Firmament

A brick can't make a wall.

- Aquarium proverb

As he grew older, Ibrahim began to participate in various folklore activities. Among them, eating flat has the characteristics of national food and is a very popular social gathering for young people.

Legend has it that eating buns was a way for the ancestors of the Sarta people to hunt and distribute their prey in ancient times, and over time evolved into food customs and social culture.

After winter, there is basically no farm work to do in the fields. The young men in the village chose to gather at Yousufu's house, where the family was relatively well-off and the daughter-in-law was also a good cook. They pooled their money to buy a little fat sheep as the main meal of the Pinggang.

Ibrahim and Yusuf pressed the little sheep down in the open space and turned its neck to the west. The white imam recited a scripture in a low voice, picked up a security knife to slaughter the little fat sheep, and then caught the water that Yusuf poured from the soup bottle with both hands, rinsed the blood on his hands, and said goodbye to everyone.

Sending off the white imam respectfully, the free-spirited personality of the young men was immediately revealed. Everyone gets to work together. Some of them are flayed. Some wash the chops. Some are cleaned. The cooking was all done by Yusuf's daughter-in-law, Hashini.

Hashini first washed the little sheep, boiled the water in the cauldron, then put the little sheep in the pot whole, added firewood and grass to the stove, and boiled it over high heat.

The young men crackled and kicked off their shoes, climbed onto the big hot kang, and sat around the big table made of several small kang tables, while eating golden and crispy oil cakes, leisurely drinking the long-tasting gaiwan tea, while talking about business, crops, news, heaven and earth, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, everything.

Hashini washes the heart, liver and lungs of the sheep, chops them into small pieces, mixes them with chopped green onions, spices, sesame oil, sprinkles with a little flour and stirs well, divides them into 12 portions according to the number of guests, and puts them in small bowls.

At this moment, the water in the pot began to boil.

Hashini lifts the lid of the pot, sets the steamer on the cauldron, neatly arranges the small bowl of haggis in the cage drawer, then closes the steamer lid and steam it over high heat for a while.

When the haggis was steamed, she took the bowl out of the cage drawer, laid it on the cutting board, spooned the piping hot broth, poured it over the haggis in the bowl, and sprinkled it with green garlic sprouts. And so, a steaming, fragrant Salta cabbage was ready.

Hashini brought her hair bowl by bowl to the kang table.

Yusuf greeted everyone: "The hair that moistens the throat is here." Let's eat. "

The boys continued to talk and laugh as they ate the first course of the bunch.

After a while, Hashini brought two small plates of tender and mellow stir-fried lamb liver.

Yusuf said: "As the saying goes, the first kebab (Salta, lamb liver) is more fragrant than the later mutton. Brothers, how about a taste of what Hashini has made?".

Ibrahim sandwiched a piece of mutton liver, put it in his mouth and chewed it a few times, and found that the mutton liver was fresh and delicious, and the taste was very good. "

At this moment, from the kitchen came Hashini's shout: "Yusuf, come and do me a favor." "

Yusuf smiled and said, "You just praised her here, and she came to the end." "

The boys burst out laughing.

Yusuf hurried to the kitchen, took the boiled little sheep out of the pot, and put it in a wooden container to control the broth.

Hashini lays a fingernail-sized sheet of dough in the oily broth. She boiled the noodles for a while, scooped the soup and noodles into a small bowl, sprinkled a pinch of chopped coriander, poured in balsamic vinegar and oil and spicy noodles, and then served it to the kang table for everyone to taste.

Yusuf unloaded the steaming lamb into 7 large pieces, and chopped it into 12 portions according to the number of guests. Each part has 7 parts: the front piece, the back piece, the ribs, the chest fork, the back, the neck and the tail. 12 plates of lamb are served on the table. Many people feasted and ate cleanly on the spot. Ibrahim ate two small pieces of lamb and then asked Hashini to pack the rest and take it home to share with his parents and younger brothers, who had not eaten meat in a long time.

Equals, equals. First of all, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, the distribution of meat to equals is equal. One serving per person, the same amount. Secondly, the per capita cost of eating and eating is shared, which can be paid on the spot or offset with food. In short, eating flat is a typical portrayal of the collective spirit of solidarity, harmony, equality and mutual assistance of the Sarta people. Their bold and open-minded character is vividly reflected in the custom of eating flat gangs.

However, such good days are not common, and it will take at least several years before they occur. More and more servants were assigned by the government. Natural disasters are also becoming more frequent. There was a storm in the spring of the previous year, and all the crops that were heading were discounted. Last year there was another year of drought, and there were not a few decent seedlings growing in the ground. This year, a sudden hailstorm fell, knocking down the fruit that had just formed on the branches. Life as a peasant becomes more difficult every year.

Every year on the 11th day of the third lunar month is the traditional festival of the Salta people, the Ashula Festival, and it is also a festival for women and children. According to the custom handed down from the ancestors, Mai Liyan made a pot of meat porridge called Luo Boqiao. She used a stove to burn off the broken hair on the sheep's head and hooves, rinsed it with water repeatedly, and then put it in a pot to stew, sprinkle peppercorns and green salt, and mix it with barley, wheat, soybeans, etc. The meat porridge cooked in this way has both the fragrance of grain and the fragrance of mutton, which is delicious and suitable for all ages.

Every year there is a 30-day Ramadan. At the end of Ramadan, they celebrate the annual festival of Erd (Salta for Eid al-Fitr).

Early in the morning, Ibrahim and his brothers washed up, came to Ada and Grandma to say "Seran", and then followed Niusa to the mosque for prayer. After returning home for breakfast, they would go to the burial and recite sutras to the graves of their deceased relatives.