sinovels Chapter 1313: Eating breakfast is like sitting at a banquet
Chapter 1313: Eating breakfast is like sitting at a banquet
Chapter 1313: Eating in the morning is like sitting at a banquet
People in Northeast China sleep on a heated kang with their heads facing the edge and their feet facing inward.
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 will all sleep at Li's house tonight.
Li Baoyu was very happy and took care of everyone enthusiastically.
Li Ruhai was very cheerful and chattered non-stop, while Li Dazhi spoke to Li Ruhai.
This situation is mainly due to Zhao Jun and Zhou Jianjun.
Just now when Zhao Jun was washing his feet, he inadvertently mentioned that today's sweet potatoes were delicious.
Li Baoyu and Jie Chen nodded in agreement, and Li Dazhi couldn't help but curl his lips.
The name used here is "sweet potato with batter", which actually means candied sweet potato.
No matter how good this thing is, can it be better than braised bear paws or goose cooked in an iron pot?
But the people in the Zhao family are tired of eating meat and fish every day, so they find it fresh to eat the sweet potatoes with pulp.
At that time, Li Ruhai was already eager to try, but he couldn't find a starting point for the topic.
But then Zhou Jianjun asked casually: "Where did you get the sweet potatoes? We didn't store any this year, did we?"
"Brother-in-law, I purchased it!" Li Ruhai suddenly raised his right hand, with his forearm and upper arm forming a standard 90-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 was wrong.
But when chatting in Northeast China, one thing is that “words should not be dropped on the ground”.
Li Ruhai already called him brother-in-law, so Zhou Jianjun had no choice but to say, "Ruhai, you are really amazing. We can't even keep up with you in purchasing."
This sentence is really 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 do the purchasing for you?"
"Ah?" Zhou Jianjun was stunned. He was in charge of purchasing in the venue, but it would not be right if word got out that a 14-year-old was doing purchasing.
"Brother-in-law, I'm not bragging to you..." Li Ruhai couldn't stop talking from here.
He spoke eloquently and told Zhao Jun and others the story of how he made his fortune through patchwork.
"Stop wasting time!" Li Baoyu tried to stop her, but he was unable to do so.
If only Zhao Jun and Jie Chen were here, Li Baoyu would have attacked Li Ruhai long ago. But Zhou Jianjun was also here today, and Li Baoyu was afraid that if he took action, Zhou Jianjun would think too much.
Beating a child in front of guests will make them feel embarrassed, and some of them may misunderstand that the host does not welcome them.
Seeing that Li Ruhai could no longer control himself, Zhao Jun immediately wiped his feet, got on the kang and crawled into the quilt.
Twenty minutes later.
"Ah...ha!" Zhao Jun, who was sleeping in the innermost bed, pretended to yawn and then turned over.
When he turned over, he was facing the west wall and his back was facing east.
Seeing this, Zhou Jianjun also yawned after thirty seconds, 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 in total.
Zhao Jun, Zhou Jianjun, Jie Chen and Li Baoyu were all lying on their sides, facing west and with their backs to the east.
The two people lying on the west side of the kang were Li Dazhi and Li Ruhai.
At this time, Li Dazhi couldn't hold it anymore. He pretended to yawn and turned his back to Li Ruhai.
There were six people on a kang, five of them facing west.
Li Ruhai smacked his lips with a look of unsatisfied satisfaction, then turned around and fell asleep facing the east wall.
……
At this time, there was a deafening snoring sound in the west room of the Zhao family.
Four drunk old men, no one could wake up anyone else.
As the host, Zhao Youcai slept on the lower part of the kang. Although the lower part of the kang was not as warm as the head of the kang, the warm head of the kang was not as warm as the applause in Zhao Youcai's dream.
There were crowds of people below the stage. There was a video camera 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 in front of him lay the bodies of three Siberian tigers.
Among them, there are one black, two yellow, two large and one small.
At this time, a voice seemed to come from the sky: "Everyone, please give a warm round of applause to congratulate our tiger-fighting hero Zhao Youcai!"
“Wow…” The applause was like the Qiantang River tide.
“Hahahaha…” Zhao Youcai on the stage laughed out loud.
The applause stopped with Zhao Youcai's laughter, and then the voice sounded again.
"Comrade Zhao Youcai went to the mountains at the age of nine and has been 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 since then he has become famous.
After that, Comrade Zhao Youcai was even more determined to help the weak and eliminate the tiger threat. Now he has killed three tigers with two shots, and his power is so great that he is feared in the south and west of the Lingnan Mountains. The people in the two mountains call him a hero, and his old friends give him a nickname..."
When the voice fell, there was complete silence all around.
Zhao Youcai thought in his dream: "What's my nickname? Dayong hasn't thought of one for me yet."
……
The next day, December 1988, 1.
Wang Meilan got up at around four o'clock because there were guests at home today, and they were VIP guests.
According to local customs, the food must be stuffed to show respect.
There were too many dishes yesterday, so Li Ruhai didn’t eat much of the roe deer he purchased.
In the afternoon, while the men were still drinking, Wang Meilan instructed Zhao Ling and Xu Chunyan to chop the roe deer leg and loin meat that they had cut off in the morning into minced meat.
After spending a long time with Wang Meilan, Zhao Ling and Xu Chunyan have figured out her ways.
The chopped meat cannot be directly seasoned or used as a side dish. It needs to be washed with clean water first to remove the blood in the meat.
Then use a strainer to scoop out the meat filling, squeeze it dry and then mix it with the stuffing.
This is time-consuming and laborious. In the entire Yongan Forest District, only Wang Meilan would do this.
But I have to say that the meat filling made in this way does not have the slightest smell of blood. Add chopped green onion and add appropriate amount of seasoning.
The dough was fermented last night. Here we use hot dough to make dumplings, and fermented dough is either used to make steamed buns or pancakes.
Wang Meilan chose to have both, since it was not difficult to change buns into dumplings.
First wrap the buns, then hold the bottom of the buns with one hand and gently lift the folds of the buns with the other hand, and then roll them into a pie.
The purpose of mentioning that is to make the dead dough at the folds thinner so that there are no thick pieces of dead dough in the pie.
The stuffing and dough are prepared in advance, so the work won’t make too much noise.
But there were guests in the west room, and Wang Meilan was too busy to handle it, so she went to the next room with the basin.
At this time, Jin Xiaomei and Li Dayong both got up.
When Wang Meilan arrived, the couple had already exchanged soy milk, tofu pudding, large tofu and dried tofu from the tofu shop.
Then, Jin Xiaomei and Wang Meilan started making dumplings, while Li Dayong went out, climbed over the wall to Zhao's house, carried firewood, lit the big stove, and boiled water to prepare to steam the dumplings.
The big, plump buns were placed in a circle on the sorghum beams. Jin Xiaomei and Wang Meilan whispered, "Sister-in-law, you have to organize us to make a batch of these curtains in a few days, otherwise there won't be enough."
"Isn't it enough?" Wang Meilan said as she pinched the folds of the buns, "Before the New Year, let's make twenty."
"What are they going to do, sister-in-law?" Jin Xiaomei said, "I heard from Baoyu that after the New Year holiday, the brothers are going to the mountains.
When the time comes, bring back more wild boars, roe deer, etc., and freeze the meat outside. Don’t you have to cover it with a curtain?"
This was directed at Wang Meilan. Other people just threw the frozen meat into the snow, let it freeze for two or three hours, and then went out to pick up the frozen meat pieces from the snow and put them into the jar.
But Wang Meilan refused to do so. The cut meat had to be placed on the lid and then taken out to freeze one lid at a time.
Sometimes, the frozen meat sticks to the lid, and you have to use the back of a knife to lift it off. If you don't do it right, the lid will be damaged.
"I don't want them to catch wild boars anymore." Wang Meilan put the wrapped buns on the curtain and said, "The wild boars before the New Year are old and skinny, so they are not tasty!"
Between late autumn and the first snow, wild boars that have just been fattened are the fattest and have the most delicious meat.
The closer it gets to the New Year in winter, the thinner the wild boar meat becomes and the less tasty it tastes.
"Sister-in-law, what do you mean?" Jin Xiaomei asked, "Shall we buy two pigs?"
"Well, we'll see when the time comes." Wang Meilan said, "I'll ask Xiaojun and the others to try to catch the yellow-haired ones the next year."
Jin Xiaomei glanced at Wang Meilan and thought, if your Xiaojun can listen to you, and this group of people can listen to you, then can Huangmaozi and Ge Nianchen listen to you? Can the hunting dog listen to you?
Although she thought so in her heart, Jin Xiaomei did not dare to say such outrageous words.
"Sister-in-law." Jin Xiaomei said, "When the time comes, arrange to catch the pigs, and let my Ruhai do it."
The catching pigs that Jin Xiaomei talked about was different from Zhao Jun and his team catching wild boars in the mountains. Instead, they went to pig farmers' homes to catch them.
"Oh my!" Wang Meilan was busy with her hands, so she raised her chin and said, "Forget it, your family doesn't have to spend any money!"
Yesterday, Jin Xiaomei spent money to buy roe deer and other things. Wang Meilan wanted to give her money, but Jin Xiaomei said she wanted nothing.
"It's okay, sister-in-law." Jin Xiaomei said, "But we can't eat at your house every day."
Jin Xiaomei said this with bitterness in her heart. Yesterday, Li Ruhai suggested buying a watch for Zhao Jun.
Jin Xiaomei thought this was a great idea, and thought about telling Li Dayong the good news when he came back.
Unexpectedly, Zhao Jun came back first. When Zhao Jun came back, there was an extra watch on his wrist.
After asking around, Jin Xiaomei found out that it was Zhang Yuanmin and his wife who bought it for Zhao Jun.
And not only Zhao Jun has one, but Ma Ling also has one.
Another road was blocked, which made Li Dayong and his wife very worried.
There were seven families in total eating, drinking and having fun together.
The Zhao family doesn’t count, because they accept gifts. The old lady doesn’t count either, because she even gave Zhao Jun the money for her coffin.
As a result, among the other five families, Wang, Lin, Zhang and Jie all bought things for the Zhao family, leaving only the Li family without buying anything.
This situation was unacceptable to the Li family, especially Li Dayong and Li Baoyu, who believed that Zhao Youcai was his biological brother and Zhao Jun was his biological brother.
……
As six o'clock approached, the guests in the west room of the Zhao family got up one after another.
After the winter solstice, the days become longer and longer, and the dawn comes earlier than before.
But at this time, it was still dark.
Zhou Chunming opened the curtains and saw the red flames in the stove outside.
By the light of the fire, everyone saw two large pots emitting white steam.
The buns are steamed!
Everyone went out of the house to wash and go to the toilet, waiting for them to finish cleaning up.
The buns are out of the pot!
The large curtain that could be hugged by one person was filled with steaming buns. It took six hands, Zhao Jun, Li Baoyu and Jie Chen, holding six chopsticks to hold the curtain and working together to bring the buns covered with the curtain into the house.
The curtain is placed directly on the tabletop to the side.
The buns are not very white, but slightly yellow.
But this is not because of the high alkali content, but because the flour ground by farmers’ wheat is not particularly white.
At this time, Li Dayong, Jin Xiaomei and Zhao Chun came in each with a basin, and the three basins were filled with porridge, tofu brain and soy milk respectively.
The porridge is freshly made and the soy milk is heated.
Then, Li Ruhai brought two more side dishes, namely tofu with green onions and shredded tofu with red oil.
After putting down the buns, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu climbed over the wall to the next room. Zhao Jun brought the sliced luncheon meat, a platter of ham sausage and fried peanuts, while 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 dinner scene at Zhao Jun's house was grand.
You really don’t know until you see it!
Chu Anmin and Tao Dabao are both people with a certain social status, especially Chu Anmin. Not only does he live in the city, he also goes on business trips and studies every year.
But Chu Anmin traveled all over the country and never saw anyone eat like this.
"Um..." Chu Anmin looked at Zhao Jun who was carrying the dishes and said, "Zhao Jun, tell your mom not to cook anything. Can we eat so much?"
"It's okay, they will be here soon." Just as Zhao Jun finished speaking, the old lady, Xie Sun and Su Xianglian came.
However, the women did not eat at the same table with the men. They set up a separate table in the east room.
"Come, come, eat while it's hot!" Zhao Youcai handed large bowls to everyone one by one. These were used for liquid food, such as tofu pudding, soy milk, and porridge. You could help yourself with what you wanted to eat.
Chu Anmin and others sat down one after another. At this time, Li Ruhai brought over the tofu pudding that had just come out of the pot.
This tofu pudding stew is made with shredded carrots, shredded black fungus and shredded red mushrooms, and tastes delicious.
Chu Anmin took a big bun, and the bun skin was not so hot at this time.
He broke the bun, the skin broke, and a burst of hot air rose from the meat and egg filling.
"Master Li!" Chu Anmin liked to tease Li Ruhai. Seeing Li Ruhai was about to go out, he shouted, "You sit down and eat too!"
"I won't eat yet." Li Ruhai said with a smile: "Director Chu, I'll wait for a while."
"Haha..." Tao Dabao laughed when he heard this, "This kid is really interesting, he's so carefree, where are you sitting?"
Just as Li Ruhai was about to speak, he was met with a sharp look from Li Dayong. Li Ruhai was startled and swallowed all the words that were about to come out of his mouth.
Nowadays, banquets in the forest areas and rural areas of Northeast China are held at home. If there are not enough tables, chairs, benches, pots, pans, and bowls, they are borrowed from neighbors.
But there were a lot of people coming, and with some gifts, the whole family, young and old, men, women, and children came to eat.
With so many people, it's hard to fit them all in at once, so they have to eat in batches.
Northeastern people call the division of a banquet into several groups "jiyou".
The Zhao family set up tables in both the east and west rooms. The guests and those who went hunting today ate in the west room. The old lady and Xie Sun accompanied Su Xianglian to eat in the east room of the Zhao family.
The reason why Wang Meilan and others and their children did not sit at the table was not because there was no room, but because they were waiting for the second pot of buns and the second pot of pies.
After Wang Meilan and the children finished eating, the five people who were staying in the forest farm guesthouse came down.
There was food in the cafeteria in the morning, and in order to entertain them, they specially cooked sorghum rice and stewed large tofu.
But the five hungover people couldn't eat it.
But after arriving at Zhao Jun's house, Wang Meilan, who was picking up the table, invited them to eat buns and drink tofu pudding.
The five people didn't complain about not having enough to eat, and they sat down around the table without any prior arrangement.
So, the Zhao family had a long breakfast.
I went out to do some work today, and I couldn’t find the express I bought online. I went to their business location, so the update is late.
I will start early tomorrow, add another topic tomorrow, and try to finish writing about the video and Youcai's departure.
(End of this chapter)