A Harvest Festival for One
In that first stretch of autumn, Wicked Valley finally saw its very first harvest gathered entirely by my own hand since it came into being. I want to stress “by my own hand” – that means from transplanting the seedlings right through to the final reaping, every single step done entirely by me, no one else. Every task, every detail, all mine to shoulder.
I moved into Wicked Valley in June 2021, which meant I had missed spring sowing altogether, let alone any talk of an autumn harvest. Starting from scratch, all my energy went into basic groundwork, and there was simply no room to think about the land – the very reason I had come here in the first place.
The following year I arrived brimming with ambition – to farm, to farm, to farm – and even made a bet with a neighbour: from my Wicked Valley anniversary date onwards, everything would be done myself, no hired labour whatsoever… Well, when harvest day came it rained, and I was running a fever (probably had tested positive). I ended up paying someone else to cut the grain, losing ten jin of Ruiyan rice in the wager – but the real heartbreak was missing the experience of reaping it with my own hands.
I. Harvesting by My Own Hand: A Harvest Festival Fit for a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast
I’ve planned to stretch the reaping over three days, savouring it at my leisure. And before the first cut, I’ve set aside another three days purely for preparation – warm-up, as it were. Moreover, I, who never once bother taking photographs, have deliberately stopped to photograph everything in advance for the record.
Wicked Valley yields two harvests a year: in spring, I am the field’s watchman among the wheat; in autumn, it’s the paddy. And this year’s paddy is genuinely worth photographing.
Every chore on the farm is a work in progress, and when a job the size of transplanting or harvesting comes along, something else is bound to slip. Finish one thing and another turns into a mess. So I’ve made sure to set aside dedicated time for preparation, guaranteeing that once the harvest is done, I can flop down with a cup of tea, perfectly at ease.
Day three of the countdown: clearing the surroundings. Day two: preparing the harvest meals – an entire day of cooking and baking. In the morning I steamed a tray of red yeast rice buns and a tray of green bean and pumpkin vegetable buns; in the afternoon I fired up the kiln and baked fresh flower pastries. The final day before the harvest is seed-saving – the last ritual of this season’s labour, a gesture of respect towards the land and a wish for its endless renewal.
29 August, and the very first day of reaping brought extreme weather: torrential rain. Fortunately, my harvesting contingency plan had already factored in the weather. In the morning I mended the dam that had been washed out; by the afternoon the skies cleared and the ears dried in the breeze, and I managed to cut the first block of paddy clean before the next shower arrived. Halfway through, I even paused deliberately to rest – and, with full ceremony, enjoyed a harvest afternoon tea: roselle and stevia with homemade biscuits.
Day two, more rain in the morning. But no matter – I threshed first, congratulating myself every time on my foresight in buying an electric thresher and building a dedicated threshing area. Threshing became a sing-along, humming as I worked. Once the threshing was done, the rain stopped too. After lunch I reaped the second block and finished, just barely, before the next downpour – a narrow escape.
Day three: threshing the second batch of grain in the rain, then using the pulley hoisting system I’d pre-installed while building to spread every last grain out to dry. Then, with perfect composure, I sowed green manure and tidied up the “battlefield.” Surprise discovery: the first roselle flower had opened.
I must confess: cutting rice by hand, entirely on my own, then carting, threshing, and drying the grain in turn – it is a genuine test of physical stamina. The saving grace is that this machine, in service for over fifty years, passed every single hurdle without complaint, and I kept up my evening swim each day. Though sliding into the water did send a sting spreading through me with every splash – oh, what a sharp, tingling ache. Never mind, it’d pass in a few days and wouldn’t stop me later, when I’d airily remark “a pleasant little challenge, that” over a casual boast.
The freshly threshed grain, spread under the clear canopy in the drying area, was safe come wind or rain. I, meanwhile, melted into the hammock during the typhoon, watching the storm through the shelter of the roof, and couldn’t resist borrowing someone else’s words to sigh, “Hiding in my little house, making my own world…”
This was the last day of August 2023 – three years and two and a half months since arriving in Wicked Valley. As I had wished, the doors were shut and the sun hung high, and along the road to self-sufficiency I had gone, with no turning back.
II. Wicked Valley’s Foodie Philosophy
Eight small characters by the doorway: Till fields, daydream, shut the door, no visitors. Tilling and daydreaming – those are my chief duties here in Wicked Valley. The reason I treat the harvest with such ceremony is also a deliberate turning point. Once the reaping is done, from 1 September 2023 onwards, my days will tip from more tilling to more daydreaming.
The first year’s stumbling entry – looking back, it was all tuition. The second year began with a cracked rib in early spring and ended with a bruised chest and forced shutdown come late autumn; every single month, head down, flat out. By the third year, at last, from an all-out spring through to summer, I finally called it a draw against farmwork – sunrise to sunset, everything looks business as usual. Since autumn set in, the centre of gravity of life here has quietly, dramatically shifted.
Hanging up a hammock, leafing through a light book, scrolling my phone – isn’t that bliss? I stumbled on a link from a year ago and got quite the jolt. Cross-referencing the photos in an old Foodthink piece, I shot a few more from the same angles and was startled by how much the surroundings and the daily rhythm had changed. Everything is shifting; the one thing that seems to hold still is a foodie’s foodie philosophy.
The dream of a Valley-born farmer is self-sufficiency. This dream has no ceiling – the pinnacle is “whatever you crave, you have”; it has a floor too – “whatever’s there, you eat.” Right now I’m parked somewhere in the golden mean: short of the summit, but comfortably above the base.
Things are fixed, but people are adaptable – hands, feet, and land to work, and you plant whatever you want to eat. But if I’m craving apples, planting is hopeless. Apple trees need a deep winter dormancy below minus 8 degrees Celsius. Wicked Valley’s winter low hovers around zero, with a swing of less than three. The tree can’t sleep through the cold, won’t shed its leaves, so come spring it won’t stir or bud – flowering and fruiting are simply out of the question. To eat an apple, you have to buy one – however fanciful the rest of my thinking gets, this one rule in the foodie creed never budges: respect nature.
III. The Food Hunter’s White Dew Meal
The “catch” on White Dew is as pictured: pumpkin, taro, and bottle gourd, one piece each; a handful of corn, peanuts, and white kidney beans; ginger to taste; hibiscus flowers and okra flowers, as chance allows.
Even plain boiling has its craft: pumpkin, taro, and bottle gourd cut into chunks; apple into slices; ginger into thin matchsticks. I toss corn silk into the pot too – faintly sweet, and fragrant. Black corn silk yields a broth with a dark undertone touched with red, the colour of old wine. This pairing is the very finest fruit-and-vegetable soup of the season: that bouncy, springy bite, natural fats, and protein – the whole lot. Nutritionally balanced and, crucially, delicious. The food’s own texture and fragrance outshine every seasoning. One pot, one bowl of water – boil the whole world in it.
In this meal, apart from the rosy apple bought from the supermarket – origin unknown, provenance a mystery – every one of the remaining nine ingredients carries a story I can recount by heart.
The white kidney beans came from seeds a neighbour gave me, with a vitality so fierce it’s almost rude. Planted almost offhandedly in that thin, scrawny strip by the riverbank, they fought the surging, rampant weeds tooth and nail – survived the brutal scramble of a poor environment, then flowered, bloomed, and set fat pods full of beans. Beyond these in-season kidney beans, my own home-grown peanuts are stocked the year round. Sticky corn, though – that’s a game of chance. Cross paths with it, and there you go.
The pale-green bottle gourd is the very last piece, and I’m loath to let it go. The seeds were a gift from the local carpenter. Tender young bottle gourds are close cousins of market calabash on the family tree, but in flavour they’re worlds apart – practically two different species, honestly! Wicked Valley’s tender gourds are more than plentiful, and I’ve been eating one every single day this summer. Bottle gourds are acutely sensitive to the seasons. Even now, Fujian’s heat still presses in – vest and shorts and you’re drenched by mid-morning – yet past the Start of Autumn the gourd leaves have gone limp and yellow of their own accord. Watering, feeding, coaxing – nothing helps. I can only stand by, helpless, watching this delicacy slip further and further away. This is the last piece from the very last fruit: eating it with full appreciation is the finest tribute I can pay. Though no heartfelt homage quite matches drying a gourd on the vine for seed. Bottle-gourd babies – see you next year, it’s a date.
Once the first round of ingredients has softened sufficiently, it’s the flowers’ turn – hibiscus and okra. Truth is, Wicked Valley is brimming with blooms right now. The ginger lilies alone come in yellow and white; there’s lotus, day lily, roses, and gardenia too. But those flowers tend towards a woody chew, short on silky softness, and their fragrance overwhelms – far too assertive for a soup of such delicate restraint. Simmer them in a rich tomato broth instead and they’d be welcome; fold them into scrambled eggs, too. Of course, with fading roselle flowers, throw them in without a second thought – equally soft, smooth, and free of any rough edges.
Even without photos to compare – no pictures, no proof – the words alone make it plain: the foodie has quietly gained the luxury of picking and choosing, beyond simply “eat what’s there,” and is beginning to edge from “eating enough” towards “eating well.”
All illustrations in this article are by the author
Editor: Tianle