Entering the village and passing by the door of Second Grandma's house, Second Grandma Zhang spotted the two of them.
"Xiao'an, Xiaoying, come home quickly."
Grandma Zhang waved her hand and called the two of them home.
"Second Grandma, what's wrong?"
"I cooked some rice and shrimp, you can take some back to eat."
Grandma Zhang took them both to the kitchen and brought a big bowl for Zhang An to carry.
Rice shrimp is also called cold shrimp, which is not shrimp from shrimp crab, but a rice product.
There are many places to eat cold shrimp, basically all over the country.
Most places call it cold shrimp, but Zhang An’s place calls it rice shrimp because it is made with rice.
In some places it is called baby fish roe, and in other places it is called squid fish.
Although the names are different, the things are the same.
Legend has it that a long time ago, there lived a family named Peng, mother and son, on the banks of the Yangtze River. One winter, there was heavy snowfall, and the elderly mother fell ill and wanted to eat a bite of shrimps from the river.
After hearing this, the son braved the severe cold and went to the river to catch shrimps for his mother. When he arrived at the river, he found that the river had already frozen, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not break the ice. In a hurry, he simply untied his clothes and lay down
Melt the ice with your body on the ice.
Not long after, he passed out. In his dream, an old man with a white beard said to him: Don't you want shrimps? I'll teach you... The young man suddenly woke up and rushed home to make shrimps according to the old man's method.
I fed my mother one bite at a time, and she miraculously revived.
So later, this method of making shrimps spread among the people, and people called it "filial son's cold shrimps".
"Hey, grandma, why did you think of making rice shrimp today?"
This rice shrimp is not difficult to make. The raw material is rice flour or other starch.
Mix water with water to make rice slurry, then bring water to a boil and pour the rice slurry in.
Then just keep stirring like potato flour to avoid burning the pot.
After cooking, prepare a basin of cold water and squeeze the rice paste with a slotted spoon.
The rice paste will fall into the cold water drop by drop from the round hole.
After cooling, it will be similar to fish fry. This is rice shrimp.
"Your father said he wanted to eat it, so I made some."
As Grandma Zhang spoke, she also used a ladle to scoop out the vegetable bowl in Zhang An's hand.
The rice shrimps that have just been cooked and cooled down are just like snow-white shrimps.
"Milk, no need to scoop it out, this is enough for us to eat."
Although the second mistress scooped out rice and shrimps with a ladle, she also scooped them out with the well water.
But when I scooped it up, I also deliberately poured out a lot of water.
The bowl in Zhang An's hand is now filled with more than half of the bowl of rice and shrimp.
"Bring some more back. I grinded the dole today. Look, there's another bucket here."
As Grandma Zhang spoke, she showed Zhang An the two buckets next to them, which contained more than half of the buckets of rice and shrimp.
"Nai, how much rice and noodles did you cook in these two buckets of rice and shrimp?"
Zhang An looked at the small white strips in the two buckets and estimated that he needed to make a large pot of rice paste.
"I didn't use rice noodles. I soaked glutinous rice and ground it into a pulp, so it tastes delicious."
"Hey, that mill is not easy to push. You didn't call me over when it was grinding."
Although they use their own grinder, with so much rice and shrimp, it takes a long time to push the rice milk needed.
"I didn't push the grinder. Today, Jianlin's family grinds tofu, so I made do with their grinder. Chunzi and Shengzi didn't want to let me do it, so they helped me grind it."
Zhang Jianlin is the second son of the second grandmother, and Zhang Chun and Zhang Sheng are her grandsons, who are also Zhang An's cousins.
Speaking of her grandchildren, the smile on the old lady's face became even bigger.
In the past, only Zhang An talked about the two elders, but now it is different. Several of his grandchildren have begun to show filial piety.
When old people of their age go out to compete, it's not about who is well-dressed or well-fed, but more about whose children and grandchildren are filial.
Nowadays, the cousins of the Second Grandma’s family no longer think about fighting for the family property as before.
Because now, it’s not just Zhang An’s uncle Zhang Jianzhong who is making money by opening a restaurant in his family.
Zhang Jianzhong's brothers also took advantage of the village's development of the lotus pond beach to open a food stall.
Not to mention, over this period of time, those who set up food stalls have made a lot of money.
In the past, several people were not in harmony and wanted to fight for family property. The fundamental reason was that everyone had no money to make trouble.
Now that everyone has made money and is living a better life, they are thinking more about making more money.
Instead of being like before, just wondering about the old man and old lady's little wealth every day.
Now they also understand that the old man and the old lady are still alive, and those thoughts are all false.
So in a subtle way, the relationship between the brothers slowly began to repair and get better.
I also started to treat the old man and the old lady sincerely, instead of just pretending to show it to others like before.
"That's alright. Remember, grandma, don't do this kind of work yourself. You are so old and your hands and feet are not flexible anymore. If something happens, we will be the ones who feel bad. So if anything happens, just call
We young people will do it.”
The elderly are getting older, and Zhang An can't trust them to do those physical jobs.
"Okay, okay, your father and I won't let you worry, because we still have to wait for our great-grandson."
At this age, the old lady doesn't have much to think about, and she doesn't really need to make waves in her life.
Now they have many grandchildren, and their deepest hope is the next generation of great-grandchildren.
Now among the third generation of the Zhang family, the expectations of several elderly people who want to have great-grandchildren undoubtedly fall on Zhang An.
"Don't worry, grandma, I will let you and I have a great-grandson next year."
When Su Ying heard the old lady talking about her great-grandson, her face turned red.
But Zhang An would not do that. He was thick-skinned and immediately assured the old lady.
"Okay, okay, then grandma will be waiting."
After listening to Zhang An's words, the old lady smiled even more happily, and the wrinkles on her face were squeezed together.
"By the way, where is my father?"
After arriving for a long time, Zhang An didn't see his second grandfather at home.
"Your fourth master collected some tobacco leaves today, and he went over to help braid them."
The leaf tobacco grown by the old men in the village is not roasted over fire most of the time.
Instead, they are braided together with hay and then hung in the sun to dry. It is said to be more suitable for drying tobacco.
After chatting with the old lady for a while, Zhang An took the rice and shrimps in the bowl home.
"Which restaurant are you going to get rice shrimp from?"
Wang Fang asked when she saw Zhang An coming home with half a basin of rice and shrimp in his hand.
"My second grandma made this. She asked me to bring half a basin over. It's hot now, so let's get some to eat first."
When he got home, Zhang An put the rice and shrimp bowl on the dining table.
"Then I'll go and make it. Does Xiaoying want it spicy or sweet?"
Wang Fang put down her sewing work, took the bowl and prepared to go to the kitchen.
"Mom, you can make whatever you want and I can eat it."
There are many ways to make rice shrimp, sweet, salty, spicy, and some people even cook them in sour soup.
But here in Hongyan Town, it’s usually brown sugar rice shrimp and hot and sour rice shrimp.
But this is not the same as rice dumplings. Zhang An is not opposed to both methods, and it is quite good to eat them interchangeably.
Zhang An thinks the brown sugar rice shrimp tastes a bit like fermented rice dumplings, but is smoother, glutinous, refreshing, soft and sweet.
As for the spicy and sour rice and shrimps, most of them in Guizhou Province are sour and spicy, so there is no sense of disharmony when paired with them.
The spicy and sour rice shrimp tastes not only chewy and smooth, but also sour and spicy.
"Then I'll make some and eat whatever I want later."
Anyway, Zhang An brought back a lot of rice shrimps, so Wang Fang thought he might as well prepare them separately.
The rice shrimps are ready-made, so you don’t need to spend much time making them later.
Wang Fang entered the kitchen and made two pots of rice and shrimp, one sweet and one spicy, without spending much time.
In the spicy pot, Wang Fang's own red oil chili and sesame seeds were poured into it.
These rice shrimps filled with chili oil and paired with the sourness of mature vinegar make people very appetizing at first sight.
"Mom, where is my dad? I'll call him."
After Zhang An came back, he didn't see his father Zhang Jianguo at home.
It's time to have lunch, and it must be with the whole family.
"You don't have to look for it. We can just eat it. He has gone to the ground."
Wang Fang said, bringing out a few porcelain bowls from the kitchen.
"Your uncle came over in the afternoon and called them all to go to Bao Valley together. It seems that someone saw the wild boar coming down the mountain, and several big dogs at home also went together."
It turned out that he had gone to the fields. No wonder the big dogs at home were not at home.
Originally, Zhang An was a little worried when he heard that there were wild boars coming down the mountain, but when he brought his family dog with him, he felt relieved.
Now out of the nine big dogs in Zhang An's family, only Er Hu and Xiao Hei from Zheng's butcher's family are left.
I think so. Uncle and the others all know the fighting power of these big dogs.
Since we were going up the mountain to look for traces of wild boars, it would be much safer to take big dogs like Zhang An's with us.
Moreover, Da Mao and his brothers have all grown up, although they are not as big as their biological father.
But compared with the native dogs in the village, his physique pales in comparison.
Seeing that his mother had just brought it out, Zhang An picked up the porcelain bowl and made himself a bowl.
Feeling the elastic rice shrimp in his mouth, Zhang An felt a little pity.
When the weather was the hottest, I didn’t remember to make this, otherwise this thing would be a great way to relieve the heat.
After eating several bowls of spicy and sour rice and shrimp, Zhang Anxin burped with satisfaction.
Finally, I changed the bowl and served another bowl of brown sugar rice and shrimp as an after-dinner dessert drink. Two words: comfortable.
And after making the brown sugar rice shrimp, Wang Fang put it in the refrigerator for a while.
Now it tastes not only sweet, but also very refreshing.
After eating, Zhang An rested under a tree and dozed off unconsciously.
When I woke up again, I found that my father had come back.
"Dad, you encountered a wild boar. Where did you meet it?"
After Zhang got up, he found that several of his big dogs had blood stains on them.
Seeing that he was facing a wild boar, Zhang An walked over and inspected the dogs one by one.
I felt relieved when I found that none of the big dogs at home were injured.
"We found a few in Deng Luopo, but our big dogs killed one. Others in the village surrounded one, and the rest ran up the mountain."
Zhang Jianguo was talking with a bright smile. Zhang An guessed that he was praised a lot by the villagers today.
Because Zhang An knows his old man very well, he is not good at talking on weekdays, and he is also serious in speech.
The reason why he is smiling so happily now must be because the villagers made Xiaohu happy after they surrounded the wild boar.
"But the wild boars this time are not big. The two that were brought back are estimated to only weigh about 200 kilograms."
When Zhang Jianwen spoke, he looked calm and indifferent, as if he didn't take the two hundred kilograms of wild boar seriously.
In his opinion, his family had beaten a big-tusked pig weighing more than three hundred kilograms before.
He really looked down upon these two hundred kilograms of wild boar and felt unhappy.
While the family was talking, the loudspeaker in the village began to sound.
At this time, the old uncle was talking in the office and asked everyone to go to the drying ground at 6:30 to share the meat.
After Zhang Jianwen finished cleaning, Wang Fang mixed a bowl of rice and shrimp from home and brought it to him.
Zhang An's family probably won't be able to have dinner tonight, because they just ate too much rice and shrimp, and they were a little full.
"Zhang An, does every household in the village have meat?"
Su Ying was very surprised when she heard about the meat sharing.
Meat is distributed to every household in the village. This kind of thing is rare nowadays.
"Every house must have it, otherwise what else would it be called meat sharing? How about I take you to see it?"
The scene of meat sharing in the village is very spectacular, but Su Ying has definitely never seen it.
So Zhang An guessed that the pigs on the drying ground should have been picked up by now, so he wanted to take Su Ying to have a look.
"Let's go. The pigs must have been taken care of by now. If they aren't scary, just go for a walk."
Looking at Su Ying's face, she looked eager to try, but also slightly confused.
Zhang An could tell at a glance what she was struggling with. It must have been the time when she killed the New Year pig last year, which left a shadow.
Originally, Zhang An thought that he should be the first to arrive.
Unexpectedly, when we arrived at the drying ground, many people had already come.
At this moment, there were groups of three and five on the sunbathing field, chatting about homely matters.
"Wow, there are so many people, it's really lively."
Even though the old man said that a family can go alone, many people have nothing to do and like to go there and join in the fun.
"But there are so many people sharing meat, so each family shouldn't be able to get much meat."
"Hmm, I guess each family will share a few kilograms of meat, which can be enough for two meals."
At this moment, Zhang An had already seen two slaughtered pigs, and Lin Youde and his apprentice were unloading the meat.
The total of two pigs is estimated to be less than 300 kilograms of clean meat, and each family probably has three to four kilograms.
"Actually, it doesn't matter how much we divide it. What's important is that everyone can have fun together."
Although dividing meat was very common in the past, few villages still do this in the past two years.
Nowadays, wild boars have not been protected. Every year when they come down the mountain to cause harm to the valley, Changqing is definitely not the only village where wild boars can be hunted.
But many villages don't think about dividing the meat, but sell it for money, which belongs to the village.
Although it can be regarded as the common property of the village, it feels different from the feeling that the meat is distributed to every family.
So this is also the reason why, during normal times, if something happens in the village, if the old man comes out and cheers, everyone will respond positively.
Sharing the meat is just a trivial matter, although each family does not get much meat.
But this little thing has united everyone in the village.
Not long after, the old man stood in front of the counter and shouted, "The meat is divided."
After everyone received the signal, they all lined up consciously.
Maybe it's because the last time the meat was divided, Second Grandma Zhang An and Second Grandma Huang had a fight with Li Laifu's mother here.
So this time when the meat was being divided, the old man stood beside the table to control the situation.
I'm afraid that a few old ladies will fight together again later.