The two-inch long flakes are small and slightly flat, like crucian carp and more like miniature flakes. The flakes are the grassroots small fish in the water. They often gather in the slow flowing water for food and are easily caught by various nets. The flakes, which are never regarded by others, are also called "flakes". This is because the belly of this small fish is particularly large, and once the big belly is squeezed out, the body will immediately become empty.

When a bunch of small fish catches in the hot summer, the belly of the sausage is always rotten quickly. Perhaps the sausage is most easily trapped with broken rice bran, so they are also called "brand bran". The slang term "brand bran travels to West Lake" is specially used to ridicule small people to see the world.

The scattered fish are very easy-going and dare to get close to people, but they are also close to people. In the green water grass, groups of scattered scattered swim slowly. Their mouths open and close together, and sometimes they inadvertently flirt with their bodies, and their scales emit colorful and psychedelic light in the sun, which is so beautiful.

The squid has a very strange habit. When the breeding period is reached, a streamer that is about an inch long will be dragged out under the belly behind the tail, which is its spawning tube. When it chooses a suitable river clam like a blind date, the spawning tube will penetrate into the mussel shell to lay eggs, and the eggs will develop into young fish before leaving the river clam. Almost as the squid laying tube is inserted into the river clam, the young clams that have been stuck in the shell will take the opportunity to leave their mothers and attach to the squid body to parasitize them until they can be independent. Therefore, the squid and the clam have a complementary and win-win relationship.

It is said that when Yan Zhenqing was the governor of Huzhou, he and Zhang Zhihe tasted the squids that were five or six inches long and were shocked by the huge creatures among the squids. But in our hometown, there is indeed a squid with a wide body, as big as an adult's palm. The most conspicuous feature is that there is a large piece of iconic white spots under the pectoral fin, especially the tail fin, which looks very similar to the squid sharks. This kind of squid likes to swim in groups in the middle and upper layers of the water to find food. Sometimes when you sit on the boat, you can accidentally see some light green shadows flashing and disappearing, and you only have time to see the iconic black and white pectoral fins clearly.

"Eight eels, nine crabs, ten tarts, and eleven tarts, and eleven tarts and eleven tarts and eleven tarts and crucian carp." This is a food proverb I heard in southern Jiangsu. I was very surprised at that time. People here are generally not willing to eat tarts because this thing is really inconspicuous and is particularly prone to rotting their stomachs and tainting a bitter taste of impure washing. No one specializes in fishing such small fish. Those tarts caught by the net are usually given to others for free when selling other fish. When packing tarts, you just pinch your stomach with your hands, squeeze out the stomach that is wrapped in a ball, and then just click the scales on your nails.

However, if your stomach is not rotten yet, after washing such fresh fish, fry them in oil and make them braised with large peppers. They will make the bone spurs crispy and sprinkle them with a little bit of coriander. The taste is so delicious that it is completely different from the big fish. Pull one into a bowl, the meat with red soup is fragrant and thin. The teeth are lightly clenched on the back and the meat on both sides of the belly, and taste it carefully with your tongue. Then, you can feel the peaceful and deliciousness unique to the fish. .If you pour yourself a cup of dried red with a slightly taste, hold a whisker on the chopsticks and drink it slowly and chew it carefully, the aftertaste is very long. "In the first month of the whiskers, meat in February, sell the fields and land to taste it." A friend of mine in Huzhou, I know this hometown proverb that he said may be justified. No wonder more and more people don't like to eat serious big fish now, but instead look for some messy small fish to adjust their taste.

In the restaurants near the river in the water towns in southern Jiangsu, from the recipe, the cooking methods of ginger include braised, steamed, soup, stewed and stir-fried, etc. When I went to Tongli in the ancient town, I was invited to a dish with water town characteristics. There was a dish of salt and ginger in a very delicate cucumber, which was placed in a small rattan basket lined with light blue tissue. The quantity was not large, and it was fried, and it was finely chopped dried red pepper and dried fermented black beans. It was crispy, tough and chewy, and it was quite flavorful.

Water jumps are always their favorite place to appear. In summer, when you stand barefoot in the water to wash rice, a large group of small fish will come soon, chasing the leaves and grains of rice, and pecking you itchy. If you sink the rice basket or vegetable basket under the water, you will see many black shadows in it. With a sudden lift, you can pick up a small fish seedling that is not much longer than a matchstick. Those finger-growing buzzards are completely different. They have seen the world and are experienced, and always swim around flexibly where you can't reach. When you move, it twists its tail and hits a splash of water.

When the neem tree blooms with strings of purple and blue flowers, summer comes. In the morning or evening when weeping willows brush the water, there are always many young and young people swimming around the circle, shattering the clear waves. "Brushing the stews" becomes a common summer scene. This is usually some half-aged boys and adults have technical skills to play. Thin rods, thin lines, maggots, rice grains, flies, etc. for fishing baits, don't floats, they rely on their quick eyes and accuracy. When they see the stews swimming around, they throw the bait over. The stews think they are small insects falling into the water, and they swing a beautiful arc and peck at the bait. When you "brush" the rod, a shiny fish will hang under the rod. The high-level ones, lift them up without stopping, so that the viewers next to them can enjoy it.

If it is in a deep water area, there is a kind of mint called "white mouth". The largest one is even five or six pounds, with silver scales and white belly, green back, raised mouth and big, swim quickly, and is known as "white strips in the waves". This kind of fish is used to chasing and eating some mosquitoes, flies and moths on the water surface. It eats very fiercely, and eats it in the mouth and pecks it. When you see a black shadow, the fishing line sinking, you have to "brush" the rod quickly.

The members of the croaker family are complex and have a huge difference in size, including pointed-mouthed meal (flat), round head, yellow, red, meat, and a kind of oil with a golden illumination on the belly with a thick and sprinted body. Their common characteristics are that they are simplified in shape, good at rushing, live happily, love to join in the fun, jump out of the water from time to time, and make a splash for you to see. In short, they are everywhere the water sounds.

If you are impatient with "brushing the mint", you will get a wire mesh, pull it straight into the water, and then sprinkle some chaff. Not long after, many dark blue shadows were swimming up and down the water, constantly changing and dispersing, and the water surface was filled with roaring sounds. When the chaff on the water surface was swept away like a wind and swaying clouds, pulling up the wire mesh, and each mesh was dripping with water droplets. If silver on the net flashed, it was the embedded greedy person struggling with slender body in vain. Take it home and pinched the internal organs and scattered the scales, washed it, and fryed it in oil. Of course, the taste was fresh. The only disadvantage is that there are many thorns in the meat, and only when the meat and thorns were cooked together can it taste delicious.

There is a local saying in my hometown that ridicules people's impatient behavior, "Fry fish with tails". If you want to cook the minced meat, frying is the key. Heat the oil pan and fry it one by one. Don't get too much heat. Be patient, fry one side yellow, and then turn it over and fry the other side. Until the pleasing golden color is fryed, shovel it up and stack it into a pile, pour cooking wine, plate sauce, grind big peppers, pour in fine salt, ginger, garlic, cover the pot and cook it on low heat until it is crispy. If you marinate the minced meat, which is thick with fingers, then drag it on top of flour and fry it, it will be extremely crispy when you put it in the mouth, including the fish tail.

There is a steamed white fish in the restaurant, and the standardized way should be "steamed fish". Fish is a big meal with stews and "white mouth". People in Shanghai and southern Jiangsu call it "white shredded fish". It is famous for its delicious meat, rich nutrition, and tastes like the knife fish in the river. Although "white mouth" swims quickly in the water, it dies when it comes out of water, so the market price is expensive. Steaming pays attention to raw materials and focuses on maintaining the freshness. Wash the fish and chop it into two sections, add a small amount of salt to marinate for a while. Generally, families can add ingredients and cooking wine and steam it in a steamer in a rice cooker. After steaming "white mouth" is very tender, it feels like there are many thorns and hardness. Although it is not as entangled as the knife fish bones, it is also troublesome for people who don't know how to eat fish.

The most suitable stews are dried into dried products, unlike stews and crucian carp. They only have shells when dried. If they catch too much, they cannot be eaten at once. After salting, they will be dried and stored. When you want to eat, they will be steamed on the rice cooker. It is salty and moderately salty, and it is very chewy, and it is very hard to eat. Generally speaking, fish is not produced in the mountains, but whether it is Huangshan, Jiuhua Mountain or Tianzhu Mountain, I have seen a large bag of dried stew fish in local specialty stores selling dried bamboo shoots and dried mushrooms. Looking at the label, they all indicate that they are green foods from local mountain streams. I don’t know how much water surface it takes to catch these many stews of uniform size. Looking at the salty yellow-brown color, it must be far from the taste of the small salted fish in our hometown years.
Chapter completed!