Candide in Chronology is on strike

Chapter 231 Dragon Boat Festival

As soon as the time entered May, the day became muggy and hot.

It just rained yesterday, and the sun came out this morning. Starting from nine o'clock in the morning, the heat wave began to surge outside. The breeze blew by, and the sudden warmth caused discomfort on the skin, and the exposed skin was irritated. Got goosebumps.

This year is [-]. Qin Xi and the others have been in the countryside for more than two years. They have already adapted to the rhythm of climate change in the countryside.

There are no new people coming to the Educated Youth Point this year. The same people are still living in the Educated Youth Point.

The fifth day of May is the Dragon Boat Festival, and many families will choose to make some rice dumplings. A married woman will go back to her parents' home a few days before the Dragon Boat Festival to deliver the Dragon Boat Festival, and the things she brings are the rice dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival.

They use the leaves of Ruoye bamboo to make rice dumplings here. There is a mountain covered with Ruoye bamboo in Chenhui Village. Half a month ago, the village organized a group of people to pick rice dumpling leaves in the bamboo forest. This rice dumpling The leaves can be sold to supply and marketing cooperatives, which is one of the sources of income for the village.

Part of the money distributed to the villagers by the village at the end of the year is obtained from selling the leaves of these bamboos.

Qin Xi and the others did not make rice dumplings. They had agreed before that they would not make rice dumplings just like last year. None of the three of them particularly liked eating rice dumplings. Moreover, the steps of making rice dumplings were still very troublesome. It happened that they were all afraid of it. trouble.

Although the family knew how to make rice dumplings in the past, the three brothers and sisters were all very handicapped and could never learn how to make rice dumplings. Therefore, they were the ones doing the trick every time.

Although they know the specific steps of making rice dumplings, no one has ever successfully done it by hand. At most, they can bend the leaves and pack the glutinous rice. They have never successfully done the rest of the steps.

The wrapped rice dumplings need to be boiled in alkaline water, and even the glutinous rice must be soaked in alkaline water. In this way, the cooked rice dumplings will have a fragrance of vegetation.

Of course, alkaline water does not mean that you can just use alkaline baking soda or the like and add water and mix well. The rice dumplings made with this kind of alkaline water will not look good, smell bad, and are not delicious enough, and the storage time will be greatly reduced. .

The essential material for making rice dumplings is straw. A large bundle of clean dry straw is placed under the basket, and plant ashes made from burned straw are spread on top. A bench is set up on a large wooden basin, and the basket is placed on it, and the water is scooped out lightly. Lightly pour it on the plant ashes in the basket, so that the water flowing into the wooden basin will contain a little dark yellow alkaline water.

In the countryside, every household makes rice dumplings like this.

The rice dumplings made in this way have a slight fragrance of vegetation. The rice dumplings need to be cooked in an iron pot filled with alkaline water for more than ten hours, from [-] o'clock at noon to more than [-] o'clock in the evening, and finally simmered for another night. The rice dumplings cooked in this way do not have any white heart inside, and the rice dumplings taste soft and chewy.

Some people make pure glutinous rice dumplings, and some people like to add beans into the glutinous rice. The two fillings, such as peanuts and red beans, are the most common in the countryside. For those who are more luxurious, they will wrap a piece of salty bacon or sausage inside. But people in the village rarely make sausages.

As far as personal taste is concerned, Qin Xi likes salty rice dumplings wrapped in bacon the most. They are sweet, but she doesn’t like them very much.

In addition to eating rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival, moxa grass is also cut and placed in front of the house, behind the house, or beside the bed. It is said to repel snakes and insects.

Add some water to realgar and apply it on the forehead, top of the head, hands and feet. It is said that if you do this, you will not be bitten by snakes, insects, rats, ants and the like. What's more, you will drink realgar wine.

A few days ago, Qin Xi and Tang Ying went to the supply and marketing cooperative in the town and bought a small pack of realgar.This is a special sale at the supply and marketing cooperative during special festivals. At other times, if you want to buy realgar, you have to go to the health center.

Tang Ying originally planned to buy it, but Qin Xi stopped her. The realgar she bought was enough, so Tang Ying and He Yuan came to the house to order realgar at noon on the fifth day of the lunar month. It would be a kind of ritual for the festival!
Qin Xi and his three brothers and sisters didn't go out at all that day. They had been waiting at home for Tang Ying and others to arrive. Unexpectedly, Tang Ying didn't wait long enough. Instead, two aunts came first, one of the five aunts who bought her rabbits. Two families.

Aunt Bai and Aunt Qiu Yu met on the road. After a short conversation, they found that they had the same purpose, so they came together.

"Qin Zhiqing, do you have mugwort at home?"

"If you don't have any, go to my house and cut it. There is a big cluster growing on the edge of my vegetable garden. Cut it as you like." Aunt Bai, the younger of the two, said with a smile.

"These are the rice dumplings my family made this year. They are made of peanuts and glutinous rice. A few days ago, I really troubled you. You took us to cut the grass and followed us to the house to show the rabbits their nests. My family A female rabbit was sick, and Qin Zhiqing took care of it with your help, thank you very much!"

She brought three rice dumplings over. One for each of the three brothers and sisters of the Qin family was enough.

After all, her rice dumplings are made from affordable ingredients and are much larger than other people's. It's okay if you give them as much as you like. If you give them too much, she feels bad for herself.

At this time, another older aunt also nodded her head. She was not good at eloquence, but she had the same heart. She came to express her gratitude. After all, they had really helped a lot.

Although they were country women, they were all sensible and sensible, so they had to repay their kindness, so I thought about it at that time. During the Dragon Boat Festival, I would send them some rice dumplings.

The young educated youths from their city probably don't know how to make rice dumplings, so giving them three is a token of appreciation.

"No, no, no, Aunt Bai Qiuyu, those are just small things, not worth worrying about."

"Besides, we can't help much. You'd better take these rice dumplings back and feed them to your children at home!" Qin Xi stood up and declined.

She really didn't want it. There was no shortage of those rice dumplings at home, and she felt that if she accepted the rice dumplings like this, wouldn't she be owed a favor?
She was most afraid of owing someone anything in her life, so now she didn't dare to accept the rice dumplings that were delivered to her door, and she didn't want to accept them either.

After all, eating people is short-tongued and soft-handed when taking advantage of others. What if one of them goes out to tell others about this matter!The three of them still want to live in this village and have shame.

She had never encountered this kind of thing before. A particularly annoying elder in the village, who was double-dealing with everyone, forced her to get some expired biscuits. From now on, he told everyone when he met her, "After all these years, He gave her a boatload of food to eat. He even wagged his tail when he gave biscuits to the dog. But when he met her, he didn't even want to bark.

Not just her, many children in the village have been forced to give things to her and arranged by her. Anyway, in her mouth, except for her two grandchildren who are polite and well-educated, all others are... A little white-eyed wolf who can't even call his elders.

The key point is that no one has taken the initiative to ask for her things, they are all forced on her by herself, usually the expired sugar cookies and the like that she received during the Chinese New Year.

(End of this chapter)