Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 537 Pork
Tang Zhitong got up early in the morning. It was not warm today, so he lifted the door curtain and went out, and a puff of white mist appeared as he exhaled.

Many novels describe a certain master as "full of true energy, with a breath as loud as a rainbow". It may be a matter of contact. Tang Zhitong has never met such a person in more than a year here.

Although it is impossible to verify whether "true qi" exists, Tang Zhitong is certain that body odor does exist.

Although there is an idiom "breath smells like orchid", every girl's scent is different. As for the specific scent, Jia Baoyu is the most qualified person to speak on it.

"Why are you, a man, going to buy meat?" When Tang Zhitong said he was going to buy meat, Zhang Guifang was unwilling.

Nowadays, none of the men who are the breadwinners of the family go to queue up at the grocery store. It is the women and children in the family who go. If there are children in the queue, they are either following their elders or queuing up for their elders.

"Well, it's not like I haven't bought it before. I don't need any face. You can mix the dough at home." Tang Zhitong seemed to be indifferent, but in fact he wanted to contribute as much as possible to the family so that Zhang Guifang would suffer less.

"You kid." Zhang Guifang couldn't persuade her son, so she could only open the drawer to look for the meat ticket.

"Don't count, just give it all to me." One meat ticket is worth one and a half taels. Each person has two meat tickets this month, so the Tang family can only get one and a half pounds of meat at most.

"How can we just live like this? Only three days have passed this month." Zhang Guifang muttered a little reluctantly.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll find a chance to buy some later." The lotus roots came suddenly, and Tang Zhitong had no chance to ask "ask friends to buy meat". He could only use the meat at home to make the stuffing.

After hearing what her son said, Zhang Guifang said nothing. Her son often brought money home, so she just agreed.

Tang Zhitong took the meat ticket, went out of the house and queued up.

Tang Zhitong originally thought that he had arrived early enough, but he didn't expect that there were people who arrived earlier than him. There were at least twenty or thirty people in front of him.

This freeze lasted for nearly two hours.

On this street, the grocery store is second only to the grain store, but no matter what time people get up to line up, if they say they will start work at 8:30, they will open at 8:30. People would rather pour a cup of hot water inside than open the store a minute earlier.

It's normal to open the door three or five minutes late occasionally.

Fortunately, not all the people in front were buying meat. As soon as the door of the grocery store opened, people rushed in and started to line up in front of each counter.

You can’t be picky about fruits, and you can’t be picky about meat either. Whether you buy good or bad meat depends entirely on the butcher’s knife.

It can be said that the butcher has some skills. If he meets someone he is familiar with, he will just move his knife slightly and the meat will have more fat. If he meets someone he doesn't like, he will leave almost no fat.

"Excuse me, one and a half pounds." Tang Zhitong prepared the ticket and money and handed them over together.

Larger grocery stores will have dedicated cashiers, while smaller ones will have the butcher having multiple duties including cutting meat, weighing, counting tickets, collecting money, and giving change.

Holding the money like this with greasy hands would definitely be unhygienic after a few decades, but no one cares now.

Even next year or two, I would like to put the coin in the butcher's hand and let him rub it, then take it home and cook it in the pot, at least to get some meat flavor.

"Oh my God, Anzi, are you having trouble making ends meet? Now your family has no more meat coupons, right?" A familiar neighbor who was standing behind said something when he saw Tang Zhitong being so arrogant.

"If you queue up once in such a cold day, you can't make up for it by eating two steamed buns at home. If you buy all at once, fry them and add some salt at home, you can have a meaty taste for every meal. Don't you agree?" Tang Zhitong replied cheerfully. Of course, he only said this to other neighbors to avoid gossip.

"Hey, you know what, your idea is great! I would have brought all the meat coupons earlier." The neighbor felt regretful when he heard it. Who wants to suffer from the cold in such a cold winter?

Tang Zhitong smiled and didn't say anything else. This method really exists and is more commonly used in rural areas.

Life in the countryside is difficult, and it is rare to eat meat throughout the year. Except for the current special situation when everyone nominally eats in the canteen, the rest of the time each family eats at home.

Before the establishment of the commune, almost every peasant household raised pigs, and the money from selling pigs was used to subsidize the family. Children's tuition and the elderly's medical expenses were often paid for by selling pigs.

Even when raising pigs, pigs are not sold casually. From 54 to the present, we have experienced procurement, pre-purchase, and assignment for raising and purchasing. At the same time, there are support policies, and you can buy pigs with loans and repay the loans after raising them.

In order to ease the contradiction between supply and demand of pork and ensure the supply for urban residents, starting from September 57, except for supply and marketing cooperatives, food companies or enterprises entrusted by food companies, no agency, group, school, military unit, enterprise, vendor or individual was allowed to purchase live pigs.

After farmers have completed their sales tasks, they can slaughter and eat their own livestock only after obtaining approval from the township people's committee.

In Sijiucheng, the supply and marketing cooperative is responsible for the purchase, slaughter and meat supply of live pigs, and there are purchasing stations in each town.

The purchasing station will grade the pigs according to their weight and size, and different grades have different prices.

Some sensible farmers would secretly give the buyers a box of cigarettes during the rating process, which would improve the grade of their products. Not only could they sell them for more money, but they could also buy back more.

According to current regulations, for a fat pig weighing more than 130 kilograms, the farmer can keep ten kilograms of meat after slaughter. If the farmer wants lard, he can deduct up to two kilograms of lard from the ten kilograms, that is, eight kilograms of meat plus two kilograms of oil.

Ten kilograms of meat is considered a large amount at the moment. In addition, farmers currently do not have refrigeration or freezing equipment at home, so they have to find ways to process the meat after taking it home in order to preserve it for a longer time.

The fat can be removed and made into animal oil, which can be stored for a year, while the lean meat can only be smoked or made into sausages, but both of these will reduce the weight, so some people fry it before preserving it.

Pour animal oil into a hot pan, add onion and ginger after heating, then add the meat cut into pieces or strips. At the same time, pour in a large amount of salt and soy sauce, preferably the kind that can choke the chef to death. After frying, it can be stored for a month or two without any problem.

Tang Zhitong likes this taste, especially the shredded ginger in it, which tastes delicious.

If you feel lazy one day, just put the fried meat in the hot steamed buns. It is crunchy and delicious. Tang Zhitong can eat two steamed buns in one go this way.

When stir-frying, just scoop a spoonful of fried meat without adding any seasoning. The whole dish will be fragrant after it comes out of the pan.

The butcher did not give Tang Zhitong any special treatment. He served Tang Zhitong with both fat and lean meat, just the right amount.

Tang Zhitong took the meat home, and everyone else had already finished their breakfast.

"Mom, let me do it. I'll chop the stuffing after I finish eating." Tang Zhitong put the meat on the chopping board, washed his hands, and ate his steamed bread for breakfast.

The reason why he didn't want Zhang Guifang to intervene was because Tang Zhitong wanted to secretly add a little bit of it when chopping the meat.

Lotus root and meat dumplings are delicious, but only if there is enough meat.

Lotus root meat can not only be used to make dumplings, but also wontons.

There is a brand called Shanghai Jixiang Wonton, which has wontons with lotus root meat. Tang Zhitong has eaten it before and it tastes good, but he doesn't know if this store is native to Hu County. After finishing breakfast, Tang Zhitong soaked the pepper water first and added it when chopping the meat. It not only adds fragrance and removes odor, but also prevents the meat from sticking to the knife.

If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools. Tang Zhitong tried the kitchen knife and found it was a bit blunt.

"Mom, someone will come to sharpen the scissors and kitchen knives later. Please sharpen the knives for them." In the past year, Tang Zhitong has been sharpening the kitchen knives at home on the whetstone himself. After a long time, the steel covering on the blade was not enough.

Due to the country's shortage of steel, kitchen knives are now made of laminated steel, with only the blade being made of steel and everything else being made of iron.

The more you sharpen the knife, the thicker the two sides will become and the harder it will be to sharpen it. This is when you need to sharpen the knife.

"I was thinking about it. The knife sharpener hasn't come for a while. It should be here soon. It's already the twelfth lunar month." Zhang Guifang nodded and took note of it.

Tang Zhitong smiled. In previous years, not only would there be people walking around the streets shouting "scissors and knives sharpening" every once in a while, but there would also be people setting up stalls sharpening scissors and knives at the Baiqiao market.

This year there are much fewer, probably because some places refined their knives into steel last year and the communes adjusted the division of labor among personnel.

The whetstone was outside, and Tang Zhitong found it troublesome to bring it into the house, so he squatted outside with a kitchen knife and a bowl of water, and started sharpening it.

It has to be sharpened. A dull knife is too difficult to cut meat. Using it to kill people is torture. For a chef using it to cut meat is a thankless task and the result is half the effort with twice the effort.

It was cold outside and no one came out, so Tang Zhitong took the opportunity to feed some fish entrails to the hens at home, little by little, inconspicuously.

Maybe because of the fishy smell, Beibei was scratching the door and meowing in the house.

Zhang Guifang thought Beibei wanted to go to the bathroom, so she opened the door a crack, and then closed the door after Beibei went out.

As soon as Beibei came out, he went straight to the chicken coop.

Seeing this, Tang Zhitong looked back into the house and after confirming that no one was peeking behind the door, he gave Beibei today's snacks to prevent it from competing with the chicken, which would surely cause another chaos.

After sharpening the knife, Tang Zhitong cut the lotus root first.

Lotus root is easy to prepare as filling. First cut it into thin slices, then cut it into shreds. Then take the knife with both hands, one hand holding the handle and the other hand pinching the back of the knife, like sitting on a seesaw, and move it back and forth several times, and it is basically ready to use.

When chopping the meat, Tang Zhitong drove his sister away and secretly added the meat into it, little by little. He didn't dare put too much, only about half a pound.

Chop the meat and immediately scoop it into the stuffing bowl and stir it. This way you can’t see it!
After preparing the filling, Zhang Guifang started making dumplings: "Make some first, and send some to Jingwen's mother."

There is nothing to say about the mother-in-law. She not only takes care of the young couple, but this time also her daughter gets a chance to benefit from it. Learning piano is not something you can do just by having money. Zhang Guifang had no way to repay her, so she could only send her some delicious food.

Not only that, Zhang Guifang plans to only give the first-cut cornmeal to her in-laws when grinding cornmeal in the future, as that part is finer and tastes better.

Tang Zhitong happily washed his hands and joined in. Classmate Xiao Wang had just gone there the day before yesterday. He had been planning to have a good rest at home today, but he didn't expect to touch the lotus root.

This is the advantage of marrying close to your parents. You can go back to your parents' home from time to time without worrying about being bullied. It is difficult if you marry far away. You seldom see your parents once a year. Even if you have been wronged on a daily basis, you dare not tell your family even if you cry when you meet them, for fear that your family will worry about you.

Compared with cabbage and meat, the lotus root and meat filling is particularly firm and does not fall apart when wrapped in dumplings.

The whole family helps out, the food is wrapped quickly and served quickly.

Zhang Guifang first placed the dumplings on the tea tray and spread them out to prevent them from sticking together. The dumplings would not taste as good if the skin was broken.

Tang Zhitong couldn’t wait and tried one first. It was so delicious that it made his nose snot bubbles. This was the taste!

"You pick out the ones with broken skins to eat, and send the good ones over." Zhang Guifang put another pot in and glanced at her son.

"Hey, try them all." Tang Zhitong picked up one and handed it to his mother's mouth. The others followed suit without any hesitation. Fengzhen was the most conscientious among them and chose the one with broken skin.

There were two pots of dumplings. Zhang Guifang picked out the ones that were not overcooked and filled three lunch boxes with them, one for her son and daughter-in-law, and one for Fengzhen to take home lunch.

"You guys eat first, no need to wait for me. Fengzhi, peel some garlic for me. Dumplings without garlic will taste half as good." Tang Zhitong stuffed another boiled dumpling into her mouth and held his sister's head to divert her eyes away from the dumplings.

When Tang Zhitong set out, Gao Dashan had just pulled Wang Jingmin out of the ice eye.

It is true that people have buoyancy in water, but it is winter now, and Wang Jingmin's cotton jacket and trousers are filled with water. The further he drags them out, the sank they sink.

It only took three to five minutes, but Wang Jingmin was already shivering with cold.

Gao Dashan dragged Wang Jingmin up, not caring that he was also wet. He pushed Wang Jingmin aside first, then got up, took off his coat and cotton jacket, and spread them out in a water-free place nearby.

Then Gao Dashan picked up Wang Jingmin, stripped him naked, and wrapped him up in his own clothes.

"You guys, put the stones around the ice eye. Be careful not to fall in. Those few, go back and take my bucket. The rest of you, take Jingmin's clothes. And you kid, you usually run fast, go back and report the news." Gao Dashan made arrangements while holding the tightly wrapped Wang Jingmin and limping home.

Although children are naughty, they are very sensible at times like this and do their duties according to Gao Dashan's instructions.

Tang Zhitong rode his bike very fast, and when he got upstairs, Wang Jingmin had not returned yet.

"Mom, my mom made some dumplings and asked me to bring them over for you to try." After Tang Zhitong entered the house, he took out the lunch box from his bag.

"Thank you, mother-in-law, for always thinking of us. Are you frozen? Sit down and take a rest. Yingying, pour your brother-in-law a cup of hot water." Ye Zhijuan took the lunch box, which was still hot.

"Where is Jingmin?" Tang Zhitong was a little curious because he didn't see those kids in the yard just now.

"He ran away with a fishing rod in the morning. Maybe he went fishing." Wang Jingying handed the water to Tang Zhitong and said.

"Hey, this unlucky kid, how can you use a fishing rod to fish in the winter? The river is covered with ice. You will have to carry the fish back the same way you carried it across the river in the morning." Tang Zhitong laughed and joked.

As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of footsteps running up the stairs was heard in the corridor, accompanied by the sound of "someone fell into the water, fell into the water".

The old building is not soundproof, but the sound is not that clear. Although Ye Zhijuan did not hear clearly who fell into the water, her heart skipped a beat when she heard the word "fallen into the water".

At this time, there was a knock on the door...

(End of this chapter)