is very tiring, as long as the guests are satisfied and everyone is happy, it is all worth it.

I really miss this taste. Many rural areas have been relocated, and many people have gone to the city to work. Such rural banquets perhaps can only be found in memory from now on.

(The article was compiled by a country bumpkin, thank you all for subscribing.)