Most of the fruits in autumn are abundant, and the berries in summer are like a dream. Most people in the north call them "berries". They are sour, light, less fleshy and more watery. When you take a sip, they are almost full of juice. Some southern dialects call similar berries

Most of the fruits in autumn are abundant, and the berries in summer are like a dream. Most people in the north call them "berries". They are sour, light, less fleshy and more watery. When you take a sip, they are almost full of juice. Some southern dialects call similar berries "Pao'er": Tian Pao'er, Shupao'er, Mulberry Pao'er, Snake Pao'er, Hollow Pao'er... The original character of "Pao" is "藨", and in some places it is called "Pao'er". The raspberry is called "Gone with the Wind", which also comes from it. The word "藨" is rare and rarely used. The word "pao" looks vulgar, but it sounds watery and has a special kind of fragility, which goes well with the berries that break when touched. Slightly sweet but with a bit of acerbic sourness, if you think about it for a while, the heartbreaking love of the Little Mermaid will also come out, the charm of Lolita will also come out, and the agility of Angel Amelia will also come out, "like a dream bubble, like dew." The "Diamond Sutra" like lightning has also come... Oh, it is light and good, but it disappears so fast. How can the berries of summer be remembered? At that time, I was at a loss.

Among berries, strawberries and blueberries have the most pulp. After years of variety improvement, they have a richer and sweeter taste. Most of the other berries are sour, including raspberries, raspberries, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries...

This year, the archaeologist from across the street came back from vacation and gave us two bottles of jam, which should be a specialty of her hometown. .

One of the bottles of schwarze johannisbeere is blackcurrant. In English, it is called black currant, and in Chinese it is translated as "blackcurrant", which is half the free translation and half the transliteration. Actually it's not black, it's deep purple. As for the fresh fruit, it tastes sweet and sour. Some people think it is like raisins, while others say it has a faint musky smell. What a coincidence. Doesn't musk come from deer? Isn't there a deer in the middle of the word "藨"? Black currants are mostly used to make syrups and jams, and are commonly found in yogurt and desserts. I only occasionally spread them on slices of bread. Black currants can also be used as sauce seasonings. Although they are sweet and sour, they are excellent as meat marinades. Grilled duck breast, roasted chicken, and smoked short ribs are smeared with a layer of this sauce, which is like a chestnut black glaze, glowing with oil, with a "grainy" texture in it, and it is by no means flat and monotonous. Say it adds a bit of flavor to the taste of the meat? Comprehensively improve the color, aroma and taste of dishes? Make the taste suddenly change? How can any food critic or gourmand speak like a lotus flower? This combination does exist in Western food, but isn’t it the same in Chinese food? The Beijing roast duck needs to be dipped in sweet noodle sauce, and the braised pork needs to be fried until it turns into sugar. The difference with blackcurrant sauce is that it also has sourness and a bit of "musk" - if it is not lost when it is boiled into sauce.

Black currants are squeezed into juice, which is black currant juice. When it is served in a tall glass, the deep purple color reflects the light of gems, as if a velvet curtain has been opened on a gorgeous stage, and the juice has become grape wine. To a layman, the taste of our wine is somewhat similar to that of wine, but connoisseurs may ridicule that this is Minyu indistinguishable.

The German name of gooseberry is johannisbeere, which means "Johnberry". It has nothing to do with chestnuts. It is named after St. John and John the Baptist. Beautiful little berries, with such a sacred and solemn name, it is easy to think that they are indispensable at St. John's Day celebrations. The truth is that the earliest varieties of gooseberries ripen in late June, around the birthday of St. John (June 24). Speaking of which, this time is also close to the summer solstice. Festivals usually need to be carefully selected and adjusted repeatedly. It is certainly not an accident that Christianity chooses to celebrate the birth of St. John at this time. The winter solstice, summer solstice, spring equinox, and autumnal equinox divide the four seasons, and the two solstices are particularly important. The shortest solstices and the longest solstices in the Northern Hemisphere are corresponding to the Nativity of Jesus and the Nativity of St. John respectively. St. John is regarded as the precursor of Jesus and has special significance in Christianity, which can also be seen from his anniversary. In the Southern Hemisphere, it's the other way around. St. John's Day is celebrated when the sun is at its shortest, and Christmas is celebrated when the sun is at its longest. They are still the same.

attaches great importance to the Second Solstice, which means valuing the sun. The sun has always been widely worshiped and revered, and the Second Solstice is its node. Northern Europe celebrates Midsummer, when the sun reaches the Tropic of Cancer and shines over the Arctic Circle. The Summer Solstice celebration in ancient China was equally important, but later it was downplayed a lot because many festivals and customs have been integrated into the Dragon Boat Festival of the lunar calendar. At this time, we commemorate important figures in the history and culture of our respective nations, such as St. John in the West and Qu Yuan in China. Whether they are affiliated with us or made intentionally or unintentionally, they are all based on human sympathy and empathy, which fully demonstrates the great attraction of the solar solstice to us.

It seems that calling gooseberry "Johnberry" is equivalent to calling it "Summer Solstice Berry" or "Summer Solstice Paoer" in Chinese. This name is fictitious, purely made up by me to illustrate its season. Gooseberries usually mature as late as July or August, but mid-to-late June and around the summer solstice are also the harvest seasons for many crops. From south to north, the wheat has almost been harvested at this time. In ancient China, new wheat was recommended after autumn, and noodles ground from the new wheat were used to make soup cakes, which are today's noodles. In mid-summer, gooseberries are not included in the fresh offerings, but peaches (cherries) are often included. The ancients did not allow gooseberries or berries to be tasted by ancestors, ghosts and gods. Do they think they are easy to grow and are not pious enough to be used as sacrifices, or are they too sour for fear of losing their ancestors' teeth? Or both?

Seasonal items must be provided to ancestors, and they must be praised by everyone. In China, berries have always grown in the mountains and fields as they pleased, and no one paid much attention to them. The woodcutter keeps the cows and babies in the wild and eats them wherever he sees them. It is good for quenching thirst and promoting fluid production, but it cannot satisfy hunger and fullness, and it is not considered a delicacy. Berries are not easy to store and transport, and are not commonly used in Chinese people’s diet when used as jam or meat stew. As a result, many berry varieties were recently introduced from Thailand and the West and deliberately cultivated. Instead, they have become rare and valuable, like Lu Xun’s aloe vera, transformed into a dragon’s tongue. Lan is almost the same. Whether

can ascend to temples and noble restaurants is not important to berries. In mid-summer, they are making their final sprint, competing for sunlight and struggling to mature in order to leave fruits and continue their respective species. They are sweet, delicious, and brightly colored, just to attract the attention of animals and humans, eat it, take it away, and spread its seeds wider.

Once a year, the berries disappear quickly like dewdrops and phantoms, making you think it is just a dream in the summer; but they were struggling, working hard, and competing every second. It would be nice to say that they are light, delicate and soft, but a ballet seems to be light, but how much heaviness must be shed before it can become as delicate and soft as pollen! I made up my mind that I would never eat berries again and let this ballet of fruit linger on my tongue for a while longer.

No matter how much I exalt and exaggerate the beauty of berries, they cannot compare to Nicholas, a former low-level civil servant in the Ministry of Finance. Gooseberries were his dream.

Veterinarian Ivan went to the countryside to visit his brother Nikolay. The latter had been dreaming about it for many years and finally owned his own manor. He immediately planted twenty bushes of the gooseberries he had dreamed of. Ivan came as a guest, and Nikolay got his wish for the first time and ate his own gooseberries. Ivan thought they were sour and astringent and difficult to swallow, but Nicholas was so intoxicated by them that he seemed to be sleepwalking in the middle of the night. He got up from the bed and put a few into his mouth. Gooseberry Manor was his lifelong dream, his earthly Eden.

This plot comes from Chekhov's 1898 novel "Gooseberry", but Chekhov did not specify what kind of gooseberry it was, nor did he mention its color, as if he didn't even bother to look at it. What kind is it? The title of this novel is Крыжовник in the Russian version, gooseberries in the English version, and stachelbeeren in German (meaning thorny berries, but not thornberries or hollow berries in Chinese), which corresponds to the Chinese "gooseberry". Gooseberries and gooseberries are both from the family Trichoderma family. The former is larger and comes in three colors: green, yellow, and dark red. The skin is thicker, with obvious dark lines visible, and the taste is more sour. Gooseberries are mainly purple, black, and bright red. And almost light yellow and light pink white, smaller in size, the black one can be squeezed into juice to make wine, the red one is more vivid, and the white one is sweeter. It seems that the translation as "gooseberry" may be more accurate, but the general translation as "gooseberry" is also good, at least literally it is more in line with the sourness Ivan said.

Although Ivan is old, his idealism is still there, and he has the shadow of Chekhov himself, and he cannot accept that Nicholas has become so vulgar. But he also admitted that anyone who has fished for bass once in his life and seen the thrushes migrating south in autumn and flying in flocks over the villages on bright and cold days will never be a city man and will long for freedom until his death. .

Ivan and Nicholas spent their childhood in the countryside, wandering in the woods every day, herding horses, peeling bark, fishing... So, isn't the dream of Gooseberry Manor logical? Happiness often seems a bit mediocre. It doesn't matter if the thing you are obsessed with is even slightly different. It doesn't matter if reality and dreams are thousands of miles apart. But in order to realize the dream of the manor, Nicholas did whatever it takes and turned into a greedy, cold and fat landlord. That's the best thing. fatal.

May the light weeds or bubbles always dance on the tip of our tongues; may the bushy countryside always warm our memories, where all kinds of berries originally grew freely; may we realize our dreams and not be enslaved by them.

Author: Sun Huajuan

Text: Sun Huajuan Editor: Qian Yutong Editor: Shu Ming

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