Four
When I was young, I experienced a period of life under the "People's Commune" system. At that time, land had not yet been allocated to individual households, and rural areas were organized around production teams as the basic unit. I remember the white, water-filled fields of the production team, where fields of water chestnuts (bíqì, one of the "Eight Immortals of Water") and arrowhead (cígū) plants grew in abundance. Water chestnuts, a shallow-water herbaceous plant from the sedge family, are known by their scientific name Eleocharis dulcis. They are also called "horse hooves," "earth chestnuts," or "black galls" in various regions. Li Shizhen, in his famous Compendium of Materia Medica, provides a detailed description of the plant's form and cultivation methods. He explains that the water chestnut is called "black gall" because its root resembles that of a taro but is dark in color. He further notes, "Ducks enjoy eating it, so it was named fúcí in Erya, which later became corrupted into fúcī, and eventually into bíqì. The phonetic similarity of fú and bí in ancient rhyme books led to this evolution. Its triangular shape and resemblance to chestnuts led to other names like 'triangular nut' and 'earth chestnut.'" Li Shizhen goes on to describe the plant in detail: "Fúcí grows in shallow water fields. Its shoots emerge from the soil in March and April, producing a single, straight stem with no branches or leaves, resembling dragon whiskers. When cultivated in fertile fields, it grows thick and tall, reaching two to three feet in height. Its roots are white and form clusters of tubers in the fall, each about the size of a hawthorn or chestnut, with a tuft of hair at the navel, growing downward into the mud. Wild ones are black and small, with a gritty texture when eaten. Cultivated ones are purple and large, with a hairy texture. The people of Wu (likely referring to the Suzhou area today) plant them in fertile fields in March, harvesting them in winter and spring after the frost has killed the foliage. They can be eaten raw or cooked." Li Shizhen's mention of the "people of Wu" likely refers to the region around Suzhou, which is famous for its "Suzhou water chestnuts." According to the Zhengde Gazetteer of Suzhou from the Ming Dynasty, "The water chestnuts from Chenwan Village are purple and large, and can be transported far with the mud still attached." Ming Dynasty Minister of Rites Wu Kuan also praised the water chestnuts from his hometown.
In baskets full, the harvest doth abound,
From fertile fields near city gates 'tis found.
Its taste delights the tongue with flavors pure,
What worth hath earth-nuts when such joys endure?
This commonly known "Fengmen Big Water Chestnut" from Suzhou, referred to as Suzhou Water Chestnut, is renowned for its large size, thin skin, and purplish-red hue. The flesh is white, tender, and juicy, with minimal residue, offering a fresh, sweet flavor that could easily borrow from an old Nestlé coffee slogan: "It's delicious!" Arrowhead (Cí gū), like the water chestnut, is also one of the "Eight Immortals of Water." In Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica, it is written as "Cí gū." The text describes it as follows: "Cí gū produces twelve offspring from a single root annually, resembling the nurturing hands of a mother, hence its name. The bifurcated shape of the plant's tail resembles a swallow's tail, thus it is also known by this name." This explains why Cí gū is also referred to as "Mother's Mushroom" or "Mother's Bulb." Although Cí gū is a common plant, it has often found its way into the poems of scholars and literati. Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Chao, in his poem Jiangnan Xing (Journey to the South of the Yangtze), used "Cí gū" to signify the season and express a woman's longing for her husband. The poem is as follows:
茨菰葉爛別西灣，蓮子花開不見還。妾夢不離江上水，人傳郎在鳳凰山。
In Western Bay, the arrowroot leaves decay,
The lotus blooms, yet love’s return delay.
My dreams are bound to riverside’s soft flow,
Yet whispers say my love in mountains go.
There’s an interesting anecdote: one year, Jiangsu youth writer Zhang Yangyang visited my hometown and, while exploring the Qinhu Wetland, introduced the local produce, Cí gū. In doing so, he cited Zhang Chao’s poem but remarked that instead of referencing a poem about a woman longing for her husband, it might be more visually evocative to use Ming scholar Yang Shiqi’s poem Departing from Huai'an. Here’s the poem:
The bank's sparse red, the waters' green doth bring,
With arrowroot in bloom, white as a starling.
Ashamed of graying hair and sleeves so worn,
She stands alone, at prow, to pluck the thorn.
What a picturesque scene you’ve painted! The red smartweed flowers, the green water lilies, the white cí gū blossoms, and the green lake water—all these colors come together to create a vibrant, lively landscape. One can easily imagine that the young girl’s clothing must add yet another hue to this lively palette. The lively lake, paired with the youthful vibrancy of a water chestnut-picking maiden, is truly a sight to behold. Indeed, displaying this poem at a tourist spot might be more fitting than Zhang Chao's Song of Jiangnan, as it perfectly captures both the beauty of the scenery and the charm of the people. When it comes to cultivating bíqì (water chestnuts) and cí gū (arrowhead), both require careful seedling cultivation, though the methods differ slightly. For bíqì, a seedbed is prepared first, and then the selected seed tubers are planted. Once the sprouts emerge with their round leaves, they can be transplanted to the main fields. For cí gū, a similar seedbed is prepared, but instead of using the whole tuber, the tips or "mouths" of the tubers are planted densely in the seedbed. Within a few days, they sprout and grow broad, arrow-shaped leaves, ready for transplanting. Bíqì and cí gū differ slightly in shape. Bíqì is round and flat, with short tips, and its skin is reddish-brown or black-brown. Cí gū, on the other hand, is oval with long, curved tips, and its skin is bluish-white or yellowish-white. As the white, water-filled fields gradually dry up in late autumn, the round bíqì leaves and broad cí gū leaves wither, signaling that it’s time to harvest these crops. The village's young men and women, following the team leader’s instructions, would grab shovels, hoes, and wooden buckets and scatter across the fields to dig up the bíqì and cí gū. Both crops grow underground and are tough to dig up, a task usually handled by the men. The women would crouch near the freshly turned soil, picking out the bíqì or cí gū from the earth. Naturally, there were always a few young women who were not content to let the men do all the hard work. They would grab a shovel and start digging with determination, much to the amusement of the onlookers who would watch to see who would end up helping whom. Harvesting bíqì and cí gū is typically done by digging, but there is another method called "weighing," which is both more enjoyable and effective. In a recently dried field, which might seem barren except for a few scattered dried leaves, a group of barefoot men and women would step into the field. As they gently rocked their feet back and forth, bíqì or cí gū would begin to surface between their toes, tickling them as they reached down to grab the crop. This method added a bit of pleasure to the labor. In such an environment, with young men and women working together, it’s no surprise that certain sparks might fly. A young man might find himself staring at the footprint left by a young woman in the dark mud, his heart fluttering. He might secretly step into that footprint, feeling the soft, ticklish mud, lost in thoughts of the girl who made it. Both bíqì and cí gū are white-fleshed once peeled. Bíqì can be stir-fried with wood ear mushrooms and bamboo shoots, boiled and eaten on its own, or even eaten raw, as it is sweet and juicy. Farm kids would often grab a handful from the fields after the adults had finished digging, give them a quick wash, and pop them into their mouths. Cí gū, however, cannot be eaten raw. In the kitchen, it can be sliced, julienned, or chopped into chunks. Sliced cí gū can be stir-fried with garlic and lean pork; julienned cí gū can be cooked with clams or chicken strips; and cí gū chunks can be braised with pork. Whole cí gū can be boiled to remove its bitterness, then simmered with rock sugar to make a sweet dish called iced sugar cí gū, which is also quite flavorful. Another popular dish is pickled vegetable cí gū soup. The esteemed writer Wang Zengqi mentioned in his essay "The Food of My Hometown": “Sometimes, pickled vegetable soup contains slices of cí gū—that’s pickled vegetable cí gū soup.” He further elaborated, “When it snowed, our family always drank pickled vegetable soup, though I never quite knew why.” The pickled vegetables required for this soup were made from napa cabbage, as Wang Zengqi detailed in a process that is identical to the method used in Xinghua’s rural areas. He wrote, “In the fall, when the napa cabbage was at its plumpest, we would buy it by the load, wash it clean, dry it to remove excess water, and then pack it tightly into jars with layers of salt. This could last us all winter, right through to the spring of the following year.” I did this same task in my youth. Wang Zengqi mentioned, “After pickling for four or five days, the fresh pickles were incredibly delicious—tender, crisp, and sweet, with a light saltiness that was unmatched.” This tender, crisp, sweet, and lightly salty flavor is something I also recall, though I never considered it particularly “unmatched.” It’s likely that these feelings, and his later longing for “a bowl of pickled vegetable cí gū soup,” were deeply intertwined with the fact that he had left his hometown at the age of nineteen, wandering and drifting for thirty or forty years. Of course, it also has something to do with the time he spent at Shen Congwen’s home, where his teacher remarked, “This is good! Better than potatoes.” Wang Zengqi’s desire for a bowl of pickled vegetable cí gū soup was not merely about the taste; it was about yearning for the bygone years and the people within them.