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周作人 《故乡的野菜》
我的故乡不止一个，凡我住过的地方都是故乡。故乡对于我并没有什么特别的情分，只因钓于斯游于斯的关系，朝夕会面，遂成相识，正如乡村里的邻舍一样，虽然不是亲属，别后有时也要想念到他。我在浙东住过十几年，南京东京都住过六年，这都是我的故乡，现在住在北京，于是北京就成了我的家乡了。
日前我的妻往西单市场买菜回来，说起有荠菜在那里卖着，我便想起浙东的事来。荠菜是浙东人春天常吃的野菜，乡间不必说，就是城里只要有后园的人家都可以随时采食，妇女小儿各拿一把剪刀一只“苗篮”，蹲在地上搜寻，是一种有趣味的游戏的工作。那时小孩们唱道：“荠菜马兰头，姊姊嫁在后门头。”后来马兰头有乡人拿来进城售卖了，但荠菜还是一种野菜，须得自家去采。关于荠菜向来颇有风雅的传说，不过这似乎以吴地为主。《西湖游览志》云：“三月三日男女皆戴荠菜花。谚云：三春戴养花，桃李羞繁华。”顾禄的《清嘉录》上亦说，“荠菜花俗呼野菜花，因谚有三月三蚂蚁上灶山之语，三日人家皆以野菜花置灶陉上，以厌虫蚁。清晨村童叫卖不绝。或妇女簪髻上以祈清目，俗号眼亮花。”但浙东人却不很理会这些事情，只是挑来做菜或炒年糕吃罢了。
黄花麦果通称鼠曲草，系菊科植物，叶小微圆互生，表面有白毛，花黄色，簇生梢头。春天采嫩叶，捣烂去汁，和粉作糕，称黄花麦果糕。小孩们有歌赞美之云：
黄花麦果韧结结，
关得大门自要吃，
半块拿弗出，一块自要吃。
清明前后扫墓时，有些人家——大约是保存古风的人家——用黄花麦果作供，但不作饼状，做成小颗如指顶大，或细条如小指，以五六个作一攒，名曰茧果，不知是什么意思，或因蚕上山时设祭，也用这种食品，故有是称，亦未可知。自从十二三岁时外出不参与外祖家扫墓以后，不复见过茧果，近来住在北京，也不再见黄花麦果的影子了。日本称做“御形”，与荠菜同为春天的七草之一，也采来做点心用，状如艾饺，名曰“草饼”，春分前后多食之，在北京也有，但是吃去总是日本风味，不复是儿时的黄花麦果糕了。
扫墓时候所常吃的还有一种野菜，俗称草紫，通称紫云英。农人在收获后，播种田内，用做肥料，是一种很被贱视的植物，但采取嫩茎滴食，味颇鲜美，似豌豆苗。花紫红色，数十亩接连不断，一片锦绣，如铺着华美的地毯，非常好看，而且花朵状若蝴蝶，又如鸡雏，尤为小孩所喜，间有白色的花，相传可以治痢。很是珍重，但不易得。日本《俳句大辞典》云：“此草与蒲公英同是习见的东西，从幼年时代便已熟识。在女人里边，不曾采过紫云英的人，恐未必有罢。”中国古来没有花环，但紫云英的花球却是小孩常玩的东西，这一层我还替那些小人们欣幸的。浙东扫墓用鼓吹，所以少年常随了乐音去看“上坟船里的姣姣”；没有钱的人家虽没有鼓吹，但是船头上篷窗下总露出些紫云英和杜鹃的花束，这也就是上坟船的确实的证据了。
作品译文
Wild Vegetables of My Home Region
I call more than one place my home. Every place I have lived is my home. I feel no special love for my home, only because I go there to fish and swim. I meet my home in the morning and in the evening and then I make acquaintance with it little by little, like with a neighbor in the same village. Although it is not my relative, sometimes it comes into mind since I have left the village. I have lived over ten years in the eastern part of Zhejiang province, then six years each in Nanking and Tokyo, all of these places I would call home. Now I live in Peking, and this city also has turned into my home.
Recently my wife came back from the Xidan market and said they were selling Jicai there. That reminded me of a tradition in the eastern part of Zhejiang province. Jicai is a wild vegetable that people often eat in spring there, particularly in the countryside.
Even in the city, people with gardens can pick it and eat it any time.
With a pair of scissors and a “harvest basket” in each hand, women and children squat and search for it on the ground. What interesting and enjoyable work! In these times the children sang, “Horse-orchid-header and Jicai, the older sister marries the neighbor. “Later the farmers bring Horse-orchid-header to the city market, but Jicai still remains a type of wild vegetable, that is not sold, but is collected by oneself. Since time immemorial, there are legends about the Jicai, mainly in the south. In the Trip to the West Lake, it says, “On the third day of the third month in the lunar calendar, all women and men wear blooms of the Jicai. There is a saying: In the three months of spring, one wears the bloom of the Jicai, that bursts more powerfully into bloom than peach and plum blossoms.” Also in the Records of Qing Jia from Gu Lu, it says, “Jicai popularly is also called wild vegetable flower. Because there is a saying, that the ants scrawl over the stove on the third day of the third month in the lunar calendar, people put the flower of this will vegetable in the cooking plate on this day in order to keep away the ants. In the village children call out to sell these blossoms in the morning. The women wear them in their hair hoping for bright shining eyes. Therefore this bloom popularly is also called ‘bright eye’.” But the people in the eastern part of Zhejiang province heed these beliefs less. They only collect it in order to prepare meals with it or to use it as an ingredient in their New Year’s Day cakes.
The yellow-blooming-wheat-fruit, also called dysentery herb, belongs to the chrysanthemum family. Its small, round leaves have a fuzzy, white texture and grow in pairs on either side of the stem.
Its flowers are yellow and grow only at the tip of the branches. In the spring, people pick its young leaves, grind them, and skim off the juice. They then add flour to the juice and bake it to make a yellow-blooming-wheat-fruitcake. This fruit is praised in a childrens’ song:
The yellow-blooming wheat fruits are tough,
I shut the front door and eat it:
Half a piece I cannot pass up on,
I eat a whole piece of fruit on my own.
When they remember a deceased person, standing beside his grave on “All Souls’ day”, some families—presumably those which uphold old traditions—bring the yellow-blooming wheat fruits. Instead of cakes they make them into either pearls the size of fingertips, or into thin rolls that look like small fingers. Five or six of them together form a so-called cocoon fruit. I don’t exactly know its meaning. Maybe this food is so named deliberately in order to remind people that the silkworms spin their cocoons during the sacrificial times. Nobody knows why for certain. Since I left home when I was 12 or 13, I stopped taking part in the All Soul’s commemorations and stopped seeing the cocoon fruits. Since I moved to Peking, I haven’t seen any of the yellow-blooming-wheat-fruit. In Japan, its name is “Go-gyo” (imperial appearance) and it belongs, like the Jicai, to the seven spring-herbs. The Japanese create snacks like mugwort dumpling out of it, that they call “herb-cakes”. One eats it most often during the time of the Spring Equinox. The herb-cakes in Peking always taste Japanese, no longer like the yellow-blooming-wheat-fruitcake of my childhood. During “All Soul’s day,” one often eats another type of wild vegetable at the gravesite, Chinese tragant, popularly called herb purple. After the harvest, the farmers plant these herbs to fertilize the field, but they don’t appreciate the plants many other good qualities. Its delicate stalk is edible. It is very palatable, it has a delicious taste similar to the pea-sprouts. Clustered in field, its flowers form a rich purple red carpet larger than a hectare. The shpes of the flowers resemble butterflies or chickens. Children enjoy them above all. Occasionally one finds a rare white Chinese tragant. They are very precious, according to the traditions, they can heal dysentery. In the Japanese Large Dictionary of the Pai-sentences, it says, “As common as a dandelion, people have become familiar with it since their childhoods.” There is probably no woman who has never picked Chinese tragant. In ancient China, flower-wreaths were unknown. But children now make wreaths with balls of Chinese tragant blossoms, that they also enjoy playing with. In the eastern part of Zhejiang province, one uses drums and wind instruments at the commemoration at the gravesite, so that young men can follow the sounds of the music and find the “beautiful girls driving with the boat to the grave.” Poor families admittedly have not drums—and no wind instruments, but one can see some bouquets of Chinese tragant and azaleas on the tip of their boats and beneath the windows. These bouquets also decoratively identify these boats.
