Chapter 241 Mi Xia
When they walked into the village and passed by the door of Second Grandma’s house, Second Grandma Zhang spotted the two of them.
"Xiao An, Xiao Ying, come home quickly."
Secretary 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."
Second Grandma Zhang took them both to the kitchen He went inside and brought a big bowl to Zhang An.
Rice shrimp is also called cold shrimp, which is not shrimp from shrimp and crab, but a kind of rice product.
There are many places to eat cold shrimp, basically all over the country.
Most places call it cold shrimp, but Zhang An and his friends call it rice shrimp here because it is made of 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.
According to legend, a long time ago, there lived a family of Peng family and her son on the bank of the Yangtze River. One winter, it was snowing heavily. My elderly mother was ill and wanted to take a bite of shrimps from the river.
After hearing this, the son braved the 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 took off his clothes, lay on the ice and melted the ice with his body.
Not long after, he passed out. In the dream, an old man with a white beard said to him: Don't you want shrimps? I'll teach you... The young man woke up suddenly, rushed home and cooked shrimps according to the old man's method, and fed his mother to drink it one bite at a time. The mother miraculously revived.
So later, the method of making this kind of shrimp spread among the people, and people called it "filial son's cold shrimp".
“Hey, grandma, why did you think of making rice shrimp today?”
It is not difficult to make rice shrimp. The raw material is rice flour or other starches.
Mix water with water to make rice slurry, then put water in the pot to boil and pour the rice slurry in.
Then stir constantly like potato flour to avoid burning the pot.
After cooking, prepare a basin of cold water and squeeze the rice cereal paste with a slotted spoon.
The rice cereal 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, so I made some."
Secretary Zhang's wife said, and she also scooped a spoon into 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."
Although the second mistress scooped out the rice and shrimp with the water ladle, she also scooped it out with the well water.
But when I scooped it up, I even poured out a lot of the water.
The bowl in Zhang An’s hand is now filled with more than half of the rice and shrimp.
"Bring some more back. I grind the dole today. Look, there is another bucket here."
Grandma Zhang said and showed Zhang An the two buckets next to them, which contained more than half of the bucket of rice. shrimp.
"Milk, how much rice and noodles have you cooked 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 milk. son.
“I didn’t use a rice flour grinder. I soaked glutinous rice and ground it into a pulp, so that it tastes delicious.”
“Milk, the grinder is not easy to push. You didn’t even call me over.”
Although I use my own grinder, it takes a long time to push the rice milk needed for so much rice and shrimp.
“I didn’t push the grinder. Today, Jianlin’s family grinds tofu, so I made do with their grinder. Neither Chunzi nor Shengzi was willing to let me use 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, 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.
Now the cousins of the Second Grandma’s family no longer think about fighting for the family property as before.
Because now, it is not just Zhang An’s uncle Zhang Jianzhong who is making money by opening a restaurant in his family.
The family of Zhang Jianzhong’s brothers also took advantage of the village’s development of the lotus pond’s 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 just like before, just thinking about the old man and old lady's 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 subtly, the relationship between the brothers slowly began to repair and get better.
I also started to be sincere towards the old man and the old lady, instead of just pretending to show it to others like before.
"That's okay. Remember, grandma, don't do it yourself when doing this kind of work. You are so old and your hands and feet are not flexible. If something happens then, it will be us who feel bad, so If anything happens, just ask us young people to do it.”
As the old people are getting older, 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. There is no need to jump around in 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 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."
Su Ying's face turned red when the old lady talked about her great-grandson.
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 happier, and the wrinkles on her face were squeezed together.
"By the way, where is my grandfather?"
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 the tobacco leaves."
The leaf tobacco grown by the old men in the village is not cured by fire most of the time.
Instead, weave hay together and hang it in the sun to dry, which is more suitable for drying tobacco.
After chatting with the old lady for a while, Zhang An went home with rice shrimps in the bowl.
“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.”
Back home, Zhang An Place the bowl of rice and shrimp on the dining table.
"Then I'll go and make it. Xiaoying, do you want spicy or sweet?"
Wang Fang put down her sewing work, took the bowl and was about to go in 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 is 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.
Brown sugar rice shrimp tastes a bit like fermented rice dumplings to Zhang An, but it is smoother, glutinous, refreshing, soft and sweet.
As for the spicy and sour rice and shrimp, most of them in Guizhou Province are sour and spicy, so there is no sense of disharmony in the combination. The spicy and sour rice shrimp tastes not only strong and smooth, but also sour and spicy.
"Then I will make some and eat whatever I want later."
Anyway, Zhang An brought back a lot of rice and shrimp, Wang Fang I thought I'd just do it separately.
The rice shrimp is ready-made, so you don’t need to spend much time making it 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, paired with the sourness of aged 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. He went to the ground."
Wang Fang said and brought out a few porcelain bowls from the kitchen.
"Your old 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 in the family also went together."
It turned out that he had gone to the fields. No wonder the big dogs at home were not at home.
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, Zhang An felt relieved.
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 are going up the mountain to look for traces of wild boars, it is definitely much safer to take big dogs like Zhang An’s with us.
And Da Mao and his brothers have all grown up, although they are not as good as their biological father.
But compared with the native dogs in the village, his physique was dwarfed.
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 to cool off and dozed off unknowingly.
When I woke up again, I found that my father was back.
"Dad, you met a wild boar. Where did you meet it?"
After Zhang An 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 checked 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, and other people 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 after Xiaohu and the others surrounded the wild boar, the villagers made him happy.
“However, the wild boars this time are not big. The two that were brought back are estimated to weigh only about 200 kilograms.”
Zhang Jianwen looked calm and calm when he spoke. He looked 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.
I don’t think Zhang An’s family will be able to have dinner tonight, because they just ate too much rice and shrimp and were a little full.
"Zhang An, does every household in the village have meat sharing?"
Su Ying was very surprised when she heard about 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 was very spectacular, but Su Ying had definitely never seen it before.
So Zhang An estimated that the pigs on the drying farm 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're not scary, just go for a walk."
Looking at Su Ying's face, there was a look of eagerness and a slight hint of excitement. A little confused.
Zhang An knew what she was struggling with at a glance. It must have been the time when she killed the New Year pig last year, which left a shadow.
Originally, Zhang An felt 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 are groups of three and five in 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, but many people have nothing to do and like to go over and join in the fun.
"But with so many people sharing meat, each family shouldn't be able to share much meat."
"Hmm, each family will probably share a few kilograms of meat, which is enough for two meals."< br>
At this moment, Zhang An had already seen two slaughtered pigs, and Lin Youde and his apprentice were unloading the meat.
The total meat from two pigs is estimated to be less than 300 kilograms, and each family can probably get three to four kilograms.
“Actually, it doesn’t matter how much you can share. What’s important is that everyone can have fun together.”
Although sharing meat was very common in the past, it has become rare in the past two years. The village will do this again.
Currently, 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 that can hunt wild boars.
But many villages will not think of dividing the meat. Instead, they will sell it for money, which will belong 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 there is something going on 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 from this little thing, the village united everyone together.
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 when the meat was being divided this time, the old man stood beside the table to control the situation.
I am afraid that a few old ladies will fight together again later.
(End of this chapter)