Picking Tree Seeds: The Taste of Home Hidden Deep in Memory
When it comes to the flavor of tree seeds (tshiū-tsí-á), the elders all love them. Isn't that the taste of home? Even after great-aunts and grand-aunts moved from the countryside to the city, every summer there would still be sisters-in-law and older sisters in the countryside preparing tree seeds and sending them batch after batch by car into the city.
Using tree seeds in cooking is an ordinary thing at the family dining table: stir-fried dragon whisker greens, steamed fish, fried eggs, or simply pan-fried and brought whole to the table. In summer, freshly made tree seeds taste especially sweet. On a meal that includes tree seeds, mealtime always seems to last especially long. Is it because we cannot bear to eat too quickly? Oh no, it is because eating tree seeds means spitting out the seeds! As a child, I always thought those seeds looked like miniature abacus beads and should be usable for making an abacus, so I ate every single one perfectly clean, leaving not a bit of flesh. Thinking about it now, childhood really was so naive.
The process of making tree seeds is also time-consuming and labor-intensive. For homegrown tree seeds, when the fruit ripens and turns skin-colored, you first have to snip them cluster by cluster (pha) from the tree, bring them home, remove the excess branches and leaves, and cut them into sizes suitable for holding in your hand for twisting before you can begin twisting (liàm) the tree seeds. The baskets of tree seeds sold in the market have already had the earlier steps done; after bringing them home, you pour them directly into a large basin (bīn-tháng), rinse them 2-3 times to remove the debris on the surface (lap-sap-mi̍h-á), and then you can start twisting. Sometimes the uglier tree seeds have many fruit flies (ku-sîn), so they must first be soaked in salt water, and only after a while can they be rinsed. Tree seeds that still have fruit flies on the surface after washing usually cannot be eaten either.
"Later you all go over to Grandma's place and twist a little tree seeds." Every summer there were always some days when, before my eyes were even open in the morning, my ears would already vaguely receive this sort of message. At that moment I always wanted to summon a little more sleepiness and think that it would be best to sleep until I was completely unconscious in a moment. Of course, our schemes always ended in failure in the end, and we still had to obediently take our stools and go to work. Once seated, it always took a whole morning.
"Grandma! Aunt! Great-aunt! gâu!" The members who twisted tree seeds usually included Grandma, the eldest paternal aunt, Mother, the wife of a paternal uncle, the wife of a younger paternal uncle, and other homemakers, as well as us children (gín-á-lâng) who always woke later than they did. So the first thing to do when starting work was to greet each of the mothers and grandmothers present one by one. Even if it was already late for them, we still had to be shameless and say good morning.
"Ah, these two are both your grandchildren! They have grown so big!" The grandmothers we rarely saw on ordinary days would certainly raise their voices when they saw us, amazed that we, who had still been babbling as toddlers back then, had grown up in the blink of an eye.
"Growing up so big, of course. These two are A-Shan's. They are both so obedient. This one is very good at studying. Ever since he was little, when he came home from school he would always finish his homework first before going out to play. And this one, every time he sees me from far away, goes 'Grandma!' and calls me like that." Grandma would vividly perform my younger brother's signature smile. Every year she had to praise us in front of others like this, and we usually just smiled shyly and hurried to our places. My left hand took tree seeds from the basin, my right hand twisted them one by one and dropped them into the bucket on my right. Back and forth, the stems and calyxes at my feet slowly piled up.
The grandmothers and Grandma chattered back and forth, continuing their small talk. The older grandmothers had very rich tones when they spoke, and listening to them chat about daily life was simply more exciting than the radio. The content included big and small matters from inside the village, outside the village, the market, and even other places: which family had married a Vietnamese daughter-in-law, which family's daughter had married well, who was so fortunate, what the current prices of certain crops were, how things used to be, and so on... From time to time they also asked about us children's ages, studies, or work situations, and then shared news about their own families. Without them, the endlessly repeated motions of twisting tree seeds would surely make a person doze off, only to wake with a start and realize that a pile of stems and tree seeds had been thrown in the wrong place.
I listened attentively to their words, my hands never stopping. The stems at my feet gradually piled higher than my calves, the tree seeds in the basin grew fewer, and the water became cloudy.
"Change the water." Mother, sitting across from me, said this while lifting that side of the basin, and the cloudy water poured out. I lifted my feet just in time. Clean tap water was poured in again, and I took the hose and rinsed the slippery white mucilage off my hands and feet. Only then did the sticky feeling finally get a brief relief. The most unbearable part of twisting tree seeds is this mucilage; it often takes one or two days to wash it off completely.
The process of twisting tree seeds has been the same for decades, with hours passing like a minute. Stems and calyxes pile up, are moved away, pile up again, and are moved away again. The basin is emptied, filled, emptied again, and filled again. Until the very last moment, you still have to be patient and pick up every tree seed that has sunk to the bottom. My impatient eldest paternal aunt always grumbled: "Picking these up is truly so hard!" When the last tree seed was scooped out, I also hurried to stand up and release my body, which had sat stiffly for so long. Sure enough, my knees and back had already gone stiff, and I nearly could not stand straight.
"Come eat noodles!" Mother had somehow already prepared lunch and called everyone to come eat. Sometimes it was a home-cooked big pot of noodles, and sometimes it was Spanish mackerel fish thick soup bought from the market. Sometimes when they finished earlier, Grandma would also prepare homemade ai-yu jelly and sugar syrup for everyone as a snack. In short, she never let anyone go hungry.
Sometimes I felt fortunate that in Grandma's eyes I was still just a child, because Grandma, Mother, and the others had to manage every detail of the tree seeds from the tree to the finished product, including controlling the timing, judging the quality of the tree seeds, deciding whether they were suitable for making into balls or packing as individual pieces, buying soy sauce, ginger, bottles and jars and other materials, controlling the heat, and so on. They busied themselves in and out all day, while we only had to spend one morning helping twist tree seeds and could then rest, eat snacks, and still have freshly made tree seeds to eat at dinner.
More and more often, I hope Grandma will stop seeing us as children who understand nothing and only give us the simplest work to do while she herself is busy day and night. Right now, I look at the tree seeds outside the window and hope they can grow strong, and that one day they will bear abundant fruit, so that I can make tree seeds for Grandma to eat.