Chapter 122: Rice Tasting
Dad Ye was squatting in the strawberry field, pulling weeds with great effort.
In the fields, weeds grow like crazy day by day, and a lot of them can be pulled up every day. These weeds take advantage of the vitality of the strawberry field, and their roots become thick, and their branches and leaves are tender and green. The rabbits at home eat well and have already given birth to a litter of puppies.
There are eight cubs in this litter. They are chubby and have their eyes closed. Ye Zhen really likes to touch them. They are so soft and cute.
As soon as the rabbit left the nest, Grandma Ye immediately built a big nest for the rabbit family, and provided them with tender grass and vegetables every day to help them through the confinement period.
Today, Grandma Ye went home to collect the grass as usual. Dad Ye followed Ye Zhen's instructions and cut off the strawberry stems in time, preparing to plant a new crop in the newly opened field.
The strawberry field next to the Ye family belongs to Uncle Ye. In the distance are Zhang Shuiying and Ye Laogen's families. They are almost all from the same clan of the Ye family, so the fields of those who are closely related are all together.
At this moment, everyone was squatting in their own fields working, some were weeding, some were driving away birds.
Uncle Ye and his wife also worked diligently to pull out weeds and loosen the soil. Aunt Ye carefully touched the strawberries that were beginning to turn red. She was happy and smiled as she chatted with Uncle Ye:
"I see that there are a lot of strawberries and they are still blooming. I should be able to harvest a few crops. The yield is very high." You can make a lot of money!
Uncle Ye carefully pulled out a small clump of weeds from the roots of the strawberries, looked at the circle of strawberries of all sizes, and nodded:
"The yield is high, but there is too much grass, so we can't stop for a day."
As he said this, he tied the weeds in his hands into a pile, picked them up and put them into the bamboo basket he brought.
That’s right, Aunt Ye nodded. There were too many weeds. She had to check on the several acres of land at home every day. They grew up overnight.
There is also good news, which is that the fruit yield is high and the size is large.
It means making money!
What a happy trouble.
After pulling out the last bit of grass, Aunt Ye stood up and looked at other people's strawberry fields in the distance. Birds flew by from time to time, and some places were even infested with insects.
I couldn't help but feel lucky: "Fortunately, my strawberries don't attract insects, and neither does my second brother's. I've been watching for so long, and the fruits of our two families grow faster than those of others."
Uncle Ye was a rude person and didn't know it was because of Ye Zhen's arrangement. He just thought that his family was diligent and the crops grew faster than others.
"What's the big deal? The leaves were originally cultivated for our family. If we plant them first, they will definitely grow faster."
Aunt Ye thought about it and agreed. She stopped worrying about it and started working efficiently.
After the couple finished their own field, they went to the next door field to help Ye's father pull out the weeds. Ye's father planted more and had more work to do.
With help, the rest of the work was done faster.
When Dad Ye returned home, he smelled a fragrant aroma.
"What is this made of? Why does it smell so good?"
Dad Ye washed his hands and saw that everyone was in the kitchen, so he walked over to take a look.
In the kitchen, Grandma Ye helped to light the fire. Mom Ye brought the rice off the stove. Before she opened the lid of the pot, steam with a rich rice aroma rose up.
"This rice smells good!" Ye's mother said with surprise.
Grandma Ye, who was in charge of the fire, agreed very much. It was the first time in her entire life that she had smelled such fragrant rice. The Thai fragrant rice that the eldest daughter had brought over before was not even half as fragrant as this.
What kind of fragrant rice is this? It's not as fragrant as the rice grown from Ye Zi, Grandma Ye complained in her heart.
When the food is ready and everyone puts it on the table, as soon as the lid is opened, the fragrance of the rice grains of several colors is doubled.
It smells so good!
Dad Ye couldn't wait to scoop a spoonful. The bowl was filled with dark red rice. The rice grains were shiny and the aroma filled his nose.
It tastes fragrant and glutinous, not too hard or too soft, just right, slightly sweet, and fragrant when chewed. Dad Ye feels that he can eat three bowls of rice alone!
"Ye Zi, let's grow this kind, it's so delicious." Father Ye chewed the rice and continued to ask, "What is this kind of rice called?"
It looks like the purple rice on the market, but is clearer and more colorful than purple rice. It is not like purple rice, which has slightly uneven color and seems to be fading.
"I don't know what it's called yet." Ye Zhen couldn't think of a name for the time being.
“How about calling it purple fragrant rice? It’s purple and fragrant, and we don’t want to make it complicated.” Ye’s mother suggested.
Ye Zhen had no objection, and the name of the first kind of rice was decided.
"But I think this yellow rice tastes better! How about growing some of this rice?" Grandpa Ye usually doesn't talk much, but unexpectedly, after eating a chopstick of rice, he actively spoke.
It is soft, chewy and chewy, which is perfect for older people like them. It doesn't strain their teeth and the rice doesn't become mushy when steamed.
Like Grandpa Ye and Grandma Ye, when his teeth were good in the early years, he had no problem chewing sugarcane and biting some walnuts and nuts, and they were crunchy and powerful.
Ye Zhen feels that eating too much wild bayberry on the mountain will make his teeth ache, but Grandpa Ye likes it very much. Every year when the bayberry on the mountain is ripe, he sprinkles some salt on the half-green and half-red bayberry to reduce the sourness. One person can eat a whole bowl of it without spitting out the seeds.
Grandma Ye is the same. Apart from anything else, she likes to chew things with her mouth. She grinds the dried sweet potatoes at home one by one like she is grinding her teeth, and her cheeks keep moving.
The dried sweet potatoes in the past were not like the ones on the market today that require a lot of effort to make by steaming and drying them three times. They not only look good, but also taste sweet and soft.
Instead, they pick up big sweet potatoes, wash them, cut them into thin slices with a tool, rinse them with water, and then dry them in the sun until they become black in color and so hard that they cannot be broken even with teeth.
In the past, people in the countryside didn’t have much else to eat, so they made their own snacks. It didn’t matter whether they tasted good or not, the key was to save money.
When Ye Zhen was a child, his teeth were almost worn out, but the dried sweet potatoes were still stubbornly sticking to him. He could only chew them after soaking them in his mouth to soften them.
Not only that, Grandma Ye also likes to fry soybeans. She just fry the soybeans that have been dried by the sun without adding much oil, sprinkle a little salt on them, and put a few in her pocket to chew all day!
When we are young, our teeth are so powerful that they can chew sour, spicy, salty, sweet and hard things with great effort. But as we get older, problems also arise.
I can't eat anything that is too sour, and I can't eat anything that is too cold, as my teeth will freeze to the back of my head. The rice cannot be hard, it must be soft like porridge. I can't eat any food that is even slightly hard.
Now, Grandpa Ye has found the rice of his dreams. It is a rice that does not look soft at all but each grain is distinct. It tastes like chewing a piece of soft and fragrant marshmallow in your mouth.
This is his love, and it must be planted immediately this year!
But Ye Ma prefers the kind of round rice that is as high-yielding as sorghum. It has a crunchy texture when you bite it, and is not as dry as rice. It tastes a bit like fruit grains, but it is also starchy, and the taste is very novel.
Grandma Ye was fine with either, but she was not interested in the needle-like rice. Although both sides of the rice swelled up after being steamed, she still had no interest in it.
After the meal, everyone gave their comments. Everyone had their own preferences, and for a moment no one could decide which one to order!
"Plant a little of everything. Everyone will like it." Ye Zhen made the decision directly.
The breeding effect this time is good. After several plantings, when the traits are stable, we can start producing them. Now we will just eat them at home first.
"Dad, how many acres of land do we have?" Although we plan to plant all of them, we have to have a focus.
"We have sold all the rice we harvested last year, and only have a little left from the rice we planted in the first half of the year. Since everyone is at home, we have planted about five or six acres of late rice fields."
Before, everyone in the family worked, some went to work, and some went to school, so only Grandpa Ye and Grandma Ye were at home. The two old people couldn’t do much work and couldn’t eat much, so they didn’t plant much in the fields, and the vegetable garden was just a little in the backyard of the house.
This time Ye Zhen said he wanted to farm and make grain wine. Ye's father thought he could plant more, so he asked people to open up all the other land except the wasteland, in preparation for Ye Zhen's planting.
Ye Zhen felt relieved. He had five or six acres of land, and he could plant at least one acre of each crop. Plus the yield was high, it was enough for the whole family to eat.
The rice problem was solved, and Ye Zhen asked his father to go to the back mountain to harvest honey.
Cute little bee, here I come.
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