Chapter 419 421: A touch of luxury
Sandworm, the common name for "horned fishfly" in the high-altitude areas of southwest China, is the larvae of an insect of the order Broadptera and family Odontochoridae.
The sandworm has a flat mouth, about 6 to 9 cm long, with two large claws on its small head, a dark green or dark brown body, and a white abdomen with many patterns. It is covered with soft fleshy thorns that look like feet.
It looks a bit like a shortened version of a centipede, and is extremely ugly and hideous, giving people goose bumps at a glance.
However, this ugly little insect is known as animal ginseng, especially for treating frequent urination at night in the elderly and bedwetting in children.
Ever since people started selling them on the street, the price of sandworms has increased from one or two cents per piece to one or two dimes, and then to two or three yuan, but they are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Sandworm: warm in nature and sweet in taste. It has the effects of nourishing qi and kidney, nourishing and strengthening, suppressing deficiency, reducing urine and strengthening the body, and can be called a good medicinal food.
"Oh yeah~" Zhou Jiakang cheered and ran over proudly holding a sandworm in his hand, "Look, auntie, I found another little fat guy."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Not bad! I'll fry it for you when we get home later."
Zhou Jiakang nodded happily, "Aunt Yao, Little Mosquito said that I used to draw maps every day, and then I ate sandworms and stopped wetting the bed, right?"
"Yes!" Yang Chunyan nodded with a smile, "Eat two more later, and I promise you'll grow up to be a handsome man without wetting the bed."
Zhou Jiakang looked at her with a smile, "My brother said his classmates said that my father is a handsome guy!"
Yang Chunyan laughed after hearing this, "Then you are Xiao Shuaiguo!"
"Hehe!" Zhou Jiakang scratched his head, and all the sand flew away.
"Yan'er~" Zhou Huaian ran over holding a foot-long bighead carp, "Big fish, we got a big fish."
Yang Chunyan looked at the struggling silver carp and stood up to rub her sore calves. "It must be more than ten pounds. I'll go back and make the fish head into chopped pepper fish head, and fillet the fish body and cook it into pickled fish."
Zhou Huaian: "That's great! Ding Ding Mao is the best at making chopped pepper fish head. Let him take charge of the cooking later and you can take a break."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Why don't you learn how to do it?"
"I'll take care of the food!" Zhou Huaian looked at her with a playful smile, "There are still a few fish weighing one or two kilograms in the net. We'll send them to the city to sell to the Douhua Shop tomorrow. If the price is good, we'll come again when we have time. We have to earn back the money we spent on the fishing net anyway."
Yang Chunyan recalled the fish prices she saw when she was selling eels. "Pond fish were only 20 or 30 yuan per catty, and river fish were at most 50 or 60 yuan. A 20-yuan fishing net would have to sell 40 to 50 catties of fish to make a profit."
Zhou Huaian said proudly: "This big silver carp weighs more than ten kilograms, so forty or fifty kilograms of river fish is just a drop in the bucket."
Yang Chunyan smiled and pointed at the wooden basin, "We have only found a dozen sandworms. Go and cast two more nets, and we will return after finding some more."
Zhou Jiakang and others also ran over and said, "Wow, what a big fish!" and reached out to touch it.
Zhou Huaian saw the fish scales stuck to Zhou Jiakang's hands, "Hurry up and wash your hands. If fish scales stick to your hands, you will get fish scales."
"Fish mole" is the common name here. It is said that the moisture of fish scales stuck to the skin shrinks rapidly after being dried by the skin, and the edges get stuck in the skin, which is the result of not being discovered and cleaned in time.
"Oh!" Zhou Jiakang and others hurried to the shallow water to wash the fish scales off their hands.
Zhou Huaian found a puddle, put the big silver carp in it, and happily went to cast the net.
The few of them spent two hours by the river and caught dozens of sandworms. Zhou Huaian and his friend filled their buckets with so much fish.
Zhou Huaian and his companion were full of energy when they were fishing, but they became listless when it was time to bring the fish back. They shouted that they should have driven the tractor to fish earlier.
Chunyan looked at the two people lying on the stone with amusement, "You were the ones who clamored to come and fish with the net, and you were also the ones who wanted to throw the fish away when you were having fun."
Zhou Jiakang added, "That's right, you adults are not as good as us little kids. Look, we caught so many sandworms and we can still move!"
"Let's go back and fry some sandworms to eat! Let them two starve here." After saying this, Yang Chunyan left with the children.
When Zhou Huaian and the other man saw them leaving, they also stood up, found a wooden stick on the river bank, and chased after them with the fish in their hands.
When Yang Chunyan and the three children walked to the field path leading to the old house, they said to Zhou Jiakang, "Go and call our grandfather, grandma, and cousin Haili to come to our house to eat fish. Remember to ask grandma to pick some chili peppers and green and red chili peppers."
"Oh!" Zhou Jiakang responded and ran away.
Yang Chunyan brought the two little girls home, and Zhou Huaian and his partner also arrived. They delivered a fish to the three older families, and then they started to get busy.
Zhou Huaian kept the fish in the pond behind him, and Zhou Yiding started killing the fish, preparing to make sauerkraut fish and chopped pepper fish head.
Yang Chunyan scooped some rice and ground corn kernels and put them into the steamer when the old man and Zhou's mother arrived.
When Zhou Jiakang and Luo Qiaoling saw Zhou Xiaowen and his partner huddled in rattan chairs listening to the radio, they all moved over to listen together.
Father Zhou looked at the rocking chair on the steps and said, "Old man, do you want to sit down?"
The old man shook his head, "No, I'm going to go see the big fish that the youngest caught!"
Mother Zhou looked at the children squeezed on two chairs, and went into the house to take a look. "When did the youngest prodigal son get two such beautiful chairs?"
Zhou Jiakang turned his head and said, "Dad bought it a long time ago. I like sitting on this chair the most."
Zhou's mother took a look and patted him with a smile, "Don't learn from your father. When you see good things, you want to buy them home!"
"Guilan, what do you think the youngest son is doing to buy household items?" The old man said to Zhou's mother, then smiled and went to the backyard to watch Zhou Huaian and the other man killing fish.
Zhou Huaian saw the old man and pointed at the fish in the pond proudly, "Grandpa, look at my fishing net, it's worth it!"
"It's worth it if it's useful!" The old man laughed, "People say you ripped off the Xiong family for $250."
Zhou Huaian looked at him with a smile, "Why do you say that? As the saying goes, gold has a price, but medicine is priceless! If I give the Xiong family hemostatic medicine for nothing, those people will say that I am a jerk and a fool!"
The old man glared at him in annoyance, "You are always right!"
Zhou Yiding said, "Second Grandpa, there is an old saying that if someone respects me one foot, I will respect him one yard. If you blindly tolerate like the Xiong family, he will not only not be grateful, but will also look down on you."
The old man thought of his second son's way of dealing with things, "You are right, if the Xiong family does it on the first day, we will do it on the fifteenth day."
"Grandpa!" Zhou Huaian looked at him with a playful smile, "Then I will punish you later, you have to help me!"
The old man glared and said, "If he dares to deal with you, I will deal with him." In fact, he had already scolded Zhou Dasong at home, otherwise he would not be sitting outside listening to the radio at this moment.
Zhou Huaian said with a smile: "I am not afraid with your support."
"You're still afraid!" The old man rolled his eyes at him.
Mother Zhou and Luo Haili walked into the kitchen. "You guys are good at eating. You always think about making delicious food. Where are the sandworms? Bring them here and I'll clean them up for you."
"It's in the basin. It hasn't been washed yet!" Yang Chunyan took out the basin from behind the stove. "Look, there are so many!"
Zhou's mother took a look and said, "They are all quite fat. I'll wash them first, and you boil some water to scald them and peel them."
Luo Haili smiled and brought the leeks to the stove, "I'll help my cousin's wife light the fire and pick the vegetables!"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "The leeks were sent by Third Aunt. I'll blanch them and serve them cold later."
Zhou's mother put some water to wash the sandworms clean, then boiled half a basin of water to scald them again to make them stiff. Then she took them out, cut off their heads and tails, pulled out the sand intestines, and peeled off the skin. The hideous and ugly sandworms turned into tender white ginseng meat.
"This thing is good to eat, but it consumes too much food."
"It's a rare opportunity to have a bomb, so let's be extravagant!"
Yang Chunyan poured some sweet potato starch into a ceramic bowl, and under the distressed gaze of Zhou's mother, she beat a few eggs, added salt and pepper powder, and stirred the eggs, flour and sweet potato starch into a paste. She then poured the cleaned sandworms into the bowl and evenly coated them with a layer of egg paste.
Let Luo Haili light the stove inside, wait until the pot is hot, pour a bowl of rapeseed oil into it, and add a shovel of lard...
Zhou's mother's mouth twitched with distress after seeing this. "Put less oil in it. If it were a few years ago, this much oil would have lasted for half a year."
Yang Chunyan smiled at her and said, "The fried oil can be filtered and used to cook fish."
The old woman has been frugal all her life. When her family was in financial difficulty, they only ate boiled vegetables and would never afford to cook them. How could I not feel sorry for her when I saw her use so much oil?
"..." Zhou's mother blinked in distress, wanting to say that there was too much oil left over to cook the fish, but seeing her apologetic smile, she felt it was difficult to say anything to her. Only then did she understand why the old man often advised the mother-in-law to pretend to be deaf and dumb so as not to be annoying.
"Cousin, light the heat!" Yang Chunyan put the sandworms into the pot one by one, turning them over and over with long bamboo chopsticks. The sandworms were fried until golden brown, then she scooped them out, filtered out excess oil through a colander, and poured them into a ceramic bowl.
"Mom, try it. It's fragrant and crispy."
Zhou's mother said angrily: "It's made of oil, eggs, and batter. You don't even need to taste it to know it tastes good."
"Hehe!" Yang Chunyan smiled at her innocently.
Zhou's mother rolled her eyes at her, but couldn't help but say, "Spend sparingly, there will be more places to spend money in the future..."
Yang Chunyan smiled and nodded, "Got it! Call grandpa and the old man to come and eat." Then she fed a sandworm into her mouth, "It tastes good!"
The fine lines at the corners of Zhou's mother's eyes instantly disappeared, and she smiled and said, "It's delicious!"
Luo Haili looked at the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law with envy, "Aunt, you and my cousin's wife don't look like mother-in-law and daughter-in-law at all, you look like your own daughters!"
Zhou's mother smiled and said, "She is just like the youngest child now, very naughty!"
"No way!" Yang Chunyan smiled and scooped out the last spoonful and poured it into the colander. Thinking about her previous life, she was like a wandering soul in the first two years after Huai'an left, and was in a daze all day long.
The old man felt upset himself, but he still tried to persuade her. He often said that being a human is like Tang Sanzang's journey to obtain Buddhist scriptures. You have to overcome many slopes and obstacles, so it is inevitable that you will encounter hardships!
The old woman has seen her younger brother die, you are still young, please show some energy and spirit to get over this hurdle...
(End of this chapter)
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