Chapter 264 Wedding Banquet
"Let's have dinner~"
Jiang Xiangnan's loud shout came from the yard outside.
Everyone in the room dispersed with a bang. The men chatted animatedly as they headed towards the workshop, while the women were in no hurry and walked slowly towards the main house next door.
The younger members of the Lei family lingered in the bridal chamber, reluctant to leave. The women who lagged behind them smiled and urged them, "Let's go, let's stay and talk to the newlyweds for a while."
"The food at your Aunt Shen Qing's house is the best. You haven't tried it yet, right? It's just right for us to go together. If we're late, we won't be able to grab the delicious food."
A group of half-grown children had no resistance to food! After hearing this, their reluctance and nostalgia immediately disappeared, and they happily followed the women.
The woman and the child were in the main house. The bowls and chopsticks they had brought from home were neatly stacked on the square table on one side.
Opposite the table, four long benches were placed side by side, and on one side was a wooden basin filled with mutton stewed with carrots. Unlike the white mutton stewed in their home, the mutton in the wooden basin was darker in color, and looked shiny and more appetizing.
"Could it be soy sauce? They say it makes the meat taste better."
"It's more expensive than vegetable oil, so how could it not be delicious? But don't tell me, even the color of the meat looks better."
"Today I want to carefully taste the difference between meat with soy sauce and without soy sauce~"
I looked at the dishes next to the mutton. There was finely chopped ginger paired with pickled peppers and onions. The sour and spicy taste made my mouth water.
This dish must go really well with rice!
Last time, Shen Qing taught them how to make mutton offal soup. It was delicious when they paired it with cornmeal steamed buns. Unexpectedly, it would taste even better when stir-fried.
The pickled peppers and onions looked better than the mutton offal, and the portion was quite small. I'll have to scoop more pickled peppers before ordering the main course...
The other two long benches were filled with spinach and tofu stewed with oil residue. The white tofu was paired with the green spinach, which was refreshing and had soup. It looked very juicy and thirst-quenching.
"The tofu is really good. In the past, when I made tofu soup at home, it was full of green vegetables or leeks. The tofu was cut into very small pieces. The kids always said it was tofu bath water."
Zhao Mingyue said proudly, "Isn't it? Shen Qing ordered several hundred kilograms of tofu and dried tofu from me!"
The other women gasped in surprise and asked in confusion, "Why did you order so much? We're only about 200 people total, and there's so much meat, vegetables, and rice, we can't finish it all, right?"
Zhao Mingyue repeated Shen Qing's original words: "Shen Qing said that making tofu is troublesome, and that making less or more takes almost the same amount of time and energy, so he simply ordered more;
She also said that it was cold now and that freezing it outside wouldn't spoil it. She had heard from people at the restaurant that frozen tofu was even better! It made stewed fish, meat, and other dishes even more flavorful, so she thought she'd give it a try. There were fewer dishes in winter anyway, so frozen tofu was a nice change of pace.
She heard someone trying to persuade her not to worry, saying that they had already planned to make more for themselves, and she would be fine with less, so she just made it as well;
After hearing this, she quietly increased the amount for her own family to several hundred kilograms - winter is long, so just save it for later consumption.
In fact, if you eat hundreds of kilograms of tofu freely, it won't last long. After all, there are more than ten or even twenty people in the family, and tofu is mostly water. You have to consume seven or eight kilograms in one meal to avoid fighting over it. In addition, if you send some to the two families, you can finish it all in about a month.
Lei Dongtian, Lei Qigui and the others opened their eyes wide when they heard this and asked in surprise, "Grandma Zhao, your family also knows how to make tofu?"
"Yes, grandma will send some to you later!" Zhao Mingyue said with a smile.
The Lei family brought hundreds of pounds of meat from their own hunting. Although tofu is not as valuable as meat, it tastes fresh and new.
Lei Dongtian's little head shook like a rattle, and he said seriously, "No need to send it, I'll ask Mom to buy it!"
At night, her father and mother thought she was asleep and settled the accounts. She secretly listened and remembered it very clearly!
Her family has been earning a lot more recently. From the sale of astragalus, the game hunted by her father and brothers, the coptis chinensis and angelica root sold together in the village, the wages from making brushes, and the hides from the game hunted in the mountains this time... after deducting the silver that has not yet been paid, the family has saved more than 40 taels of silver!
You have to know that in the past, families only had a few taels of silver left, and even these few taels had to be allocated to food, coarse salt, cloth, cotton, etc., so it was not known whether there would be any left at the end of the year, or how much would be left.
Now, the family has enough food left over to eat until next year, and there is enough salt for two to three years. New clothes have been put on early, and two hundred kilograms more sauerkraut have been made for the winter than in previous years... In other words, there is no need to use the more than forty taels of silver!
If she asks to buy some tofu, my mother should agree, right?
Lei Qigui was not willing to be outdone and followed suit, "I'll ask my mother to buy some too!"
At the same time, thinking that no one from my aunt's family was here, I added: "Buy some for my aunt's family too!"
He had eaten tofu before. Although it was broken into pieces when he came back from the city, it was still soft, smooth and tender. He wanted to eat it for a few more meals.
The other women then thought that they could also buy some to satisfy their winter hunger. If, as Shen Qing said, frozen tofu is more suitable for stewing meat, then wouldn't the hundreds of pounds of meat at home have an extra side dish?
The tofu bubbling in the broth and soaking up the rich gravy must be delicious.
"Aunt Zhao, next time you make tofu, tell me and I'll order it!"
"And me, I'll order 100 kilograms first."
"Hey, why don't we just pool our resources? We don't have to wait until next time. If we can get a few hundred pounds, can't we just do it right away?"
Someone suggested this, and the others agreed. There are so many households in the village, and since the winter is so cold that there is no need to worry about the food going bad, they can buy more.
If each family buys 100 to 80 kilograms, and three or five families get together, then they won’t have to wait, right?
Several families immediately made the decision and comforted Lei Chuntian, Qigui and other anxious children, telling them not to worry and that they would go to the workshop to ask their mother for a decision after the wedding banquet.
When talking about the wedding banquet, the women hurriedly looked at the last big wooden barrel. When they opened the wooden lid, they saw steaming white rice inside!
It is not coarse grain brown rice, it is pure rice without any additives!
And the whole wooden barrel exudes the aroma of rice.
Everyone could hold back when they saw the meat, and they also held back when they saw the spicy and sour mutton offal, but they could no longer hold back when they saw the rice. They all turned to the wooden table on the other side to find the bowls and chopsticks they brought with them, and started to eat.
They all use coarse pottery bowls, which are half the size of their heads. It is convenient to drink porridge from them. Just scooping half a bowl can fill your stomach to 80%!
I didn’t expect it would come in handy at today’s banquet.
Scoop a large wooden spoonful of rice to fill the bottom of the bowl, then add lamb stewed with carrots, spicy and sour lamb offal, lard, spinach and tofu in turn, and the coarse pottery bowl will immediately be piled up.
I took a big bite of the rice and the dishes, oh my god, it smells so good!
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