Chapter 77 Making Zongzi
After eating a large bowl of noodles in the morning, the family was not too hungry, so Zhang An’s family had lunch a little late.
After finishing all the preparations, Wang Fang started making rice dumplings.
There are two types of rice dumplings made in the village, white rice dumplings and meat rice dumplings.
But Zhang An didn’t like eating white rice dumplings, so Wang Fang made all the rice dumplings filled with salty bacon stuffing.
Due to regional dietary differences, some people only like to eat sweet rice dumplings and sweet tofu, while some people only like salty rice dumplings and salty tofu.
Of course, there are a very small number of people who can eat both sweet and salty foods. For them, it is just a kind of food. It doesn’t matter if they like it or not, as long as they can eat it.
The conflict between the two has not yet begun, nor has it reached the point where the sweet party and the salty party will compete for the world in the future.
But Zhang An himself is a loyal person who supports the Salty Party. He was used to eating it when he was a child. Later, when he was in other places, although the local people ate sweet food, Zhang An was still not used to eating it.
Salty rice dumplings and salty tofu with chili peppers are always the most delicious in Zhang An’s heart.
In fact, everyone in Changqing Village likes to eat salty rice dumplings, but in the past, because of poor family conditions, they only made white rice dumplings every time.
When Zhang An’s father, Zhang Jianguo, and his generation were young, all they ate were white rice dumplings, and they were not even dipped in white sugar. The most they could do was to make their own chili water to dip them in.
That’s why there are only white rice dumplings left now. Old people who are accustomed to eating rice dumplings still make some every year, which means remembering the bitterness and thinking about the sweetness.
The rice dumplings made in the village are different from those in Guangdong and Guangxi.
Zhang An later saw that the rice dumplings made in Guangdong and Guangxi were long, while the ones he made in the village were triangular.
In the whole family, Zhang An’s father sat aside and watched because he didn’t know how to make bags.
Zhang Jianguo cannot cook, let alone make dumplings or rice dumplings.
He doesn't know how to do these things, so Zhang An's Wang Fangneng has been controlling him for so many years.
When the two of them occasionally quarreled in the past, Wang Fang would not cook. For at most two days, Zhang Jianguo would have to bow his head obediently.
But for Zhang An, Wang Fang has taught him step by step since he was a child.
If you don't know how to cook, you won't be able to find a wife, and even if you find one, you'll still have to deal with it.
So Zhang An was taught how to cook, how to make dumplings, how to make rice dumplings, and how to make cakes from a young age.
The reason is that I don’t want my son to be manipulated by his daughter-in-law when he gets married.
Zhang Jianguo felt that his mother-in-law was not a standard person.
On the one hand, he takes care of himself, and on the other hand, he teaches his son not to be taken care of by others.
Zhang An followed his mother and quickly wrapped the rice dumplings.
In this way, the Dragon Boat Festival passed.
For children, they still have to go to school, but the family will make rice dumplings for them to eat, and the food cooked by Kenmeng at home will be better than usual. This is something that makes them happy. .
Nowadays, most families in the village basically have the same dishes for three meals a year, and they usually don’t buy meat to cook them, except during the New Year and festivals.
So there is a saying, adults look forward to farming, and children look forward to the New Year.
I cooked rice dumplings in the evening and made dinner a little casually.
If you are hungry at night, you can get some to eat.
Zhang An had not eaten rice dumplings for a long time, so he ate five in one meal. Wang Fang was worried that he had eaten the rice dumplings.
"Xiao An, look at whether there are too many ducks in our house."
Sitting in the yard at night, Wang Fang counted the ducks in the outer circle.
When there weren’t many ducks at home before, you could tell how many there were at a glance.
But later, as the ducks in the family hatched several broods of ducklings, the number of ducks in the family became much larger.
Every night, Wang Fang has also made a habit of checking whether all the chickens and ducks at home are in their pens. She counts them a little every day, so that she has a good idea.
“Ah, aren’t there always a lot of ducks at home?”
Zhang An really didn’t pay attention to this problem.
"I have been counting before. Our family has twenty-one big ducks and eight ducklings that were just hatched a few days ago. But now there are twenty-five big ducks crowded in this circle"
When Zhang An heard this, he walked to the side and counted it. Mom must have remembered it correctly.
After counting, there are really twenty-five big ducks.
"Isn't someone's duck running over?"
Zhang An turned on the flashlight and took a look, and he knew what was going on.
"Mom, there are a few more ducks, but they are not from the village. It should be during the day when the ducks are in the river, and there may be a few wild ones that follow them. Don't worry about them."
Wang Fang is afraid that other people's ducks will come to her house, which will cause unnecessary disputes.
There have been many more water birds in the river recently, and there are also a lot more water ducks.
Maybe they got together because they saw a lot of ducks in Zhang An’s house, because water ducks themselves are social creatures.
While passing by the deer shed, Zhang An walked inside to take a look.
The yellow muntjac brought back in the morning are now familiar with the Dahua family. After all, they are all animals of the genus Deer.
They should be considered distant relatives, maybe they have the same language.
Now there are two expectant mothers at home, so Zhang An pays great attention to their food.
In the cherry forest at home, a lot of space spring water was sprinkled when the trees were planted, so now not only the trees in the forest grow well, but also the grass grows very lush.
Originally, Zhang Jianguo wanted to take advantage of his free time to remove the grass inside. But Zhang An didn't want to shovel it, because during the day, Dahua's family and Dahei would go inside to graze.
It saves Zhang An the time of mowing the grass every day.
After all, the grass in the forest has been watered with space spring water, so it is quite popular.
Zhang An touched the yellow muntjac, and now it is a member of the family.
Zhang An was thinking about what he should give this little guy a name.
The big black horse in the family is called Dahei, and the sika deer is called Dahua.
Looking at the yellow fur of the female muntjac, Zhang An gave full play to his natural talent.
Another thought came to my mind, and I decided that this muntjac would be called Dahuang. When its child is born, if it still has yellow fur, it would be called Xiaohuang.
Perfect!
Zhang An is very satisfied with his naming skills.
Patting the little guy on the back, "Little guy, from now on you will be called Dahuang."
Zhang An specially gave Cuihua and Dahuang their favorite space spring water to drink. He also watched the two of them eat a bunch of young space grass that had just been taken out.
There is no way, we can’t do it if we don’t keep it.
Mainly because of Dahua, this stinky scumbag, who doesn’t know how to be courteous to pregnant women.
If Zhang An is not here, the water is also his, and the grass is also his.
The remaining two pregnant women could only watch.
When I sleep at night in the summer, there are still so many mosquitoes, and the buzzing is the most annoying thing.
This year Zhang An did not indulge in them and directly lit the mosquito coils he just bought.
I didn’t buy mosquito coils at home before because Wang Fang thought it was too expensive. She would save whatever she could. When she went to bed at night, she would burn a handful of hay to repel mosquitoes and then put down the mosquito net.
What impressed Zhang An the most was that he had to swat away mosquitoes every day when he went to bed.
At that time, every house had a mosquito net made of palm leaves. Every day before going to bed, mosquitoes would be driven away from the bed and the mosquito net would be put down to ensure that no blood would be sucked while sleeping.
However, some mosquito nets are made of white cloth and are somewhat airtight, making them uncomfortable to sleep at night.
When summer came this year, Zhang An bought several boxes of mosquito coils.
Although the current mosquito coils are a bit expensive, they are very effective.
Zhang An lit a plate of mosquito-repellent incense and burned it until dawn the next day.
When I woke up in the morning, the ground was full of mosquitoes with sharp beaks that had been smoked to death.
But Wang Fang is still worried, saying that the smell of burning mosquito coils is poisonous, and she is afraid that she will be poisoned when she falls asleep at night.
Many people thought so at the time. In their opinion, mosquito coils were not poisonous and could not kill mosquitoes.
Zhang An explained to his mother for a long time before letting her accept it.
But every time they lit the mosquito coil, they saw that the mosquitoes were almost smoked, so they got up and suffocated the mosquito coil, and then put down the mosquito net on the bed.
On the one hand, I am still worried about gas poisoning, but on the other hand, I want to save some money.
Zhang An is very annoyed by these mosquitoes. Every time he sees the scene of dead mosquitoes piled on the ground, he shouts in his heart: It's so good to die.
As time goes by, summer is getting hotter and hotter.
It was a little cooler when I first woke up in the morning, but by nine o'clock it was already extremely hot.
No one could eat lunch, so Wang Fang had to pick some green beans and zucchini in the garden and cook a pot.
After it cools down, it tastes pretty good, with a sweet and icy texture.
“Your family is having dinner.”
While Zhang An’s family was eating, Mr. Huang came to Zhang An’s house.
"Don't be busy, our family has already eaten. I came here to ask Jianguo to help my family pierce the nose of the cow later. The calf at home has grown up a lot, and it's time to pierce the nose. . ”
Seeing Wang Fang getting up to get himself bowls and chopsticks, Mr. Huang quickly dissuaded him and said to the family.
Zhang An, their little scalper, has an impression. At that time, Huang Erye took his own cow and calf and went to the mountains with Zhang An to let the wind go.
I didn’t expect that after a few months, I would be able to wear a cow’s nose.
However, when Zhang An saw him, the calf was already quite old, and now several months have passed.
This kind of newborn animal grows very fast during its initial period. Basically, it does not change every day, but it can also be seen that the calf has been growing up.
Bull nose piercing requires the help of many people, and you also need to find experienced people.
So this time Huang Erye invited Zhang Jianguo instead of Zhang An, because Zhang An had no experience in crossing the cow's nose.
Although there are not many people raising cattle in Changqing Village, there are also two types of cattle raised in the village, oxen and buffaloes.
The ox has yellow skin with shorter horns and hair, while the buffalo has gray-brown fur, a pair of large horns on its head, and the hair on its body is slightly longer.
Buffalo are more common in the south, while cattle are more common in the north.
As for the mountainous areas in the southwest, there are cattle and buffaloes.
As can be seen from the name, buffaloes love water. Zhang An often saw buffaloes in the village and would often submerge his entire body into the river and not want to come out for a long time.
(End of this chapter)