[025] Corn sauerkraut rice
046 There is a text in my language book called "A Few Grains of Rice": to the effect that the landlord bully killed the poor man who picked up a few grains of rice on the ground. At that time, I could not read this text. I took the textbook home, and one of the masons from the southern county who lived in my house opened my textbook and recited "A Few Grains of Rice" in dialect. The bricklayer stood by the back door of my house as he recited a few grains of rice; it was not like we were reading in unison in the classroom. After the lively bricklayer had finished reciting a few grains of rice, he wrote on the back door of my house with charcoal . Instead of writing a few grains of rice, I wrote my brother's name. The bricklayer originally wanted to tease my brother, but my brother seemed to be in a bad mood that day, and he silently wiped the words on the door panel with a foot pad. The bricklayer saw the brother's bad mood and retracted his performance boringly.
The masons cooked with us on the same stove; except that they used a pot in the middle and we used a pot on the side. When you want to stir-fry, you also occasionally use a large cauldron against the wall. The cauldron was originally used to cook pig grass: it cost firewood, but it was not easy to burn. After the pig grass is boiled, it is fished up and placed in a stone jar. The stone jar is just outside the back door, emitting a sour smell all year round.
The masons were the production team who supplied the rice, and the rice was mixed with small beans, so they ate rice to cook small beans at almost every meal. (Not dry rice, not porridge) The rice went into their big mouths one by one, and I swallowed most of the time. Because, we almost don't cook such a beautiful meal. Most of us are a pot of water, the next small glass of rice, (red amaranth out of the season plus red amaranth) rice cooked to seven or eight minutes, raise half a gourd scoop corn flour, and finally add a large spoon of sauerkraut, and then cook for a while. My mother cooked rice, and most of the time I cooked it in a pot. Probably the first chores I did were to cook pots.
The mother used a wooden scoop to mix a few scoops of water from the stone water tank, went to the bedroom and dug out a scoop of rice from the clay pot with a small gourd scoop the size of a wine glass, poured it into the larger gourd scoop, and walked to the kitchen with her rattling footsteps, and the sand was raised high into the dissatisfied pot of water. Before the grains of rice had sunk, my mother lifted the stained lid from the water tank and covered it. My mother walked out the kitchen door, and I was still buried behind the stove to cook the pot. After a few minutes or ten minutes, the pot is open, and I will open the pot and let the pot open to cook.
After cooking for a minute or two, I used an iron spatula to probe the bottom of the pot and scoop up the rice to examine. If the rice was half-baked, I would hurry up and send it into my hungry mouth. Because of my quick movements, I almost stole my mouth to eat the rice in the pot almost without my mother being noticed. Perhaps, my mother was a little foot, walking like a rammed, and when the heavy footsteps entered the kitchen, some of the grains of rice on the spatula had entered my empty stomach.
When I first committed the crime, I was still a little sneaky; after licking the rice grains on the hot spatula, I immediately swirled it to the stove and added it. Later, even though my mother had entered the kitchen, I was not afraid to stand by the stove, because my mother thought I was stirring the pot. It's just that I have to put the spatula down and hold the iron spoon in my hand. Because, stirring porridge pots should not use a spatula. Despite this, I was nervous, because if there was a piece of rice on the spatula that did not lick the food clean, it would expose my bad behavior.
My mother used to say that the rice was always not cooked; when it was still rice in the pot, when it was scooped into the bowl, it was only corn paste and sauerkraut. Whenever I heard my mother say this, my heart was panicked. (Sauerkraut is made in a similar way to boiled pig grass.) After chopping and washing the greens, pour them into a pot and cook them, fish them up and put them in a clay pot, pour some old sour water on top, flatten them, cover them with a wooden lid, and after half a day it becomes sauerkraut)
[026] Miserly Zhiqing
047 There are about five or six bricklayers, and they live in one of our rooms. The middle of this room is separated by bamboo and mud to form two spaces. Before the masons came to live, this room was inhabited by Chengdu Zhiqing. The young intellectual who lived in my house did not speak much and worked actively. Due to his excellent performance, he returned to the city within about two years.
At that time, my brother was still young, and the collective dividend was distributed, and this Zhiqing took the initiative to help my family back, and accidentally gave my foot to Wei. This spirit of self-denial touched my parents very much. My father was the captain of the production team, and the good conduct of Zhiqing must have won the recognition and praise of my father. The speed and slowness of the return of the young people to the city must have something to do with the attitude of the poor and lower-middle peasants, and it is even more related to the friendly attitude of the poor and lower-middle peasants who are the captains.
Most of the young people who went to the countryside lived in the captain's home. Only the growth captain has such a high consciousness to vacate the house for the young people to live for free (there is no rent, it is a house that is not generous in vain). The two-space house, one for Zhiqing, one for the kitchen. The day the stove was first laid, it was night to install a new pot. The new cast iron pot can not be directly mixed with water to cook rice, but needs to be spread on the new red pot with pork skins and the like to soak the grease. In this way, the cooker cooks the pot without rusting. This is the encyclopedic knowledge I got that night. I also heard that if you want to make the cast iron pot kang bun or brush noodle flower seed non-stick pan, it is also necessary to apply cow dung after applying lard. However, that night, I did not see cow dung. I just smelled the smoke coming from the fiery red iron pot with the skin of the bacon. It was a strange aroma that had never been heard before.
There are four teams and ten groups in our village. Almost every group has zhiqing. The taciturn, honest and loyal Young Man who lived in my house also attracted a group of men and women from the other team. It's just that there aren't many opportunities to sneak through the door, and it seems that I've only seen it once. That night, seven or eight men and women stood in a room, and they used flour at night to make a meal called noodle caviar. The so-called noodle roe has nothing to do with fish, but it has to do with flour. They knead the flour and water into balls, then thin the dough (such as the thickness of the little finger), and then use a kitchen knife to cut it into strips long with the little finger, which is the noodle roe.
The intellectuals were very miserly and never gave us food for the children. The roe on that side was only for me to watch by the door: when they were eating properly, I could only leave with interest. My parents taught us that it is shameful to watch others eat, and it is even more shameful to watch others eat delicious food. This kind of shame education has a particularly obvious effect on me. Otherwise, how can I qualify to say that my brother is a wandering dog?
(Intellectual Youth, abbreviated as Zhiqing, is a historical term of the People's Republic of China for specific groups of people in a specific period.) The original meaning of intellectual youth generally refers to knowledgeable youth or specifically to young people with higher education. However, the common term "Zhiqing" refers to young people who voluntarily or were forced from the cities to become peasants in their villages from the beginning of the 1950s until the end of the Cultural Revolution, and most of these people actually only received junior or senior high school education, and a few received university or above education. ）
048 There are many bricklayers, one room is only enough for their bedroom, and cooking is on our stove. The bricklayers occasionally ate my mother's pickles and occasionally scooped a bowl of rice they cooked for me or my brothers. Most of the time it's when they're nearing the end of their meal and scoop a bowl out of the pot for me or my brother. At this time, the viscosity of rice is particularly high.
The grain and vegetables of the bricklayers were supplied collectively, but it seemed uncommon for them to eat vegetables. They are from outside the county and do not eat the sauerkraut that we locals are accustomed to eating. Therefore, the dish they eat the most is probably greens or kimchi. One autumn or summer, the bricklayer saw a large winter melon in the collective vegetable field and picked it back without greeting. After eating the stomach, I called the vegetable manager in the group. The serious vegetable clerk saw that the winter melon had been eaten, and could only sigh helplessly.
That day, I smelled winter melon for the first time. Cut the winter melon into slices and sauté in a large burr pot of boiled pig grass at my house. At noon that day, I also cooked in a pot behind the stove, and our family seemed to have dipped and shared half a bowl or a bowl of winter melon slices. In my memory, that stir-fried winter melon slice was the most luxurious time for bricklayers to eat. More than a dozen pounds of winter melon, a meal to eat. They also seized the opportunity to eat once, because they have never seen them eat similarly since.
The bricklayers worked right behind our house on the upper river of the mountains. They are responsible for making tile kilns, and the villagers are responsible for cutting firewood and stepping on tile mud. The firewood required to burn the tiles was particularly large, and the entire hillside trees (with the exception of a very few cypress trees) were cut down like a razor scraping the hair off the scalp. In winter, it is better to herd cattle on the ground with only sparse yellow grass, and the cattle can see their whereabouts, and they do not have to worry about stealing wheat seedlings after hiding in the thorn bushes.
In addition to collectively cutting firewood, the amount of firewood required is large, and the mountain forest should be shaved, and each household should cut firewood in winter (for cooking pots), and the shrub forest of the self-retained mountain should also be shaved. Every year, our family cuts more than three hundred and sixty bunches of firewood. A bunch of firewood is a big bundle that adults can't hold around. It takes several days to chop wood in winter. Cut enough hugs, put them on the mountain to dry a little, and after the Spring Festival, the central people will carry firewood and pile it under the eaves (my family does not have a special firewood room). Firewood with thorny wood was piled up under the eaves to the beams; this firewood was also home to rats and snakes, as well as to wild bees and toads.