【Delicacies from Astronauts’ Hometowns】Do you know why astronaut Liu Boming particularly likes eating the string beans from his hometown? ? ?

Potatoes with Green Bams: A traditional home-cooked dish from the Northeast

Oil green beans are a high-quality bean variety unique to the northeastern region of China (mainly Heilongjiang and Jilin), named for the high oil content in their pods. After cooking, its pods become soft and low in fiber; they have a strong bean flavor and a high protein content, which can exceed 20% of their dry mass. Green string beans have a bright green color, thick flesh, a soft texture, and no tough fibers – making them the finest variety of string beans. Edamame is a specialty of the Northeast region; it is a gift from nature to the black soil, and one of the vegetables most loved by people in the Northeast. Because of its delicious taste, some people deliberately took mung bean seeds to the south to plant them there; yet no matter how much fertilizer and water they used, the plants never had the same flavor as those grown in their hometown. The oil beans from the northeast not only have a great taste but are also rich in nutrients, making them a very popular local vegetable. When people from other places return to their hometowns, eating string beans becomes their top choice. Some people from the Northeast also dry fresh string beans and send them to those in the South who enjoy eating these beans, as well as to their relatives living there.

In the rural areas of Yi’an, it is traditional for every family to raise geese. Here, the villagers pronounce the word for “goose” as “né”; geese are not considered poultry but rather large livestock, and they are treated in the same way as cows, horses, and sheep. Every year, when the weather warms up a bit, gosling are caught and fed with wild vegetables mixed with corn husks or wheat bran. By summer, it’s generally possible to release the geese outside. Many children here have experience raising geese. Especially during the summer vacation each year, geese are in a period of growth and eat a lot; there is also plenty of grass in the fields, so it’s simpler to just release the geese there rather than cutting the grass and feeding them afterwards. A goose raised by farmers themselves can weigh over ten pounds. Once a goose reaches a certain size, it can no longer be fed; further feeding will not result in any weight gain. There is a local saying: \"When the snowflakes fall, the geese stop eating.\" Before snowfall, even if geese have reached the desired weight, they are generally not slaughtered; firstly, their meat is not of such good quality, and secondly, it is difficult to remove their feathers at that time.

Yi’an County is a county under the jurisdiction of Qiqihar City in Heilongjiang Province. It is located between 124°50′ and 125°42′ east longitude, and 47°16′ to 48°2′ north latitude. Situated at the southern foot of the Greater Khingan Range and on the northern edge of the Songnen Plain, it features a low-lying, hilly plain landscape and is one of the counties under Qiqihar’s administration. As of 2014, the total area of Yi’an County was 3,685 square kilometers, with 205,000 hectares designated as arable land. In 2014, Yi’an County had 15 towns and townships, as well as 148 administrative villages. Yi’an County had a population of 494,000 people in 2013, with the non-agricultural population accounting for 18%; it is one of the **important counties for commodity grain production. Yi’anju has a rich and profound historical and cultural heritage; it is a county with a distinctive economy. Its main specialty products include sugar, geese, dairy products, beans, vegetables, potatoes, and porcelain. It is known as the “Hometown of Purple Flower Edamame in China,” the “Pearl around the Red-crowned Crane,” and a “beautiful city famous for its green foods.”