Almond Tea
‘Almond Tea’ (杏仁茶) was the greatest enjoyment in
my childhood. Especially, in the cold winter, left had held that 'Fried Dough Sticks' (油炸粿) to immerse
into a bowl of hot ‘Almond Tea’, and chewing the fried dough sticks, that good
taste was unforgettable forever.
In February 1966, five
decades ago during the Lunar New Year, my father was maliciously arrested by
the KMT polices—they also broke my grandma’s binding-feet on the same day. I
thus had to get up early at 2 o’clock to kill the ducks, and then help my
boss to inject water in the skins of dead ducks in order to make much more money for
keeping my family alive. This kind of dirty work normally finished around at 6
o’clock. Then I walked out of the market where was full of corpse odor, a stall
floated another sweet smell that is what I am talking about ‘Almond Tea’ plus ‘Fried
Dough Sticks ’, and to have one was my greatest pleasure that made me forgot
the humiliation of tyrant in a very brief moment.
Today, it’s fifteenth day
of 2016 Lunar New Year, we called ‘Yuan-Shiao Festival’ (元宵節); I went to temple to
make prayer to ask my sovereign God for giving us a peaceful year. Suddenly, I
smelled both familiar and distant fragrance, and turned my head to the right
and saw an Almond Tea Stall. At once, I'd not hesitate approaching to enjoy that old taste but
greatest pleasure.
Actually, the concentration
of the ‘Almond Tea’ is boiled to be very thick that should be called ‘Almond
Paste’, but Taiwanese still called almond tea. The ‘Fried
Dough Sticks’ must be made of
fine flour and two sticks rolled together, and be fried to very crisp and brittle
and hot, it mixed with the almond paste that simply the most delicious food on
earth.
