Chapter 117 Everyone has worked hard this year
February 6, 1978, the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, New Year’s Eve.
Chen Chunhua has been busy for several days to make "blessings", and she has been cleaning the house with the whole family to welcome the Bodhisattva.
She got up at dawn on New Year's Eve to prepare the gifts. She took out the chicken, duck, fish and meat cooked with rice cakes and placed them in special red lacquered wooden barrels and plates. It is said that these barrels and plates of the Lin family were the dowry that Lin Guoqing's grandmother brought when she got married.
There was no way. Liang Shengdi and Shen Chunhua had no dowry and were penniless, so they did not have these traditional items.
A gold ingot pattern cut out of red paper in advance is placed on each barrel plate for a good omen.
Liang Shengdi said that when she first got married, her mother-in-law told her that during sacrifices, men would perform the ceremony in order of seniority, and women were not allowed to participate.
She was quite happy, really.
As a result, Old Lin insisted on dragging my mother and daughter-in-law to worship together, saying that there were too few people in the family and that the ancestors and Bodhisattvas would not blame such a thing, but would be happy instead. Then, the Lin family would worship together every year from then on, which annoyed her.
This was not the first time Liang Shengdi had said this, but it was the first time that Chen Chunhua saw her laughing while talking about the past. She had no idea why, but she started laughing too.
Chen Chunhua felt that the reason why the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law got along so well was simply because they both had a limited reverence for the gods and ancestors. They didn't have so many rules and regulations to restrict themselves or each other.
It's just that she's a little more pretentious than Liang Shengdi. If other families were to perform sacrifices, then hers would do the same. If Liang Shengdi were the head of the family, she would probably just throw it away and make a pumpkin.
Therefore, even if her mother-in-law was Liang Shengdi in her previous life, it was not a bad thing for her.
The food after the sacrifice must be kept for eating. If a family puts a real chicken there, they will use the chicken soup made from the sacrificial chicken to cook rice cakes, which are called "Sanfu Nian Gao".
Chen Chunhua originally put rice cake chicken on the dish, so she just cut it up and cooked a big pot of vegetable and rice cake rice with rice, which everyone ate together for lunch.
The highlight will come at night.
New Year’s Eve is the last day of the year and the day when the New Year is about to come. It is the day when every family has the best food.
The must-have dish every year is the "Shou Zhai Cai", also known as the Eight Treasures Cai or the Ruyi Cai. It is made with eight kinds of vegetables: pickled vegetables, winter bamboo shoots, mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, daylily, fried tofu, thousand sheets, and soybean cakes.
Pray to the Buddha when you pickle vegetables, and you will make a fortune quietly. Eat the "Eight Treasures Dish" and you won't have to worry about your creditors coming.
This dish is relatively salty and goes well with rice. Lin Guoqing likes to eat it with porridge the next morning.
A dish of lotus root jerky is actually lotus root, red dates and water chestnuts cooked together, which is named after the homophony of the name "偶偶(lotus root)凑凑,齐齐(water chestnut)备备" which means "偶偶(lotus root)凑凑,齐齐(water chestnut)备备"
In the local dialect, it sounds like "you fu", which means both rich and wealthy. This is definitely the wish of all the common people.
Red dates and water chestnuts are both sweet and are also the favorite dish of children. They cannot be kept until the next day and are divided up by the four children that night.
A bowl of boiled sweet potatoes. Eating sweet potatoes can help you turn things around. I hope your life will get better and better.
Everyone has had enough of sweet potatoes. In the past, during the Chinese New Year, they would only taste a little and save some space for other things. This year, it was even more so, so Chen Chunhua simply cooked a sweet potato as a token of her appreciation.
A bowl of frozen fish meat is simply braised fish meat served frozen. It's a dish that even the most modest families have to save up for.
The Yue people love to eat dried fish, because "dried fish" has the same pronunciation as "xiang", which means enjoyment. The head of the dried fish must be placed on the meat, which means "enjoyment" in the coming year.
In the past, when Chen Chunhua made this dish, she would put a few pieces of meat in it, mainly salted fish, because meat is expensive and salted fish is cheap.
"Wow! Mom! So much meat!" Lin Shuchao opened his mouth wide as he watched Shen Chunhua bring the dishes to the table. He wanted to secretly reach out and grab a piece of meat to eat, but was slapped away by Shen Chunhua.
"Wash your hands, wash your hands. I have to tell you several times! No sneaking around to eat. We're going to have dinner together later!"
Next are braised fish, pickled duck, boiled chicken, and the authentic three-fresh soup made with chicken broth, salted pork leg, and winter bamboo shoots, and topped with fish balls, meat balls, river shrimp, and egg dumplings.
The children were all stunned. Lin Shukan murmured to himself next to his sister, "I've never eaten such a sumptuous meal in my life..."
Lin Shuying was also dumbfounded, "I've never eaten it in my life..."
The round table was filled with dishes. Lin Guoqing came out with a jar in his hand, smiling.
"Ding ding ding! Look what this is. Do you want to drink it?"
Lin Shu looked up and saw, "Malted milk!" Lin Erniu had shown off a small packet of it in class last time! He recognized the word as soon as he saw it!
"That's right!" Lin Guoqing pried open the jar, scooped two spoonfuls of water into each of the four children's empty bowls, and then poured boiling water on them. "This is a gift from your aunt and uncle. You must remember to order good things from them in the future."
Although the other children had never seen malted milk, they all knew this famous luxury product and quickly nodded while holding their bowls and spoons.
"Yes! We will definitely say hello to our uncle and aunt next time we see them!"
As for when we can see it, who knows!
Lin Shuchao lowered his head and took a big gulp, then burst into tears, "Ahhh!!! It's hot! It's hot! It's hot!"
"Oh, this is boiling water! Why are you drinking it so fast!" Chen Chunhua clicked her tongue, quickly took the bowl from his hand and put it on the table, then fanned his tongue.
There were still tears on the third child's face, and he cried out in grievance, "Ahhhhhhhhhh..."
I mean, he just wants to try it...
Liang Shengdi sat opposite the third brother, holding up a duck leg and starting to gnaw on it, smiling with gloating satisfaction.
"Oh, your tongue is burned, you won't be able to taste these dishes. I'll help you finish them~"
Lin Shuchao's tears, which had just stopped, began to fall again. Lin Guoqing looked at his mother speechlessly, "Mom, how old are you..."
Fortunately, the burn wasn't too big. The third child was adamant that he absolutely couldn't miss this New Year's Eve dinner. He wanted to eat it! He wanted to eat more than grandma!
Liang Shengdi hummed twice and picked up another piece of frozen meat with chopsticks. Her main point today was that she would never eat vegetarian food.
Lin Guoqing took the loose rice wine that he had used for the blessing at noon, poured a small bowl for Chen Chunhua and himself, and then held the bowl towards Chen Chunhua.
"Wife, you've worked hard this year~"
Chen Chunhua raised the corner of her mouth and gave him a look, then raised her bowl and the two of them clinked their glasses.
"You've worked hard, let's work hard together next year~"
The couple smiled at each other, feeling very secretive.
Little Shumei dipped her finger in the malted milk in the bowl and felt that it was no longer hot. Then she held the bowl properly and said to everyone at the table in a baby voice,
"Everyone has worked hard this year~"
“Cheers[]~(￣▽￣)~*”
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