Chapter 71. Eating all morning is like sitting at a table
Northeastern people sleep on a heated kang with their head facing the edge of the kang and their feet facing inwards.
Today, there are six pillows placed on the edge of the Kang in the west room of the Li family.
Zhao Jun, Zhou Jianjun, and Jie Chen are all sleeping at Li's house tonight.
Li Baoyu is very happy and takes care of everyone enthusiastically.
But Li Ruhai was very cheerful and kept talking with his little mouth, while Li Dazhi talked to Li Ruhai.
Zhao Jun and Zhou Jianjun are mainly to blame for this situation.
When Zhao Jun was washing his feet just now, he accidentally mentioned that today's dried sweet potatoes were good.
Li Baoyu and Jie Chen nodded in agreement, and Li Dazhi couldn't help but curl his lips.
Hanging sweet potato is what it’s called here, and it’s actually just shredded sweet potato.
No matter how good this thing is, can it also have braised bear paws or braised goose in an iron pot?
But people like the Zhao family eat a lot of fish and meat every day, and they feel fresh after eating sweet potatoes with pulp once.
At that time, Li Ruhai was already eager to give it a try, but he never found an entry point for the topic.
But then, Zhou Jianjun asked casually: "Where did you get the sweet potatoes? Our family didn't save them this year, right?"
"Brother-in-law, I brought it back from shopping!" Li Ruhai suddenly raised his right hand, his forearm and upper arm forming a standard ninety-degree angle, and answered Zhou Jianjun's question happily.
"Ah... ha..." Seeing Zhao Jun, Li Baoyu, and Jie Chen winking at him, Zhou Jianjun also felt something bad.
But in Northeastern chatting, one thing is very important: "Don't let your words fall on the ground."
Li Ruhai even called him eldest brother-in-law, so Zhou Jianjun had no choice but to answer: "Ruhai, you are so awesome, even our shopping mall can't keep up with you."
This sentence is a bad word!
As soon as Zhou Jianjun finished speaking, Li Ruhai stood up from the bench, stepped in front of Zhou Jianjun and said, "Brother-in-law, how about I go shopping for you?"
"Ah?" Zhou Jianjun was startled. He was also in charge of the purchasing aspect of the store, but when it was spread that a fourteen-year-old boy was doing the purchasing, it didn't seem to be the case.
"Brother-in-law, I'm not bragging to you..." Li Ruhai's chatterbox could not be closed from here.
He talked nonstop and told Zhao Jun and others the history of his fortune in quilting.
"Stop being so annoying!" Li Baoyu tried to stop him, but he couldn't stop him at all.
If only Zhao Jun and Jie Chen had come, Li Baoyu would definitely have taken action against Li Ruhai. But today Zhou Jianjun was also here, and Li Baoyu was afraid that doing it himself would make Zhou Jianjun think too much.
Because spanking children in front of guests will make the guests feel embarrassed, and some may misunderstand that the host does not welcome them.
Seeing that Li Ruhai couldn't hold it in anymore, Zhao Jun immediately wiped his feet, got on the bed and got into bed.
Twenty minutes later.
"Ah...ha!" Zhao Jun, who was sleeping in the innermost room, pretended to yawn, then turned over.
This time, he was facing the west wall and his back was facing the east.
Seeing this, Zhou Jianjun also yawned thirty seconds later, then turned over and faced Zhao Jun's back.
Next came Jie Chen, and then Li Baoyu.
From Zhao Jun to Li Baoyu, it took no more than two minutes.
Zhao Jun, Zhou Jianjun, Jie Chen, and Li Baoyu were all lying on their sides, facing west and back to east.
The two people lying on the west side of the kang are Li Dazhi and Li Ruhai.
At this time, Li Dazhi couldn't hold it any longer and pretended to yawn, then turned his back to Li Ruhai.
There are six people on a kang, five of them facing west.
Li Ruhai clicked his lips without saying anything, then turned around and fell asleep facing the east wall.
…
At this time, in the west room of the Zhao family, the sound of snoring was loud.
Four drunk men, no one can wake anyone up.
As the host, Zhao Youcai slept on the kang. Although the kang was not as warm as the end of the kang, the warm applause in the hot kang was not as warm as the applause in Zhao Youcai's dream.
The audience was crowded. There was a video recorder near the stage, where female reporter Su Xianglian was waiting for an interview.
On the stage, Zhao Youcai had a big red flower on his chest, and three Siberian tiger bodies lay horizontally in front of him.
Among them, one is black, two are yellow, two are large and one is small.
At this time, a voice seemed to come from outside: "Everyone below congratulates our tiger-fighting hero Zhao Youcai with warm applause!"
"Wow..." The applause was like the tide of Qiantang.
"Hahaha..." Zhao Youcai on the stage looked up to the sky and laughed.
The applause stopped with Zhao Youcai's laughter, and then the voice sounded again.
"Comrade Zhao Youcai went up to the mountain at the age of nine and lived through ups and downs for thirty-four years. At the age of forty-three, he achieved a brilliant record of killing eleven wild boars with ten shots, and he became famous ever since.
After that, Comrade Zhao Youcai was determined to hoe the strong and help the weak, and eliminate the tiger problem. Now he shot three tigers with two shots, and shocked Lingnan, Lingxi, and mountain runners in the two mountains. He called him an unparalleled hero, and his old friends gave him a nickname..."
The sound fell and there was silence all around.
Zhao Youcai thought in his dream: "What is my nickname? Dayong hasn't figured it out for me yet."
…
The next day, January 10, 1988.
Wang Meilan got up at around four o'clock. Today she has guests at home, and they are honored guests.
According to local custom, it must be filled with stuffing to show its importance.
There were too many vegetables yesterday, so Li Ruhai didn't eat much of the roe deer he bought.
While the men were still drinking in the afternoon, Wang Meilan ordered Zhao Ling and Xu Chunyan to chop the roe deer leg meat and loin meat they had picked off in the morning into minced meat.
After hanging out with Wang Meilan for a long time, Zhao Ling and Xu Chunyan both figured out her ways.
The minced meat cannot be seasoned directly. The garnishes need to be washed with water first to remove the blood contained in the meat.
Then use a strainer to take out the meat filling, squeeze it dry and then mix it with the filling.
Doing this is time-consuming and labor-intensive. In the entire Yong'an Forest District, only Wang Meilan can do this.
But I have to say that the meat stuffing prepared in this way does not have the slightest smell of blood. Then mix the chopped green onion inside and add an appropriate amount of seasoning.
The noodles were made last night. The steamed dumplings here are hot noodles. The noodles are either steamed buns or fried pie.
Wang Meilan chose to have both. Anyway, it would not be difficult to change the buns into pies.
Wrap the bun first, then hold the bottom of the bun with one hand and gently lift the folds of the bun with the other hand, and then roll it into a pie.
The purpose of mentioning that is to make the dough thinner at the pleats, so that there are no too thick pieces of dough in the pie.
The stuffing and noodles are all prepared in advance, and the work will not make too much noise.
But there were guests in the west room, and Wang Meilan herself was too busy, so she carried the basin and went to the next door.
At this time, Jin Xiaomei and Li Dayong both got up.
When Wang Meilan arrived, the couple had already bought soy milk, tofu brain, soybean curd, and dried tofu from the tofu shop.
Then, Jin Xiaomei and Wang Meilan started making buns, and Li Dayong went out and climbed over the wall to Zhao's house, lit the stove with firewood, and boiled water to steam the buns.
Big white and fat buns were placed in circles on the sorghum pole cover beams. Jin Xiaomei and Wang Meilan whispered, "Sister-in-law, in two days you will have to organize us to build a batch of these cover curtains, otherwise there will not be enough."
ah."
"Isn't it enough?" Wang Meilan pinched the folds of the buns and said, "Before the Gregorian calendar, we made twenty buns."
"What's that enough for, sister-in-law?" Jin Xiaomei said, "I heard Baoyu say that after the holiday the year before, their brothers are going to go up the mountain.
When the time comes to bring back more wild boars, roe deer, etc., and freeze the meat outside, won’t they all have to be supported by a curtain?”
This is directed at Wang Meilan. Others just throw the frozen meat into the snow, freeze it for two or three hours, and then go out and pick up the frozen meat pieces from the snow into the vat.
But Wang Meilan didn't do it. The cut meat had to be put on the curtain, and then it was taken out and frozen one by one.
Sometimes, if the frozen meat gets on the curtain, you have to use the back of a knife to lift it. If it doesn't lift properly, the curtain will be broken.
"I don't want them to catch wild boars." Wang Meilan put the wrapped buns on the curtain and said, "The wild boars were so old and skinny a few years ago, they don't taste good either!"
In late autumn, between the first snows, freshly fattened wild boars are the fattest and their meat is the most fragrant.
The closer winter comes to the new year, the leaner and less delicious the wild boar meat becomes.
"Sister-in-law, what do you mean?" Jin Xiaomei asked, "Shall we buy two pigs?"
"Oh, let's see then." Wang Meilan said: "I asked Xiaojun and the others to try their best to catch Huang Maozi and catch him next year."
Jin Xiaomei glanced at Wang Meilan, thinking that your Xiaojun can listen to you, and these people can also listen to you, and Huang Maozi, can Shen still listen to you the next year? Can a hunting dog still listen to you?
She thought so in her heart, but Jin Xiaomei did not dare to say such rebellious words.
"Sister-in-law." What Jin Xiaomei said was: "When the time comes, let's catch the pigs and let my family, Ruhai, handle this matter."
The pig catching that Jin Xiaomei was talking about was not the same as Zhao Jun and the others going up the mountain to catch wild boars. Instead, they went to people who raised pigs to catch them.
"Oh!" Wang Meilan raised her chin with her hands busy and said, "Pull it down, it won't cost your family money!"
Yesterday, Jin Xiaomei paid for roe deer and other things. Wang Meilan wanted to give her money, but Jin Xiaomei didn't want anything.
"It's okay, sister-in-law." Jin Xiaomei said, "Then I can't eat your food every day."
When Jin Xiaomei said this, her heart was full of bitterness. Yesterday, Li Ruhai suggested buying a watch for Zhao Jun.
Jin Xiaomei felt that this plan was very clever, and thought that Li Dayong would come back and tell Li Dayong the good news.
Unexpectedly, Zhao Jun came back first. When Zhao Jun came back, there was an extra watch on his wrist.
Jin Xiaomei made some insinuations and found out that Zhang Yuanmin and his wife bought it for Zhao Jun.
And not only Zhao Jun has one, but even Ma Ling has one.
Another road was blocked, which made Li Dayong and his wife very worried.
They were eating, drinking and having fun together, a total of seven families.
The Zhao family doesn't count, as they receive gifts. The old lady doesn't count, because she even gave the coffin to Zhao Jun.
In this way, the other five families, Wang, Lin, Zhang and Jie, all bought things for the Zhao family, leaving only the old Li family who did not buy anything.
This situation is simply unacceptable to the Li family. Especially Li Dayong and Li Baoyu, one of them thinks Zhao Youcai is his brother, and the other thinks Zhao Jun is his brother.
…
When it was approaching six o'clock, the guests in the Zhao family's west room got up one after another.
After the winter solstice, the days are getting longer day by day, and the dawn is earlier than before.
But at this time, it was not yet dawn.
Zhou Chunming opened the curtains and saw a bright red fire in the stove pit outside.
By the light of the fire, everyone saw two large pots emitting white steam.
The buns are all steamed!
Everyone went out to wash up and went to the latrine to wait for them to finish cleaning up.
The buns are out of the pan!
A large curtain held by one person was filled with steaming steamed buns. Three people, Zhao Jun, Li Baoyu, and Jie Chen, with six hands and six chopsticks, worked together to deliver the steamed buns to the curtain.
Go inside.
The curtain is placed directly on the table standing aside.
The buns are not very white, but slightly yellow.
But this is not because the alkali is too high, but because the self-ground wheat flour produced by farmers is not particularly white.
At this time, Li Dayong, Jin Xiaomei, and Zhao Chun each came in with a basin. The three basins were filled with mud porridge, tofu curd and soy milk.
The muddy porridge is freshly served and the soy milk is heated.
Immediately afterwards, Li Ruhai brought two plates of side dishes, namely tofu mixed with green onions and shredded dried tofu with red oil.
After Zhao Jun put down the buns, Li Baoyu climbed over the wall to the next door. Zhao Jun brought sliced lunch meat, a platter of ham and fried peanuts, and Li Baoyu brought a stack of pies.
"This..." Chu Anmin and Tao Dabao looked at each other, and then they understood why Zhao Weipeng said that the dining scene at Zhao Jun's house was too big.
You really don’t know this if you don’t see it!
Chu Anmin and Tao Dabao are both people with a certain social status, especially Chu Anmin. He not only lives in the city, but also travels for study every year.
But Chu Anmin traveled all over the country and never saw anyone eating like this.
"Um..." Chu Anmin looked at Zhao Jun who was bringing the food and said, "Zhao Jun, tell your mother not to do anything else. Can we eat it after so much surgery?"
"It's okay, they will be here soon." As soon as Zhao Jun finished speaking, the old lady, Xie Sun came with Su Xianglian.
However, women do not eat at the same table as men. They have a separate table in the east room.
"Come on, come on, let's drink while it's hot!" Zhao Youcai handed over big bowls one by one, which are used to hold thin food, such as tofu curd, soy milk, and muddy porridge. You can fill it yourself with whatever you want.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Chu Anmin and others sat down one after another, when Li Ruhai came over with freshly cooked tofu brains.
This tofu brain marinade is made with shredded carrots, shredded fungus, and shredded red mushrooms. It tastes delicious.
Chu Anmin took a big bun. At this time, the skin of the bun was no longer so hot.
He broke the bun into pieces, and the skin was broken, and a burst of heat shot up from the meat and egg filling.
"Master Xiao Li!" Chu Anmin liked to tease Li Ruhai. Seeing that Li Ruhai was about to go out, he shouted: "Sit down and eat too!"
"I won't eat it yet." Li Ruhai smiled and said, "Chu Ju, I'll wait for a while."
"Haha..." Tao Dabao heard this and said with a smile: "This kid is really interesting, and he is always leisurely. Are you going to be the seat?"
Just as Li Ruhai was about to speak, he was greeted by Li Dayong's sharp eyes. Li Ruhai was startled and swallowed a lot of words that came to his lips.
These days, in the forest areas of Northeast China and rural areas, people hold banquets at their own homes. If they don’t have enough tables, chairs, benches, pots and pans, they borrow them from neighbors.
But many people came, and with a gift, the whole family, men, women, old and young, came to eat.
With so many people, it’s difficult to sit down all at once, so we have to eat in batches.
Northeastern people divide the meal into several batches and call it "Jiyou".
Tables were set up in the east and west rooms of the Zhao family at the same time. The guests and those who went hunting today ate in the west room. The old lady, Mr. Xie Sun, accompanied Su Xianglian, ate in the east room of the Zhao family.
The reason why Wang Meilan and her children did not come to the table was not because they had no place, but because they were waiting for the second pot of steamed buns and the second pot of pie.
After Wang Meilan and the children had finished eating, the five people staying at the forest farm guesthouse came down.
There was food in the cafeteria in the morning, and to entertain them, sorghum rice and soybean tofu were specially stewed.
But the five people who were hungover couldn't eat it.
But after arriving at Zhao Jun's house, Wang Meilan, who picked up the table, invited them to eat steamed buns and drink tofu curd.
The five of them didn't say they couldn't eat, and sat down around the table in unison.
Therefore, the Zhao family had three meals for breakfast.
