When autumn ends in the south of the Yangtze River, the originally dense green lotus leaves in Tanggang Gully, Shui Township, Wu District, all withered and shrank, but the remaining lotus is left to raise fattening stems. In the soil under the roots of the water, the old lotus with strong pores are lying in the collection of poems. The lotus can be made into vegetables and can be used as grains and fruits. Both raw and ripe, both meat and vegetable, sweet or salty, and many ways to eat them. In the "Suixiju Dietary Recipe" of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Shixiong said: "The lotus is fat and white. The raw and cooked fresh and tender, and those who cook should be strong and old. Use a casserole to simmer it in a slow fire, simmer it in a pot, and add white honey to it, and eat it dryly, which will nourish the heart and spleen."

In the early and mid-1960s, in the streets and alleys of my hometown, we often saw vendors selling lotus porridge with fire loads on the streets. They were beating bamboo bulbs and selling along the streets. As they walked, they stopped as they walked. The stove they carried was a copper pot as big as a medium drum, and the pot was stewed with red lotus porridge. Bang, Bang, Bang... "Sell - hot lotus porridge-" Under the autumn wind and leaves, the tone seemed to have a sad meaning. Sometimes it was a load of late night carry, with a wind lamp of that era, a glass square cover, and a kerosene-soaked yarn twister; there was also a small bucket of red oil, containing clear water, soaking a bunch of blue flowers and small porcelain bowls... The white and hot steam coming out of the stove was filled with fragrance, accompanied by the red fire, the inside and outside of the pot was red, which could bring warm warmth to those who were walking in the night.

Twenty years ago, I transferred to the newspaper. Because I was single, I often solved my belly problems everywhere in the morning. I gradually became familiar with some street specialty snacks. At that time, there was an old man named Zhu who specialized in copper pot lotus root porridge in the north gate. People called him Dad Zhu. Every morning, Dad Zhu set up a huge copper pot, cooked a large stove with firewood, and boiled the porridge. The glutinous rice and the old lotus root scraped off, and added enough water at a time, and no further additions were added in the middle. After boiling on high heat, it changed to low heat and simmered slowly.

It was boiled until it was sticky, and moved the pot to a fixed stove on the rack. The firewood was also burning in the stove. There were several low benches stacked on the cart. Uncle Zhu pushed the car to the north gate to sell. On the way, he would sometimes stop and knock on the clams slowly to attract customers. The lotus root in the copper pot was powdery and sweet, while the porridge was glutinous and sweet. If you handed over 50 cents, you could ask for a bowl of porridge with lotus root slices, or you could point to the whole lotus root to pick it up and put it on the plate to cut a few slices. In winter afternoons and evenings, some people who came out of the bathhouse, with their moist hair, walked to Uncle Zhu's stall and asked for a bowl of lotus root porridge, which was delicious.

The large copper pot used to make lotus seed porridge looks antique-level. It is made of copper and the body is not much smaller than the copper pot for cooking lotus porridge. The charcoal fire in the heart of the pot can boil water to more than 150 degrees, which can make the lotus seed powder into a paste, which is fragrant, sweet and smooth. There is a circle of copper decorative patterns on the upper and lower parts of the copper pot. A copper dragon rolls above the body of the pot, and the dragon head is wrapped around the spout. The handle of the pot is also composed of a dragon, with dragon whiskers, dragon claws, and dragon scales vividly visible. The two dragon whiskers extending from the dragon's mouth have two red pom-poms at the tip, which trembles with the action of the big master pouring the pot into a watering pot.
Chapter completed!