After the Zhou family members had all gone far away, Zhou the eldest threw down his axe, squatted down, and covered his face, while Zhao Guihua leaned against the door frame of the kitchen, sniffing.
Xingxing ran over and hugged Zhao Guihua's leg, saying in her soft, sweet voice, "Auntie, don't be sad, we still have plenty of pork."
Zhao Guihua looked down into Xingxing's big, round eyes, and her bad mood immediately dissipated. She picked up Xingxing and went into the kitchen. "Auntie just hasn't recovered yet. How can you be sad for those people? It's not worth it."
After all, Zhou's parents were her husband's parents, her in-laws. Their favoritism and disregard for her feelings made her feel not only heartbroken but also distressed.
However, this emotion quickly passed. Zhao Guihua picked up a cleaver and began to cut the pork. By the time she took out the cut meat, Zhou Laoda had also calmed down.
"Honey, take six catties of meat to the village chief's house, and these too..." They had already told the village chief about the extra wild boar they had acquired, so they wanted to give him some meat.
We also need to send some to a few influential families in the village. There's no other way; we have to do some favors. It's too hot, and the meat won't keep for long.
Alas, if the world weren't so chaotic, we could secretly take them to the town or the prefectural city to sell. These days, it's really not easy to earn a few coins.
After a long day of fussing, and with darkness approaching, Zhao Guihua quickly prepared dinner. She chopped up the pig's heart and stomach and stewed them together with wild vegetables and a handful of rice in a clay pot.
Cut off the pork fat and render it in a pot to make lard.
When the meat was stewed, the lard was also rendered. There was a large bowl of cracklings, but she only filled a small bowl with it and sprinkled some sugar on top. This sugar was a return gift from Zhao Xiu when she delivered the meat to the village chief earlier, about two ounces.
"Mom, why did you only cook this little bit of meat?" Zhou Erfu's face scrunched up as he looked at the wild vegetable and meat porridge in the earthenware pot. He hadn't had meat in so long, and he'd been craving fatty meat for ages. And this was all he got?
Zhao Guihua took a spoon and distributed the food to everyone, saying in an annoyed tone, "It's not that your mother is reluctant to give you any, it's just that we haven't eaten meat in so long. Eating too much at once can easily upset your stomachs, so we have to be careful. Didn't we also stew some snake meat?"
Didn't you see she didn't even dare to cut fatty meat to cook?
“But it’s so hot, meat doesn’t keep well. Can’t we eat more while it’s still fresh?” Zhou Erfu was still bargaining.
"You're such a worrywart. Mother has a way of storing the meat properly, it definitely won't go bad." When they were fleeing, they encountered people of all kinds of status on the road. Once, they stayed in a certain prefecture city for more than ten days and couldn't leave.
She happened to peek at how a chef in a restaurant processed meat in the sweltering heat so that it wouldn't spoil too quickly.
At that time, she was just craving other people's meat. She didn't intentionally try to steal their recipe, but as she watched, she memorized it. Later, she made a point of asking around and found out that they were making smoked meat, which everyone in that prefecture knew how to make.
Some of the seasonings needed were already at home, which she had picked by chance when she went up the mountain. Although there was no meat to marinate before, Zhao Guihua still brought back all the seasonings she knew, dried them, and stored them properly.
Originally, I was thinking of selling these seasonings for money, but unfortunately no one was willing to buy them because many people didn't recognize them, so they hadn't been sold. Now they come in handy.
There was only half a pound of salt left at home, so she poured it all in when marinating the meat. Then there was Sichuan peppercorns. Zhao Guihua still doesn't know that what she picked is called Sichuan peppercorns, and there were also star anise.
Once marinated, the meat is hung up and smoked with rice husks, straw, and firewood.
After all that commotion, it was already past 1 AM. Zhao Guihua and Zhou Laoda, covered in soot, locked the kitchen door, quickly washed their faces, and went back to their room to sleep.
Because I've been too busy these past two days, I haven't had time to clean up the empty room, so last night the eldest will still have to squeeze in with the other kids, while Xingxing and Zhao Guihua will sleep.
Xingxing initially refused to go to sleep first, insisting on helping with the smoked meat. Later, she couldn't resist the drowsiness and fell asleep in Zhao Guihua's arms, so she was carried back to bed.
As soon as Zhao Guihua got into bed, Xingxing groggily opened her eyes and mumbled, "Auntie, is the meat smoked yet?"
"You little worrywart, you're still thinking about this even when you're asleep. It's all done, sweetie, go to sleep now." Zhao Guihua lay down next to her and hugged her, gently patting her back with one hand.
Actually, smoking meat is quite time-consuming. It is said that it needs to be smoked for at least an hour every day, and it needs to be smoked continuously for more than half a month before it is finished. She thought that after half a month, there would probably not be much pork left.
Yu Ri, breakfast consisted of wild vegetables and meat soup, along with a large piece of snake meat that hadn't been eaten the day before. After breakfast, the five Fu brothers prepared to go into the mountains to retrieve the firewood that had fallen down the mountain the day before.
“Honey, you go with them and bring back some firewood. Xingxing won’t be going today.” Although they had caught a wild boar and a python yesterday, Zhao Guihua was more worried about the children’s safety and didn’t dare let them go alone.
Xingxing nodded and said, "I'm going to dry the flowers at home. Brother Wufu, remember to dig up some myrtle roots today, they'll be useful when dried."
Zhou Laoda took his sons into the mountains to chop firewood, leaving only Zhao Guihua and Xingxing at home. The former started smoking meat again, as it was too hot and she was afraid it would spoil if she didn't.
Two large bamboo baskets were placed on two long wooden benches in the yard, filled with honeysuckle. Xingxing's chubby little hands kept shoveling the flowers to spread them out to dry.
After she finished drying the flowers, she was covered in sweat. She ran into the kitchen, picked up a bamboo tube, and drank water with her head tilted back.
That's right. Old Master Zhou always drank water from bamboo tubes. After boiling water cooled down, he would pour it into a one-foot-long bamboo tube. He had more than twenty of these bamboo tubes at home. When he wanted to drink water, he would just hold the bamboo tube and drink directly from it.
When we first fled here, we were so poor that we couldn't afford bowls. We used bamboo tubes to drink water and eat. Later, when things got better, we bought ten bowls for eating, but we continued to use bamboo tubes for drinking water.
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