Li Xiangdong used a small brush made of mint leaves to continuously brush oil onto the wild boar meat, and then sprinkled salt on it.
The roasted wild boar meat smells delicious!
Li Xiangdong picked up a piece of wild boar meat with his chopsticks, dipped it in soy sauce, and threw it directly into his mouth.
fragrant!
It really feels like juice is bursting in your mouth!
Li Xiangdong felt he hadn't eaten such delicious meat in a long time!
Wild boar meat has less fat and more lean meat, and it eats only natural wild grasses, vegetables and fruits, which is incomparable to the large white pigs raised in captivity and fed with feed in later generations.
Zhao Sufang and Liu Jiangsu soon joined in eating meat. Liu Jiangsu ate three bites in a row, and Zhao Sufang pulled her hand, telling her to eat slowly.
As I get older, my digestive system becomes less efficient.
Liu Jiangsu ate several slices of pork belly because of a sudden craving. Seeing that her daughter cared about her, she was happy and put down her chopsticks with a smile.
The aroma of roasted pork quickly wafted into the house.
The sleeping people immediately woke up; the smell of meat was wonderful!
Everyone ate to their heart's content, enjoying a satisfying feast. Usually, the wild boars they caught were either made into cured meat for winter or sent to the commune to exchange for a few packs of matches. They could never eat so freely!
After a hearty meal, the group of people went to the back mountain to transport wild boars, and it took them two days and two nights to finally bring all the wild boars back.
Actually, it wasn't all wild boars. One wild boar had already been half-eaten by wild animals and crows, so they simply left the boar in the forest as food for the birds.
Bai Yufeng asked Luo Yonggang, "Brother Gang, what are you going to do with so many wild boars? Send them to the commune?"
Actually, the commune also bought wild boar meat, which was cheaper. However, the mountains belonged to the collective, and there was very little private hunting, so people would sell large quantities of wild boar.
Bai Yulong said, "If we send so many wild boars to the commune, they'll definitely try to lower the price! We might as well make them into cured meat and sell them to city people later."
During the Spring Festival, people with formal jobs or wealthy families in the county town would secretly buy cured pork from these mountain people.
Luo Yonggang shook his head, "I won't sell them. Give them all to my third sister and Xiang Dong."
Luo Yonggang changed the subject, "Of course, Brother Yulong and Sister Yufeng, you'll get ten wild boars!"
This was something he had discussed with his father and Xiang Dong.
Bai Yulong quickly waved his hand, "No, no! We're not being polite. We're just helping to transport some wild boars. How can we ask for ten of yours?"
Bai Yulong and Bai Yufeng's faces turned bright red, and they resolutely refused.
It's clear that these are two very genuine siblings.
Luo Yonggang tried his best to persuade Bai Yulong, but Bai Yulong insisted on not accepting. As the two were pushing and pulling, Li Xiangdong suddenly spoke up, "Uncle, besides the ten wild boars for Uncle Yulong, what should we do with the rest?"
Luo Yonggang was completely bewildered. "The rest? The rest is all yours!"
Luo Hongkai thought Li Xiangdong was just being polite, so he earnestly advised, "Listen to your uncle, he'll make you some cured meat later and you can take it with you!"
Li Xiangdong shook his head. "Grandpa, Uncle, although all the members of your brigade live quite far away, we can't keep this a secret after hunting so many wild boars! What if the other members find out?"
What should I do now that I know?
They might be unhappy!
However, if they were to give up the wild boar they had worked so hard to hunt just to please others, not only Luo Hongkai and Luo Yonggang, but even the Bai siblings felt a little reluctant.
“Uncle, you’ll have to stay in the village for at least a few more years. It’s not good to keep everything to yourself. What will others think of you? Although everyone eats the wild boar they hunt, and there’s no precedent for handing it over, think about it, we still have a big mushroom business to build!”
"Shouldn't we try to get along better with everyone?"
Luo Yonggang thought about it and realized that it was true. If he wanted to sell mushrooms, how much could he and his father produce by picking and drying mushrooms? They would still have to buy them from other people in the brigade!
Luo Yonggang was young and quick-witted. "Xiang Dong, what do you suggest?"
"Take ten wild boars weighing less than 100 pounds each and bring them to the brigade leader. Tell him you just happened to encounter a herd of wild boars, and hand them over to the brigade leader to decide how to distribute them!"
This way, the members' mouths were silenced at minimal cost.
Luo Yonggang glanced at Luo Hongkai, then clenched his left fist and right palm together, "That's how it'll be done!"
Bai Yufeng, standing beside him, exclaimed with starry eyes, "Brother Gang, you're so smart!"
Bai Yulong: Sister, are you hard of hearing?
Luo Hongkai and Liu Jiangsu: This was my grandson's idea!
Li Xiangdong: My aunt's romantic mind is beyond saving...
Without further ado, Luo Yonggang and Bai Yulong first transported ten wild boars down the mountain, then borrowed an oxcart from the brigade and delivered the boars to the brigade leader Kong Dezhu's house.
Kong Dezhu was a man in his fifties, not very tall but quite sturdy. When he saw Luo Yonggang and Bai Yulong bringing him wild boar, he first declined, saying, "Oh, you should keep the wild boar you hunted for yourselves!"
Luo Yonggang said, "I've already kept what I had for myself. I'm bringing these over to the brigade leader so you can share them with each household in the brigade."
Kong Dezhu thought to himself that this child was quite sensible.
Seeing Kong Dezhu's satisfied expression, Luo Yonggang repeated what Li Xiangdong had taught him, "Captain, the two largest wild boars here are specially for you and my aunt to nourish your bodies. As for the remaining eight, I don't know how many pounds they weigh or how to divide them. It's all up to you to work hard."
This statement highlights Kong Dezhu's important position while leaving him room to maneuver regarding how much to divide the spoils.
Sure enough, Kong Dezhu was even more satisfied. He stroked his goatee and grinned, "Isn't this what I should do!"
After delivering the wild boar to the brigade, they were to deliver it to Bai Yulong as well, but Bai Yulong said they wanted to make cured meat together, so they decided not to bother with it for now.
The first person to express their support was Bai Yufeng, who can now work alongside Gang Ge again!
With Luo Yonggang and Bai Yulong, two able-bodied young men, Li Xiangdong stepped back from the front lines. He gave Luo Hongkai two hundred yuan to buy coarse salt, whether from the supply and marketing cooperative or from smuggled salt, because they needed a lot of salt to cure salted pork legs.
Besides taking Zhao Sufang to pick mushrooms in the surrounding area, Li Xiangdong now spends his time in the yard instructing Bai Yulong and Luo Yonggang on how to cure pork.
He lay on a recliner made of bamboo from the back of the mountain by Luo Hongkai, feeling the cool breeze and eating raspberries from the fields in the mountains, feeling extremely comfortable.
To make delicious cured pork, you need to rub salt all over the pork. Actually, you should also add spices such as Sichuan peppercorns, angelica root, star anise, and cinnamon to remove the fishy smell. In Huichuan County, you can buy these at Guangming Pharmaceutical Factory, but now that we are in the mountains, we have to save money wherever possible.
However, there are plenty of cypress and pine branches in the mountains. Using these fresh branches to smoke cured meat can remove the fishy smell of wild boar meat with their special aroma!
Smoke rises from the Luo family's courtyard all day long, drifting and swirling, blending into the mountain mist.
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