Now our family's living standard is getting higher and higher, although it is not a big fish and meat, but there should be a lot of meat.
When I watched my grandson repeatedly pick about the food on the table, I hated him!
When I was young, there was so much food, and our family couldn't eat just a white-flour steamed bun.
But even though I didn't eat much delicious food when I was a child, a basket of steamed buns in '76 still makes me remember it vividly.
At that time, my mother took me for a long time to my uncle's house, and I was hungry for the steamed buns in my mother's basket all the way, but when it was time to leave, I didn't eat a bite of the fragrant steamed buns......
Contributor: Anonymous Zhang Aiguo (Disclaimer: This article is not my own experience, it is based on the narrator's words)
01
"It's these dishes every day, and I don't like to eat them!"
Every time it comes to dinner, the family always thinks of the noisy sound of the little grandson, especially when he sees the food on the table, and even more noisily to eat a burger!
In order for his little grandson to eat better, his grandmother's daily meals are not the same, and no delicacies and seafood are as good as our home-cooked food.
Seeing my grandson's vexatious appearance, anger instantly surged into my heart, and I slammed the chopsticks in my hand on the dining table!
"If you don't want to eat, don't eat it, and you won't eat this family's food in the future!"
My roar instantly frightened the little grandson in place, he was originally naughty, and the adults in the family also doted on him since childhood.
Now that I roared like this, my grandson was directly at a loss, and tears were rolling in his eyes.
"Look at you, grandpa is angry when he doesn't eat, and he doesn't apologize quickly. ”
The daughter-in-law saw that the atmosphere was getting more and more wrong, and quickly stood up to ease the atmosphere, in fact, I regretted it a little when the roar came out, after all, the little grandson is also the person I put on the tip of my heart.
But I really can't stand the waste of food, and my experience as a child taught me not to waste a grain of rice.
Looking at my grandson's carefree face, I could only sigh deeply, after all, it was not my time anymore......
My childhood was very short, and the older children in the yard had to learn to take care of the family, and I was no exception.
As the eldest son, I learned to take care of my younger siblings when I was seven or eight years old.
I grabbed a handful of millet from the rice bowl and sprinkled it into the boiling pot, and my mother stipulated that when I cooked the millet porridge for dinner, it should not be too thick, but it should not be too thin, otherwise I would not be able to eat at all.
"Millet raises people", this is the most common words on the mother's lips, and the golden millet soup is still fragrant when it is served.
We don't have much food at home, except for millet porridge, dinner is steamed corn and sweet potatoes, with a bowl of small pickles, and the family's dinner is ready.
If we don't have guests in our house, it's a standard for our dinner every day.
Only when there are guests from afar, the mother will add a few dishes, take out two eggs from the cupboard, steam a bowl of fragrant egg custard, and then remove the bacon smoked during the Chinese New Year from the beam.
Although this dinner is just a simple home-cooked meal, it is indeed a rare and beautiful memory in my memory.
02
Although food was comparable to gold in our family, our parents never made us hungry.
Every day when my father came home from work, he would always carry a few gadgets in his pocket, including not only white rabbit toffee, honey three knives, and sometimes even a few bottles of soda!
At that time, the happiest thing for my brothers was to wait for my father to come home and see what good things he would come out of his pocket.
Even if my father didn't bring us anything to eat, he would break off a few dog's tail grass on the side of the road and make it like a puppy.
When my mother saw us playing with my father, she would urge us to wash our hands and eat with a smile on her face.
At that time, although life was tight, every day was fulfilling, and just a small bottle of soda made me happy for days.
But what I didn't know was that not all families were like ours, and my childhood was already considered the best among my peers.
At least in my life, I've never been hungry.
There is one thing that I remember from childhood to adulthood, and I still remember it vividly even decades later.
That day, I was playing with my younger siblings in front of the house, and my younger brother was nibbling on a corn in his hand, when a strange child stood next to us.
The child's face was very dirty, his hair was messy, and he didn't have shoes on his feet.
When I saw him, I quickly led my younger siblings aside, but I didn't expect that no matter where we changed, the child followed us all the time, and his eyes were even more focused on his brother's corn.
My brother didn't think much of it at the time, so he handed the corn out of his hand, and I didn't have time to stop it when I saw this.
When the strange child saw the corn in his brother's hand, he quickly took it, and when he approached, he devoured it.
I was so scared that I ran home with my younger siblings and didn't notice where the child ended up.
When I told my parents about this in the evening, my mother just sighed helplessly and told me to give him something to eat next time I saw the child.
Hearing my mother's words, I couldn't help but think of the other party gobbling up and a pair of very bright eyes.
The next day, I stood in front of my house with a few sweet potatoes and looked at them, in fact, I regretted my attitude of avoiding snakes and scorpions.
But when it got dark, I didn't see the child again, but it was this side of the relationship that I remembered deeply.
By this time, I was already a big kid and knew how my home was different from other people's homes.
It turns out that the food at home is not made out of nothing, it is the hard work of the parents, and the existence of any grain of rice may be something that others dream of.
It was at this time that my mother took me to my uncle's house.
03
I didn't study well since I was a child, and I was already at the bottom of my class when I was in junior high school.
Every time my parents looked at my grades, their faces were full of helplessness, and they beat and scolded me, but my brain just didn't open up, so in the end, my parents stopped paying close attention to my studies.
"Just because you don't study well doesn't mean you're not good at anything else, and we're not among the top people when we go to school!"
When my parents discussed my affairs, they also slowly accepted my unenlightened brain, and no longer forced me to study, they just focused on my younger siblings.
At that time, I looked at my younger sibling's painful appearance and secretly laughed beside me, glad that I had "escaped from the sea of suffering".
It wasn't until I grew up that I realized that reading was the best choice.
"Your uncle didn't want to study back then, and he didn't listen to anything. ”
When I was about fifteen years old, my mother suddenly took me out and said I was going to my uncle's house.
My uncle's house was very strange to me, and my parents would only take us to my uncle's house during the Chinese New Year.
It wasn't a holiday or anyone's birthday, so I was very surprised when my mother was going to my uncle's house.
That day, my mother steamed a whole pot of white flour steamed buns, all of them white and round, and when the pot came out, several of us brothers were watching from the side.
"This is for your uncle, don't be greedy!"
The mother put all the steamed buns in the box, and when the younger brother was greedy and wanted to take one, he was slapped by his mother.
"Boss, you come over with your mother, and the rest of you will take care of the house at home!"
I was so complaining that I didn't want to go there at all, because my uncle's house was far away in the country, and it would take two hours to get on the road alone, and this was still in the case of hitchhiking.
Along the way, my mother was very busy, bought two catties of white rabbit toffee and one catty of honey three knives, and also led three catties of pork, which was fat and thin, very suitable for making pork belly.
"Mom, how do you buy such delicious things, are we going to my uncle's house to sit at the table?"
My mother didn't answer my words, but frowned tightly and led me all the way to my uncle.
When I arrived at my uncle's house, I immediately felt the tension of the atmosphere, and my uncle and aunt were walking at the door with a look on their faces, and when they saw us from afar, they immediately ran over to greet us.
By this time, my aunt's eyes had become red, swollen like two walnuts.
My uncle and mother kicked me out while they were talking about things in the house, and my aunt stuffed me with a hot roasted sweet potato.
I don't know what my mother was talking about in the house, but she was squatting in front of my uncle's house teasing a little black dog.
When the sun went down, my mother came out of the house, and when she came out, her eyes were as red and swollen as my aunt's.
"Go back quickly, you don't have to send us!"
"Let's stay and eat, it's dark now, let the children eat enough!"
"No need, we're still waiting for us at home, go back!"
I was starving straight away that night, exhausted from going back and forth, and fell asleep at night while mourning the pillow.
And I also told my mother about the fact that I had bought a lot of delicious food for my uncle's house, and at that time my siblings were complaining about why I didn't steal a handful of candy and come back.
It was only later that I learned from my mother's mouth what had happened that day, and I understood why my mother was crying.
The uncle suddenly became a laid-off worker, and the family's income depended on the uncle, and the fall of the pillars made the uncle and aunt want to cry without tears.
It was at this time that my mother found out about this and took me to my uncle's house to inquire about the situation.
My mother and uncle grew up together, and when I was a child, I had to eat a sweet potato separately, and my uncle's experience naturally made my mother empathize.
I was silent for a while after learning what had happened, and the situation at that time was a big deal for my uncle's family, and anyone who encountered it had to be uncomfortable for a while.
Now life is getting better and better, and my uncle's children have a great future, although my father's generation has passed away, but the truth they taught us, I will always remember it.