Morning Reading | A Bowl of Simple and Rustic White Porridge
White porridge, clear and bland, has no rich aroma, yet this seemingly ordinary food always reminds me of the taste of my hometown. As a child, I often played in the fields of Chongming, and when spring arrived, everyone began to plant rice. What were we doing? Simply turning the soil and transplanting rice. It was so tedious – at least, that's what I thought as a child. The wind carried the scent of freshly turned earth, mixed with the fragrance of grass and wildflowers, making me feel happy, free, and unrestrained.
The summer weather is changeable, and my grandmother always wore a straw hat and carried a large plastic bucket to the field to fertilize the crops. I wore a small straw hat and followed behind her, skipping and hopping. Fertilizing was usually done after the rain, which washed away the humidity, and the air was fresh and cool. Although the smell wasn't very pleasant, I would run to the nearby fields to pick fragrant wildflowers of various colors, holding them in my hands, which smelled wonderful and refreshing, a scent that belongs only to nature and the countryside.
In autumn, a beautiful scene often appears in the golden rice fields – 'a lone crane flying above the clouds.' But it wasn't a crane, it was a few snowy white egrets standing in the golden rice waves, flapping their wings occasionally. Autumn is the season when rice matures, and white porridge is the best way to cook new rice. My grandmother had to quickly harvest the rice that had 'lowered its head,' then use a rice grinder to remove the golden outer shell of the rice grains, revealing the pure white core, which is rice. Watching my grandmother enter the kitchen carefully wash the freshly milled rice with water, then add it to the fire, using a large spoon to stir constantly until the white rice 'happened' to pop open, and the porridge was ready. Poured into a bowl, took a sip, a warm flow flowed through my body, recalling the crisp and sweet flavor, 'bubbling and bubbling,' and finished it in one gulp, with a lingering fragrance, and satisfied.
