Chapter 1212
At this time, Jiang's mother also came out of the shower. She was hungry, so she ate the river clam chili sauce noodles made by Jiang Ning.
She ate in silence.
Jiang's father finished a big bowl of noodles, still not satisfied, and asked her: "What is this sauce? Why is it so delicious? How do you make it?"
Jiang Ning said silently, "It's clam meat sauce." She repeated the recipe of clam chili sauce to Jiang's father.
Jiang's father and mother then realized that the river clams and snails she had picked in the morning were gone. Jiang's father slapped his thigh and said, "Oh my goodness, these river clams can be so delicious!"
Almost whenever people talk about river clams, the impression they have is that their meat is old and fishy. This has become a fixed impression.
After all, in that era, where would one have the money to buy cooking wine to remove the fishy smell? Cook everything in one pot, a little coarse salt is nice.
Father Jiang's eyes lit up surprisingly: "Show me the river clam chili sauce you made."
Jiang Ning went to get a bottle of snail chili sauce and handed it to him.
Dad Jiang opened the lid and took a bite with chopsticks: "This snail can actually be used to make sauce!" And it's so delicious!
Jiang's mother wanted to eat it, but she had a cold face and didn't take any. Jiang's father poured some into her bowl. Jiang's mother frowned in disdain: "Don't give it to me. I don't eat this. It's not like I have nothing to eat. Why should I eat this?"
She picked it up with her chopsticks and gave it back to Jiang's father.
After all, it was chopped sauce and one chopstick could not pick up all of it, so he frowned and started eating.
It tastes really good.
Father Jiang said, "I'll make some and sell them in town to see if I can sell them."
Jiang Ma frowned and said disdainfully, "Forget it. This crap is everywhere in the fields. Who has enough money to buy this? Don't think you can do anything."
Father Jiang was unhappy and said, "How do you know it won't sell if you haven't sold it yet? Anyway, it's worthless. There are plenty of them at the hydropower station. It doesn't matter if we can't sell it and eat it at home. By the way." Father Jiang said to Jiang Ning, "If it can't be sold, we can send it to Ning Ning and Jiang Bai. It's meat at least."
"If you want to do it, go do it yourself. Don't look for me. I have a lot of work to do in the fields. Why do you spend all day messing around with these useless things?"
Mother Jiang finished her noodles and went back to her room to watch TV.
Jiang Ning said, "If you take it to sell, it's best to keep the snails for a few more days after you bring them back so that they can spit out all the mud and sand."
Father Jiang then realized that the river clams and snails he had picked up in the morning had already been made into sauce in the afternoon: "Why didn't you keep them for two more days?"
Jiang Ning said: "There is no place to keep it. I only have a bathtub that I need at home."
This is indeed a problem. Father Jiang frowned. If he wants to make snail meat sauce, he must have something to feed them.
It was definitely too late to catch snails now. The nights in the countryside were so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of you. Besides, he was tired after a long day and needed to rest.
Neither Mr. Jiang nor Mrs. Jiang watched TV for a long time. They watched the weather forecast after the news broadcast and then went to bed.
She has to get up early tomorrow morning to go back to her parents' home to bring fish to her brothers and sisters.
After a whole day of fishing like a Japanese raid, there were very few fish on the riverbank. But the next day there were still many people fishing there, mostly young children, but there were also a few adults.
Don’t think that you will have fish to eat at home after catching so many fish. All the live fish will be taken to the town to sell. Only the dead fish will be kept. You will either eat them at home or pickle them and dry them into dried fish to eat when guests come to your house or during the New Year.
Dad Jiang got up before dawn to catch crayfish. Mom Jiang got up early as well. As soon as the sky started to turn a little dark blue, she got up and went to call Jiang Ning to get up. Unexpectedly, she had tied the bolt inside.
She knocked on the door and said, "Get up! Marinate the fish or it will go bad!"
Not every fish we caught yesterday is still alive. Some died yesterday, and some died last night.
Jiang Ning was disturbed by her noise and got up to wash.
After a while, Jiang's father came back with a bucket of crayfish. He took a brush and went to the pond to brush the crayfish. Afraid that he would not be able to make it to the boat in town in time, he called Jiang Ning to come and wash with him.
One of them was brushing the crayfish while the other was removing the head and shrimp thread from the crayfish. After washing them, they hurried to grill the spicy crayfish.
Jiang Ning cut a lot of cucumber strips, green peppers, and garlic leaves for him and mixed them in the soup. "If someone buys crayfish, you can give them some cucumber strips and green peppers, and the soup is free. If no one buys, go to your aunt's house to borrow a bowl and take out a few for people to try. After tasting it, you know it's delicious, and there will always be people who buy it."
"Okay, I know." Jiang's father said with a smile, "I have to go now. I will miss the boat soon."
He picked up the wooden barrel containing crayfish, put on the lid, picked up two large plastic buckets of fish, and hurried away.
Jiang Ning hurriedly brought a can of snail meat sauce over and gave it to Jiang's father: "Please bring it to Auntie for me!"
During Jiang Ning's three years in junior high school, she often ran to her aunt's house when she was extremely hungry to have a full meal. Her aunt lived with her parents-in-law, and her arrival caused a lot of inconvenience to her aunt.
Dad Jiang was trying to pick and carry things, but he had no hands left and was in a very difficult situation.
Jiang Ning followed him and took the bucket from his hand: "I'll take it to the boat for you."
Actually, she wanted to go with us because she had hidden a lot of crayfish in the mountains.
When passing by the rice field, Jiang's father took some straw, quickly twisted it into a rope, tied it to the mouth of the bottle, and then waved her away: "Go back, school will start in a few days, go back and read more books."
When I got home, Jiang's mother had already left.
Seeing that it was still early, Jiang Ning put on his hat and went to the field to pick long beans.
These are the dishes she will eat after going to school.
There were vegetables in the school cafeteria, but the 30 kilograms of food coupons her family gave her every month were not enough to fill her stomach. She used all the coupons to buy rice, and had to bring her own vegetables, otherwise there would not be enough.
It’s amazing that the sauerkraut, beans, and radishes pickled by Mama Jiang and Grandpa Jiang were all rotten.
From childhood to adulthood, the sour cowpeas that other people eat are crispy and sour, but the cowpeas they eat are soft, rotten, bitter, and the color is particularly touching.
Have you ever seen the dark gray pickled beans?
Jiang Ning has eaten it.
Grandpa Jiang also likes to eat these bitter rotten pickled cabbage and rotten radishes very much. He doesn't have to work hard to eat them. He thinks they are especially fragrant and tasty when cooked with rapeseed oil.
To describe stinky tofu, it has a stinky and fragrant smell.
Jiang Ning couldn't appreciate it anyway.
None of her family members know how to cook the food she likes, so she has to do it herself to have enough food and clothing.
Now that she thinks about it, she, her father, and her two brothers are all so good at cooking. Maybe they were forced to do that because of Grandpa Jiang and Mom Jiang’s cooking skills.
There is a saying that poor students have more stationery.
Although Jiang Ma is not a good cook, she is almost never idle throughout the year. She can find work to do if there is no work. She can make pickled radishes, pickled vegetables, and pickled beans, all of which others can make. There is a row of various jars and cans at home.
She was reluctant to throw anything away. She would wash empty cans and IV bottles and put them all on the table against the kitchen wall. They could be used as hot water bottles in winter.
Jiang Ning found two empty jars, washed them, scalded them with boiling water, and then rolled them in a hot pot. He put the washed long beans, ginger slices, garlic, chili peppers, etc. into the jars to marinate, then pressed them tightly with two washed pebbles and poured the white wine that Jiang's father occasionally drank.
When Jiang's mother left, she carried two buckets on her shoulders. When she came back, she carried two more buckets filled with eggs, dried bamboo shoots, rice, flour and other things given to her by her brothers and sisters from her mother's side. When she came back and saw Jiang Ning pickling fish there, she didn't know if she was in a good mood because she had returned to her mother's side. After putting down her burden, she walked over to Jiang Ning and even wanted to touch Jiang Ning's hair, but Jiang Ning avoided her.
Mother Jiang sighed and said, "Oh, don't blame me for hitting you. I was just very angry with you. You are my flesh and blood. How could I bear to hit you~"
She said, "You blame me for not loving you, but look at the whole village. Which girl can study and graduate from junior high school like you? Your family didn't ask you to do any heavy work except cooking and sweeping the floor, right? Your brothers and sisters did all the work of fetching water and carrying loads. Look at the other girls in the village. They all cut grass, herded cattle, harvested rice, planted rice, and carried loads since they were young. They did everything inside and outside the house."
Jiang Ning raised his head to look at Jiang Ma, and hung the pickled fish under the eaves: "Just tell me what happened."
Mother Jiang sighed again: "Now your eldest brother has to repeat his senior year, and your second brother will soon be a senior in high school. Next year, two of our family members will go to college..."
Jiang Ning chuckled in his heart: Sorry, there isn't one.
"Your father and I can't afford to support the three of you to go to school. Even if you squeeze our blood and flesh dry, I still can't afford to support the three of you to go to school."
As she spoke, Jiang Ma burst into tears.
Jiang Ning just watched Jiang Ma cry for a while before she smiled and said, "Grandpa said, Grandpa will support me."
In Jiang Ma's eyes, Grandpa Jiang gave their money to them for their old age, so Grandpa Jiang's money is her money. What's the difference between using Grandpa Jiang's money and using her money?
She cried and said, "Can't you be more sensible? I don't expect you to feel sorry for me, but your eldest brother is already nineteen. If he repeats his studies for another year, he will be twenty next year. People in the countryside get married early and start a family at the age of twenty. If he delays any longer, his whole life will be delayed." With red eyes, she said to Jiang Ning in a gentle voice, "Consider it me begging you, go out to work for a year, and come back to repeat your studies after a year. By then, you will only be sixteen, and it's not too late."
Seeing that she couldn't persuade Jiang Ning, Jiang's mother cried even more sadly: "Why are you so disobedient now? You didn't know how well behaved and obedient you were before!"
Jiang Ning said, "She was so good and obedient, but you still beat her from childhood to adulthood?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
