Self-sufficient living | If it doesn’t sprout, it will get old (Part 9)

Editor's note: From a writer to a writer's son, and then to a sturdy farmer who makes friends with the soil, readers can find all kinds of identities in Kou's articles. This time, the whole article is full of practical tips for self-sufficient life and complete hand-made labor. After reading it, you may even want to rub your hands and go to the kitchen to get your own rice grains, pry them open, soak them, and let them sprout together!

While writing this article, I am cooking myself a pot of lively porridge.

I put more than a dozen kinds of food in one pot. The rice was brought back from Taiwan, including Taiwanese Koshihikari brown rice from Nongyou, Ruiyan fragrant brown rice grown by myself, local soybeans, mung beans, black beans, edamame, white tofu beans, local black rice, Xinjiang chickpeas, Anhui wheat grains, Sanya jackfruit seeds, red and white peanuts... I can't remember what else I put in the pot. I counted to 16 when I put them in the pot, but now I can't remember what else I put in - a classic symptom of Alzheimer's disease, I will forget what I just did. Mansen, I really can't stand aging, where did my photographic memory go?

Comfort your wounded heart, let go of this problem, and don't dwell on what you put in. No matter how many dishes you cook, just cook them happily and enjoy eating them.

Make the truth delicious

Did you notice that all the rice mentioned is brown rice? In fact, it is more than just brown rice. All the ingredients used in this pot of porridge are raw foods. Rice, wheat, beans, peanuts are all seeds that can germinate, and every seed has sprouted!

The reason why this pot of porridge is full of vitality is not because of its many ingredients. Cooking only one of them will also be full of vitality, as long as you grasp two key points: one is the seed, and the other is germination.

It must be seeds to germinate, but some people will immediately protest that seeds are not delicious. Indeed, some seeds cannot even be eaten, such as the seeds of rice are millet, and I have never seen millet eaten directly. Rice must be milled before it can be eaten, but we can choose between refined rice and brown rice. Rice made from refined white rice is soft and delicious, but brown rice is not delicious. It is just a control group, with various bad tastes and difficult to chew, especially for the elderly and children. But if we want to be reasonable, the elderly and children especially need the nutrients in brown rice. Refined rice only retains the endosperm, mainly starch, and is not as nutritious as brown rice. Let's stop talking nonsense and look at the picture. This is something I found on the Internet. The watermarks are all there. If you are interested, you can search it online.

The life energy of plants is stored in seeds. Brown rice is more nutritious, and so are all kinds of beans. This is an indisputable truth. The problem is that these truths don't taste good. My specialty has always been "making truths taste good" . Back in Yilan, Taiwan, village winemakers used agricultural waste to brew, mainly using cold weapons. Room temperature brewing turns waste into treasure. Now we use a combination of cold and hot methods to maximize the effectiveness of those treasures. The first thing to introduce is - germination.

Transformation by germination

In order to pass on life, rice mother puts many layers of clothes on her baby . The outer clothes are hard and thorny rice husks that are difficult to swallow, and the inner clothes are rice bran. Brown rice only grinds away the rice husk, retaining the germ and rice bran layer outside the endosperm. When brown rice germinates, it can not only effectively transform the nutrients in the rice bran that are not easily absorbed, but also make it sweeter and more delicious.

My approach is simple:

On the first day, soak in advance. Wash in the evening and soak overnight.

The next day, rinse and change the water. I usually rinse and change the water every three or four hours. This is how I spend the next day. If the weather is hot, put it in the refrigerator the next night. Now I am in a high-altitude mountain village in the cool summer, and the whole process is naturally warm.

On the third day, the seeds were just about to sprout. At this time, they are not only delicious and nutritious, but also can transform harmful substances. Seeds are not born to be eaten by humans. They have some innate life defense mechanisms. In addition to various armors and underwear, there are also chemical weapons such as phytic acid. Moreover, studies have shown that crops grown by modern fertilizer and pesticide agriculture have higher phytic acid content. I will not copy the effects of phytic acid on health from the Internet. I will just say that the germination and fermentation processes can transform phytic acid, reduce harmful components and transform them into components that are beneficial to humans.

The germinated rice and beans can be put into the rice cooker in the evening of the third day, and you can eat the lively bean porridge in the morning.

Simplify the trouble

This pot of porridge is good, but it is too troublesome. Not everyone is a professional foodie like me, who can watch a bunch of seeds and change water. So is there a simplified solution?

Of course there are simplified solutions. The first step of the simple algorithm is to merge similar items. This time I divided the operation into boxes to facilitate observation, comparison and photography. Usually, I mix all the things to be put into the pot into one basin, which is extremely simple and crude. After soaking, put them into a vegetable washing basket that can filter water, which is very convenient for soaking and rinsing.

After soaking thoroughly, you can even simplify it further: you can change the water only twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, but you must put it in the refrigerator to cool it down to prevent fermentation and sourness. Because the temperature in the refrigerator is lower, it is not easy to ferment to the best temperature, and the time will be extended by half a day. In fact, it is okay to put it in the pot a little less than the temperature, because the life transformation inside the seeds has already occurred.

Even with this simplification, some people still find it troublesome: it takes too much time. It takes three days to get a pot of porridge, and the input-output ratio of time is seriously unbalanced.

There is also a simplified solution: if you cook once instead of eating one meal, you can greatly improve efficiency. Singles can also fill the rice cooker as much as possible, so that you can make a huge pot of mixed bean porridge. This is what I do. After the porridge is cooked, let it cool and then divide it into portions. Set aside the portion for the day and put the rest in the refrigerator. Refrigerate the portion to be eaten the next day and freeze the rest so that you can take it out whenever you want.

I have stomachache when I eat rice, so I specialize in mixed bean porridge. Families who eat rice as their staple food can follow the same recipe and replace polished rice with sprouted brown rice, which not only doubles the nutrition but also improves the taste. I saw online that some families add a little whole wheat or rye grains when soaking and sprouting rice, because the children at home like the chewy texture of wheat grains in rice. This not only balances nutrition, but also helps children's tooth bite ability, maxillofacial muscle development, etc. In short, it is good.

Sustainable and recyclable soaked rice: The box I use has a capacity of about one liter, and the soaked rice is enough for a meal for a family of four. As long as there are three boxes in the refrigerator for rotation, it is not too troublesome to soak another box after finishing one.

Even so, there are bound to be people who find it troublesome. There is also a way to "buy convenience with money". The Japanese were the first to invent the "brown rice sprouting rice cooker". It is convenient. Put the rice in a few hours in advance, and the rice cooker is responsible for heating and keeping it warm for sprouting before cooking it into rice. It is convenient, but very expensive, costing two or three thousand yuan, more than ten times the price of ordinary rice cookers. Just search online.

A reminder: only fresh brown rice can germinate, so please be careful when buying rice.

Don't let your youth grow old alone

I have to be honest. Although I have been cooking mixed bean porridge for a long time and sprouting mixed beans for many years, I only started to sprout brown rice with such great effort recently.

The direct cause was a bag of brown rice that traveled thousands of miles across the ocean, and the indirect cause was that I went to Taiwan to work as a farmer a few years ago. The indirect cause is a long story, so let me make it short. There are always many dreams in life, such as the dream of farming, but many dreams are just dreams, because the body that carries the dream cannot withstand aging, and it gets old as it lives, from not having the strength to farm to not having the ambition.

We carry many gifts in our lives, including our dreams and ability to work. But life has a time limit. If we never use them in our lifetime, what a pity it would be. Life is easy to grow old, so if you have a dream, you must hurry to realize it. Otherwise, you will soon be so old that even thieves will disappear. It is really sad. If you don’t farm in your fifties, you will be old. You should hurry up and make use of your remaining ability to work and become a farmer.

Make full use of your life, and you will have many unexpected gains, such as this bag of rice. This is a gift from a young farmer in Yilan in 2019. It is the proud variety "Tainan 16" that Taiwanese people are proud of. Japanese Koshihikari rice is delicious. I have met many Koshihikari fans in Taiwan. Some of our farmers also grow authentic Japanese Koshihikari, which is hard to come by, but the yield and taste are far from expectations. Taiwan is too warm, and the Koshihikari in cold areas is only concerned with growing, blooming early, and aging early. The ears of grain are not solid and full, which makes farmers happy for nothing. Decades ago, Taiwanese agricultural experts began to localize Koshihikari. It is said that three Japanese Koshihikari parents and a local variety in Tainan were used to produce the "Taiwanese version of Koshihikari" called Tainan 16.

This bag of precious rice came with me from thousands of miles away, and it was well preserved in a vacuum. But no matter how well it is preserved, it cannot be kept forever, because brown rice has life, and if it is left like this, it will become old.

I dared to germinate brown rice for the first time in my life, and I didn’t expect it to be a great success. The germination rate and taste experience were beyond my imagination.

When all the sprouted brown rice turned into delicious porridge, I suddenly had an idea: What if I didn't cook it after it sprouted, but planted it in the ground as seeds? The climate in Fujian is similar to that in Yilan. If it can be grown in Yilan, it must be possible in Dawu! In that case, I can have my own "Dawu Yueguang" that will last forever.

Dawudi Yueguang and Dawudi Ruiyan

The idea of ​​"Da Wu Di Yue Guang" is really exciting. I immediately started to work, washing and soaking the remaining rice to germinate, and I had to do it in the last moment when the brown rice could germinate. I usually do it faster than my brain, so I just do it first. After soaking the seeds, I found that I did the right thing in a muddle.

It is now mid-June, and we are planting rice seedlings as usual. The harvest season will not arrive until mid-November. Our village is at a high altitude, and it will be too cold in late October. But, but, but, important things should be said three times. We can also broadcast live - note, not the "live broadcast" of TV or Internet broadcast, but: without the step of planting rice seedlings, we can directly sow the seeds into the paddy fields.

Fortunately, I have practiced in Taiwan. In the spring of 2019, I enjoyed myself in Taiwan and tried different ways of raising rice seedlings. That was my last year of farming in Yilan, and it would be too late if I didn’t try it again. The rice seeds were planted directly into the paddy fields through live broadcast, which reduced the damage to the root system caused by transplanting and shortened the growth time by 15 days - just before the temperature dropped.

It is true that it is better to come early than to come, and it is better to learn early than to learn. This extends to other things. The equally precious Ruiyan fragrant rice can also be turned into "Dawu fragrant rice" in this way.

Ruiyan is the name of an ancient tribe. This ancient rice variety is tall enough to reach human height, has low yield and thick skin, and retains many characteristics of wild grass. It was originally lost. By chance, due to the need to restore tribal rituals, the frozen remains were dug out of the refrigerator and cultivated and restored by a research institution.

Ruiyan has an irreplaceable fragrance, which is wonderful even when soaked in water or wine. However, no matter how much you bring back, it will eventually run out, and no matter how well you preserve it, the life of brown rice is limited. Inspired by this, I found the possibility of endless life for these precious beauties in Dawu.

If they don't sprout, they will be old. It's better to come at the right time than to come early. It happened that a farmer had an idle paddy field, so he started broadcasting these distant and magical grains.

In order to prepare the fields in time, I used a suspended tiller for the first time in my life. I didn't just use the machine to show off, but I really tilled the whole acre of land. It was not only heavy physical labor, but also a technical job. It was also the most difficult mountain terraced field. In the same field, there was a deep swamp in the east that could trap the machine, and a barren sandy riverbed in the west. It was a difficult area that even professional drivers refused to work on. Although I was a novice, I really reached a professional level. I had a lot of fun that afternoon - I was playing with tilling the fields. I had a lot of fun and was proud that my upper limb and core strength training was not in vain. I caught the tail of spring on this land and sowed not only Koshihikari and Ruiyan, but the song of life.

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