Chapter 24 Chapter 24 The river freezes and winter arrives. Stock up

The old duck and duck bones are simmered in a big pot overnight. The soup base is white and clear, and the smell makes people salivate. Just serve the soup, add the vermicelli after it is cooked, then add the duck offal, scoop out seven or eight pieces of duck blood, add coriander and drizzle with sesame oil. If you have a strong taste, you can also add Baozhu's homemade red oil chili.

The same goes for the mutton offal vermicelli soup. The mutton bones are also boiled all night, half of them are broken into pieces and the other half are used as a whole. The fishy smell is removed and the taste is only fragrant. The freshest ingredients are used, so it tastes naturally fresh.

I asked my family to try it, and they all praised it highly.

In winter, the only fresh vegetables we can eat are coriander. There are two vegetable plots in the yard. One is planted with coriander, onions and garlic, and the other is only planted with cabbage and radish. If you want to eat fresh vegetables in this season, only these cold-resistant ones can satisfy your craving.

Some of the clay pots made earlier were broken, and some were burnt on the bottom and could not be used anymore, so Baozhuxin asked someone to make about a hundred more. After the cold weather, the vendors became a little lazy, and except for those selling hot food such as spicy soup and hot soup noodles, the other vendors' business was not very good.

We have to make more money to survive the winter before the freezing weather comes. Once the river freezes, the boats will stop and there will be even fewer people at the dock, so business will have to come to a halt.

The weather gets even colder the morning after. The eldest brother pushes the cart out, Baozhu follows behind and closes the door, while A Xiu still has to make soup at home.

The two walked towards the pier under the moonlight. It got dark earlier and earlier, and got light later and later.

Rich families wore silk and satin, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, while smaller families mostly wore cotton and linen. Unlike southern China, the north couldn't raise silkworms to make silk, so naturally, it was much more expensive. Fortunately, cotton was cheaper in the north, so the whole family wore thick cotton-trimmed clothes in winter, which would withstand the wind even when they went out early in the morning.

When they found their old spot, there was still no sound of people on the pier. The brother and sister each had a bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup. After eating, they felt warm all over. An early vendor asked how much a bowl cost. Baozhu put down her chopsticks and replied with a smile,

"Thirty cents a bowl."

Compared to when clay pot rice was sold, this vermicelli soup is much more expensive. After all, it is all offal and not real meat. But since the flood, prices have been rising, especially food. Thirty cents for a bowl of vermicelli soup is nothing.

Some vendors went out in the morning wearing little, and were shivering with cold when the wind blew. There was a big umbrella at the Zhen family food stall, which at least blocked the wind, so they sat down immediately and ordered a bowl of mutton offal vermicelli soup.

Only wealthy families can afford to eat mutton. Although Baozhu’s family thinks duck blood vermicelli soup tastes better, most people still prefer to eat mutton as long as it has the name of mutton.

The old lady selling flowers nearby also came early today, with a basket full of red chrysanthemums to sell. She didn't order mutton offal vermicelli soup, but a bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup. When it was ready, she sat on the small stool she brought with her, holding the bowl of soup, eating while warming her hands.

Before the market opened, five or six bowls had already been sold.

The Zhen family food stall was squeezed to the back, and now there are two tables in the front. When there are many people, both tables are crowded, and there are people standing in the back waiting, which makes the people who are eating wait until their faces are red, and they eat in a hurry with two mouthfuls of food before giving up.

When the boat docked, Zhen Jia Dalang went to the boat with his food box to sell his food. If he had eaten something else in the morning, it might have been too greasy, but anyone who saw this bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup would have called him over to ask the price.

There were only two bowls in the food box, and they were taken away in the blink of an eye. The casserole was boiling one bowl after another, and the four small stoves could not keep up. After the market opened, there were more people, and the two tables were full. Ah Xiu pushed the other two buckets of boiled soup over, and did not leave, but helped to boil the vermicelli at the stall.

The aroma was so strong that many people wanted to eat it. The queue was so long that it had to turn two corners and even occupied the stall selling fried dough sticks and sesame cakes. The stall owner wanted to chase the customers away, but Baozhu smiled and said to the diners in line,

"The soup base in my family is made from an ancestral recipe. Mutton soup and duck soup are both good nourishing foods. After eating the noodles, soaking fried dough sticks or sesame cakes in the soup is even more delicious."

After Baozhu finished speaking, not only the diners in the queue, but even the customers who were eating couldn't help but think of the taste of the pancakes soaked in soup. For a while, the vendors selling fried dough sticks and sesame cakes had a lot more business. Because of this, the stall owners didn't say anything strange anymore.

The weather was cold, and it was inevitable that hands would turn red from the cold outside. The wind was blowing in from all sides of the stall, and her hands and feet were numb from standing for a whole morning. Baozhu thought that if she could have a shop, even if it was only the size of a palm, it would be better than now, and it would be better than having customers suffer from the cold as well.

There was warm Tremella and Pear Soup in the bucket, which was the best way to drive away the cold at this time of year. Everyone who lined up could get a cup. Baozhu, who was queuing further back, poured a cup for her. It drove away the cold and moistened the lungs, and the diners who came to eat also calmed down their original impatience.

Since we are preparing to test the waters, we don't prepare a lot of ingredients. We haven't had such good business for a long time, so we have to prepare more tomorrow. These mutton and duck offal are not expensive. According to today's situation, 40 kilograms of duck offal and 50 kilograms of mutton offal will be enough every day.

Someone came in the morning to eat a bowl of mutton offal vermicelli soup, and at noon he ordered a bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup. Dalang ran back and forth between the stalls on the boat all day, and he delivered more than 80 bowls of food from his side of the boat alone.

Some diners also started ordering vermicelli soup. Now that the soup could continue to be delivered, Baozhu called Wang Da and Liu Sier, and the errand business was resumed. It was still two cents per order, because the price of vermicelli soup was already very cost-effective. If you want to order food to be delivered, you still have to add one cent yourself, and the food stall will pay one cent.

Baozhu had previously handed over the pickled garlic business to the two of them, which solved their urgent needs. Now that they knew that the meals could continue to be delivered, the two were even more relieved. Nowadays, ordinary people have a hard time, and having one more business can at least earn more money to live on.

The pickled garlic is still being sold. I have asked about it in all the restaurants in the inner and outer cities. Now the business has stabilized. As long as I deliver the pickled garlic to the restaurants who place orders or to the guys who buy spicy vegetables every two days, I can earn some commission. In addition, now there are more errands to do, which is another source of income.

The Zhen brothers and sisters earned their own money and contributed some to the family expenses every month. Even Erlang contributed one string of coins every month - he copied books for others at night, which could earn him some money and also allow him to review his studies.

Every day when Ah Xiu had free time, she would make lace and shoes and sell them to peddlers. Together with the wages she earned from helping out at the Zhen family's food stall, she could save some money every month. Like the Zhen brothers and sisters, she would pay one string of silver to the government every month for household expenses, and secretly add some rice, flour, grain and oil to the family. The extra money was saved, waiting to be saved enough to return to the Zhen family.

In November, a thin layer of ice had already formed on the river. In the past two days, only a few large ships were rushing to deliver goods, and the smaller boats were all at rest, fearing that they would be trapped on the river one day.

The dock is frozen because the boats cannot sail on it. There are fewer people and many vendors have stopped operating. The dock is even more deserted. The old lady selling flowers nearby complains that it is too cold and there is no business as no merchant ships are coming, so she has stopped setting up her stall a long time ago.

Baozhu wanted to change the location and go into the inner city to find a place to set up a stall, but after looking for several days, she still couldn't find a suitable place.

At first, mutton offal vermicelli soup sold well, but later on, duck blood vermicelli soup became more popular.

However, at this time of year, the river was frozen and no boats could sail, so business was much worse. Some old customers from the shops near the pier would come to eat every now and then, but there were no new customers at the stall.

Baozhu thought that she still had to find a fixed stall. The vendors in the inner city were all managed by the Street Department. The monthly stall fees were higher, but it could save a lot of trouble. Business was pretty good now, unlike when she first started setting up the stall, so she could accept paying more stall fees.

As for renting a shop, I'm afraid I can't afford it for the time being. A shop facing the street with a good location costs dozens of strings of cash a month, and I have to worry about paying the rent as soon as I open my eyes. If I encounter a rain like the one this summer, even the business of the month will be delayed, and a lot of capital will be lost.

Nowadays, the monthly stall fee is not much, and the capital is mostly food ingredients or firewood, rice, oil, salt and other expenses, so the price of food at the stall is not high. If you want to open a shop, the price of food will definitely increase again.

Although the family moved to Bian Jing, they still didn't dare to attract too much attention, for fear that the Sun family would find out and cause more trouble. It would be much better to set up a stall. There were so many vendors in Bian Jing that it would take a lot of effort to find them if they were here today and there tomorrow.

As the weather gets colder, every household starts to stock up on vegetables for winter.

In Suzhou, people never stocked up on food during the winter. Xu ran outside every day and learned quickly from what others cooked. The winter in Bianjing was much colder than in the south. It was said that when it snowed, the snow could accumulate up to the ankles. In some years, the snow could accumulate up to the knees overnight.

It's nice to be able to eat during the cold winter months. I didn't realize it until I dug a small cellar in the yard to store groceries for the cold weather. I realized there was already one there. It's usually unused, so it's blocked with a stone slab. Perhaps the previous owner didn't know about it either, so no one mentioned it when I bought the house.

This cellar has been abandoned for a long time. I cleared out all the dead branches and leaves in it, sprinkled lime and insect repellent powder, and waited for a few days to get rid of the smell before I started storing vegetables.

Many people were stockpiling vegetables these days; Baozhu would go out and bring back a cartload of fruits and vegetables. Bianjing was always bustling with businesspeople, whether they were going by water or by land.

Every day, cars come into the city one after another. Not only are there vegetables, but even the fruits and vegetables are dazzling.

Crisp pears shipped from Dangshan to Bianjing—they're perfect for making soup in winter, and the Tremella and Pear Soup offered for free at the stalls is made with these pears. Honey apples from Dengzhou, dates from Bozhou, and crisp persimmons from Qingzhou.

The shop assistants counted and stored the fruit every day, and it would be sold out in no time. Fruit was rare in Bianjing, but silver was not.

The Zhen family bought a lot of crisp pears, and also picked up some cheaper persimmons and green dates, setting them aside for New Year's guests. The fruits were stacked layer upon layer with dry straw, and they had aged well, but in winter, they were less moist and tasted a little sour.

I also bought several large baskets of cabbage and put them in the cellar one by one and arranged them neatly. When I was ready to eat them, I peeled off the dry leaves on the outside, and the inside was still fresh.

It's okay to pickle some other things at home. The juicy sauerkraut is also pickled in a jar and moved to the warehouse. In winter, it is a good dish to make soup, stew fresh fish or pig's blood offal, etc.

After a few months in the north, I've adapted to the taste. Back in Suzhou, my family all had light tastes, with mostly vegetables on the table, and we'd always add sugar to any dish to enhance its flavor. But now, when we cook at home, we use lots of oil and sauce, and the sight of pork elbows makes my eyes light up.

Maybe it’s because they’ve been working hard all day and they don’t have the energy to eat something heavy.

The family had stockpiled everything they needed, and my aunt asked my cousin Hengzhi to bring two baskets of fresh fruit.