Because the people in the field were busy planting sweet potato seedlings, they came back quite late, so lunchtime was past lunchtime.
At this time, every household in Forget-Worry Valley was preparing lunch, and the aroma wafted throughout the valley.
The villagers discovered that Li Lanzhen's family ate three meals a day, even if it was very simple.
People still don't understand why, with food so scarce, we still need to eat three meals a day.
But Li Lanzhen's words made them understand what it means to be "a man is made of iron and food is made of steel; if you miss a meal, you'll be starving."
Li Lanzhen said, "There are three meals a day, morning, noon and evening. In particular, breakfast should be eaten well and you should eat your fill so that you have the energy to run around all day. A good lunch will give your body a boost after a tiring morning. In the evening, you can drink some thin liquid to soothe your stomach and make you sleep more comfortably."
Over time, your health will improve.
We live to grow crops and earn money, just to make our lives a little better.
Once they settled down in Forget-Worry Valley, surrounded by mountains on three sides, there was an abundance of food available in the mountains, so every household established a routine of three meals a day.
When Li Lanzhen and her family returned and finished washing up, the children couldn't wait any longer. Without even wiping the water off their hands, they ran into the kitchen to find their bowls.
Because it smelled so good, they knew they would have meat to eat today.
The kitchen was built on the open space in front of Li Lanzhen's house and her parents' house.
A half-meter-deep trench was dug underground, wooden stakes were driven into it, and the trench was covered with a wooden shovel. A layer of straw mats and a layer of mud were laid on top, smoothed out, and then another layer of straw mats was laid on top.
Inside the kitchen, a three-burner stove was built with stones, and three large pots were placed on it, enough for boiling water, cooking vegetables, and cooking rice.
There were many people, including many children. At the beginning of the meal, everyone held their bowls and squatted in front of the cave in a row.
The scene of eating was quite spectacular, and Li Lanzhen would laugh every time she saw it.
Later, Zhang Deshui suggested building a thatched shed specifically for eating.
The men and children in the family started chopping wood and preparing stones again.
Next to the kitchen, a shed resembling a dining room was built.
It was rectangular, with four walls built up with wooden stakes, and the roof was the same as the kitchen roof. The four walls were also plastered with mud and straw.
Li Lanzhen suggested to her father, Li Erhan, that he make a rectangular dining table and long, narrow stools.
As a result, the families now had a decent kitchen and a stylish dining room.
Families with larger households in the village followed suit, building kitchens and dining rooms outside their cave dwellings.
The men washed their hands and went into the dining room.
The children and women went into the kitchen and brought out bowls of steaming, fragrant dishes into the dining room.
Li Lanzhen asked them to cook rice with two kinds of rice.
Each person was served a large bowl of rice.
Then the dishes were served, all of them served in bowls.
The basins were about the size of washbasins, and they were all made of wood.
The first dishes brought in were two bowls of braised winter melon with pork in a jar. The winter melon was so tender and translucent after being braised until it was soft and mushy, and the pork in the jar was also very tender.
The children's eyes seemed glued to those two jars of meat.
Next up was a bowl of hot and sour shredded potatoes, a bowl of eggplant and chili stir-fried with tomatoes, a bowl of cucumber and chili salad, and the most luxurious dish was a bowl of tomato chunks mixed with white sugar.
This dish was made by Li Lanzhen herself. She chopped up a whole bowl of tomatoes and then, as if they were free, grabbed handfuls of white sugar and mixed them in.
Wu and Zhang Li were dumbfounded. Just as Li Lanzhen looked over, they immediately turned their faces away and went about their business as if nothing had happened.
Li Lanzhen found it quite amusing; these two must think she was crazy.
She sprinkled sugar into the tomatoes like it was free, but she just wanted to eat sugar-coated tomatoes in a lavish way!
Five dishes were served, and the last dish was a bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup.
Once all the dishes were served, each person had a bowl of rice in front of them, and everyone had arrived and taken their places.
Xue Nizi looked at the children sitting together in a row, put her hands on her hips, glared at them, and pointed at them with her finger, and began her lecture every time they ate something delicious.
"Let me tell you, just eat your own food, fill your stomachs, lick your lips, and don't say a word when you leave. Otherwise, you'll be watching others eat, one by one, you hear me?!"
The children all nodded, but their eyes remained glued to the bowl of tomatoes with sugar, never leaving it!
Li Lanzhen sighed inwardly and said to her,
"Alright, sit down quickly. Which of our children isn't smart? Do you think he'd spend all his time shouting that we're eating meat today and having meat soup next time, inviting others to come to our house and fight over the food?"
San Niu immediately stood up and said, "Grandma Lan Zhen, we are all very smart, we won't tell."
That day, Grandpa Xue caught some pheasants and rabbits, which we ate. In the afternoon, when we went up the mountain, everyone asked us what we had eaten. Our mouths were greasy.
I told them, "I'm not telling you, we eat chicken at home!"
As soon as he finished speaking, everyone burst into laughter.
Xue Nizi was so angry that she glared at him and stomped her foot, ready to teach him a lesson, but unexpectedly, someone else was faster than her.
Li Sanya went over in anger and grabbed her youngest son's ear.
"San Niu! Are you stupid? Grandma Lanzhen just said you were smart, but look at you, what's so smart about you? You've already told everyone that we ate chicken!"
Li Lanzhen waved her hand and said, "Alright, alright, let's just have some chicken. Who hasn't eaten chicken before? If someone hasn't, then they're just not capable. These mountains are full of pheasants and rabbits. Didn't Uncle Xue and Xue Bao teach every family how to catch wild animals? If they still can't catch pheasants and rabbits and their women and children can't eat meat, then they're just not capable!"
The children nodded in deep agreement!
They said in unison, "Yes, yes, yes, our uncles, fathers, and brothers are all very capable. We eat meat every day, humph!"
Li Lanzhen said, "Alright, everyone hurry up and eat!"
Li Lanzhen first used a spoon to scoop a spoonful of braised winter melon and pork into the bowls of Ye Shi and Li Erhan, and then scooped a spoonful into each of their bowls.
Seeing that the two elderly people had already started eating, everyone used the spoons from the vegetable basin to scoop the food into their own bowls and began to eat.
Li Lanzhen noticed that the children's eyes were all fixed on the sugar-coated tomatoes, and they weren't touching their chopsticks.
Han Yinan asked first, "Grandma, what kind of dish is this?"
Only then did Li Lanzhen realize that in the current dynasty, there were no tomatoes, no winter melons, and no such vegetables.
I told them, "This is a kind of tomato that grows in the mountains. It can be eaten as a vegetable or as a fruit. Grandma mixed it with white sugar, so it's sweet and sour. It's hot in the summer, so you can eat more of it."
Li Lanzhen then realized that it was fortunate that she had told Wu and Zhang Li how to cook these dishes, otherwise they would have been ruined.
When the children heard that there was white sugar mixed in, they all wanted to take a bite first.
Xue Nizi first scooped half a spoonful of sugar and tomatoes into each child's bowl.
Then half a spoonful was scooped into each adult's bowl as well.
Seeing how inconvenient it was to pick up food like this, Lan really regretted not telling her father to make a large round table with a turntable in the middle.
He thought to himself, "Well, let's leave it at that for now. It's good enough as it is. We'll wait until next year when things are more stable, the harvest is in, and we can have enough to eat."
This meal was satisfying for the adults and made the children happy!
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