Spring comes wandering in, and the locust trees back home are covered in small white flowers again.
Each petal is tiny. A single blossom looks almost too delicate to stand up to the wind. But put a whole basketful in front of you, and the sweet, rich fragrance rises in waves. These little flowers—locust blossoms—are utterly ordinary here, much like the plain, good-natured people of my hometown. Every spring the trees are dotted with these white sprites, swaying gently in the breeze. Whenever I see them, my childhood comes back vivid and alive, as if those years had never really left.
In my earliest memories, locust blossoms were not only fragrant; they could be made into a good dish. A big basket of the small white petals, rinsed in clean water, tossed with a little flour, sprinkled with salt, steamed in the pot, then drizzled with sesame oil and stirred—that was enough to eat. Sweet and savory, and filling too. If there was also a plate of pale green garlic scapes on the side, it was the best food in the world. Every time, the whole family ate happily.
For children, the best part was going out to gather the blossoms ourselves. Here we did not call it “picking locust blossoms”; we called it gou—reaching for them. You tied a short wooden stick to the tip of a long, slender bamboo pole. The stick and the pole had to keep a 30° angle. That made an X-shaped fork at the end, which you could use to twist and snap off the branch tips covered with little flowers. I did this a few times as a child, and the memory is still hard to forget.
Many years have passed. Life is much better now than it used to be. Rice and fine flour, chicken, duck, fish, and meat are all easy to have; we eat meat almost every day. And yet I often feel that food no longer tastes as good as it did before.
A few days ago, my grandmother happened to mention locust blossoms. I understood what she was thinking. This morning I got up early and went to the market, where I bought two jin of locust blossoms—about a kilogram. They cost only one yuan a jin. My mother was delighted when I brought them home and immediately steamed half of them, which made a breakfast. The other half could make another meal.
Today we finally had steamed locust blossoms again, along with stir-fried okara. Everyone was happy, especially my grandmother.
Locust trees grow more slowly than poplars. So now, in both the countryside and the towns, poplars have taken the place of locust trees in planting. In my memory, the small town where I grew up had many locust trees; now other trees have replaced them. The few locust trees that remain grow out in the villages. In the years to come, I suppose locust blossoms will be harder and harder to see, and steamed locust blossoms harder to eat. Whenever I think of this, a vague sadness rises in me.
Before the other half of the blossoms went into the pot, I took a few photos, just as a keepsake.
