Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 233 No is not allowed

After laughing and joking for a while, we finally decided on the vegetables to plant this year.

First, tomatoes, then cucumbers—these two choices received unanimous agreement from all four girls and Chen Fan.

In an era when fruit was scarce, these two types of tomatoes almost served the same function as fruit in rural areas. What rural child hasn't picked tomatoes from the vegetable garden and eaten them directly?

In winter, these two vegetables are not available. White radish and carrot have been used as alternatives, but their taste is not as good as these two.

In addition, Chen Fan wanted to plant the potatoes under the cucumber vines, and also decided to plant some peppers and eggplants.

Anyway, there are spring plantings and summer harvests, autumn plantings and winter harvests, and different vegetables are planted in different seasons. Chen Fan didn't know much about this, so he just let a few girls do it and he just waited to eat.

They talked and worked at the same time, and time flew by. Before long, they finished tidying up the vegetable garden, and then the four of them hurried off to prepare lunch.

Chen Fan returned to his room and rested for a while before being called to dinner.

Only then did he mention inviting Anquan to dinner the following night.

Jiang Lili looked at him and asked softly, "Should we make it simple or elaborate?"

Chen Fan thought for a moment, "Let's make it a bit more lavish. We've invited An, so we'll definitely invite Captain Yang, Accountant Liu, and Warehouse Keeper Huang as well."

Jiang Lili hesitated for two seconds before saying, "If we want something more substantial, then we need fresh meat and vegetables, but right now we only have cured meat and fish. The chicks are only a month and a half old and don't even weigh half a pound yet, it would be a waste to kill them now. The three hens are also laying eggs. How about we see if anyone in the village sells a rooster, buy one, kill it, and stew it with some small potatoes? That would be a great dish. We could also kill a big fish and make a sauerkraut fish, and then just stir-fry some cured meat with vegetables, and that would be a very sumptuous meal."

Huang Ying immediately said, "I have small potatoes at home, I'll just dig some up later."

Chen Fan looked at her and chuckled, "I'm treating, how could I go to your house to dig for vegetables?"

Huang Ying said matter-of-factly, "We've been learning from you here, and you haven't even charged us tuition. What's a few potatoes compared to that?"

Yang Ju continued, "The only vegetables here are radishes and bok choy, and we've already dug them all up this year. The bok choy is too old to keep, so we can only feed it to the pigs and rabbits. We can't just serve radishes to our guests, can we? Luckily, I still have spinach, celery, and bok choy in my garden. I'll go pick some tomorrow to make it look nicer."

Liu Dan quickly added, "I have a rooster at home that's just been raised for three months. That's when the meat is at its best. I'll go back and catch it later."

Chen Fan looked at the three of them, blinked, and suddenly laughed, "It feels like you're having a competition. Huang Ying has to dig potatoes, and Yang Ju has to pick vegetables."

He looked at Liu Dan as he spoke and couldn't help but chuckle, "You're even more ruthless, you just grabbed all the chickens in the house, aren't you afraid your parents will beat you up?"

Jiang Lili was eating with her head down, holding her rice bowl, when she heard this and almost spat out her food.

He glanced at him first, then at the three somewhat uncomfortable girls, and couldn't help but purse his lips before continuing to eat.

Seeing that the three of them were a little embarrassed by his words, Chen Fan chuckled and said, "Okay, we'll do it your way."

After a pause, he added, "It's fine to take a few potatoes and vegetables, but Liu Dan, your rooster is too expensive to take for free. I'll trade you an old hen."

Trading a hen for a rooster may seem like a loss, but when it comes to cooking, it makes a big difference.

Rooster meat is more tender and springy, making it the first choice for pan-frying, stir-frying, deep-frying, stewing, roasting, and grilling. Young roosters, especially those that have just reached adulthood, have an exceptional flavor.

Because hens lay eggs more frequently and have a longer growth cycle, their meat is relatively tougher and very difficult to stew until tender. This is especially true for free-range chickens that haven't undergone any selective breeding; they often need to be stewed for more than two hours. The older the hen, the harder it is to stew until tender, and even when stewed for a long time, the meat remains quite dry.

Therefore, old hens are best suited for making chicken soup.

Chicken soup is the only cooking method that surpasses rooster soup; the deliciousness of chicken soup is incomparable to that of rooster. Therefore, in Yunhu, there's a saying: "Hen soup, rooster meat." However, Liu Dan was unwilling to accept this exchange, immediately saying angrily, "You want their things but not mine! It's just a little rooster! You even gave me so much money last time we made pottery; how am I supposed to repay you?"

As she spoke, her eyes even welled up with tears.

When Chen Fan saw this, he was immediately at a loss for words. Why was she crying?

Give me something, and I can't refuse it?

They only have a little potato and some greens. How can they compare to a little rooster like you?

He blinked and quickly asked the three girls next to him for help.

Well, they were practically burying their faces in their bowls, fighting with piglets for food.

Chen Fan clicked his tongue and said helplessly, "Fine, fine, I won't change it then. Just bring the little rooster tomorrow, okay?"

Liu Dan immediately stopped crying and smiled, nodding vigorously, "I'll go catch it in a bit."

Chen Fan nodded, then looked at the three of them and said irritably, "If you don't look up, you'll suffocate."

Even Jiang Lili couldn't help but burst into laughter, and the three of them almost dropped their rice bowls.

After a burst of laughter and joking, Chen Fan told them about the decisions made at yesterday's meeting, and finally said, "So, in a few days, after the brigade headquarters contacts the breeding station and purchases enough chicks, you will also have to act as 'masters' and teach others how to raise earthworms and how to use earthworms to raise chickens."

You must make sure to explain all the precautions clearly. I know some of you are very busy, so busy that you don't even have time to drink water, but raising livestock is not a trivial matter. It cannot be compared with the previous careless free-range farming model.

They casually raise a few chickens at home, scattering rice bran when they remember, and letting the chickens find their own food when they don't. They raise them like that, and they still lay eggs and eat meat.

But large-scale farming is different. Ask them then if their chickens often get sick, and sometimes even die from illness…

Before he could finish speaking, Liu Dan nodded repeatedly, "That's true. One of my second uncle's chickens died last year, and the others almost died as well. They were saved by buying medicine from the veterinary station and feeding it to them."

Chen Fan didn't blame her for interrupting, and nodded with a smile, "Yes, this situation is not uncommon. Many times it is caused by chickens eating insects in the wild. Earthworms are similar to wild insects, carrying germs. If they are fed directly without treatment, the chickens may be infected with infectious diseases. In that case, it will not only be their family that suffers losses, but it may also affect the chickens of other families in the team, so we must be extremely careful."

Hearing this, Huang Ying thought a step further and asked with some concern, "What if someone is unwilling?"

According to Chen Fan, raising chickens seems to be quite risky. She knows very well that many people in the team are unwilling to take risks and prefer to live a stable life. If raising chickens leads to a lot of debt, many people will probably give up.

Chen Fan looked at her and smiled, "Our principle is based on voluntariness, not coercion. Giving chickens to commune members' families to raise is also for everyone's benefit. Commune members who raise chickens can have their work points converted according to the number of chickens they raise, or they can keep them for themselves and only pay the commune for the chicks. The commune members themselves are the ones who benefit."

If they are unwilling, then they shouldn't blame the brigade for preventing them from raising chickens when other families make money from it.

Furthermore, the brigade headquarters also runs its own chicken farm, so whether or not members' families raise chickens doesn't affect the overall situation.

He looked at the four women as he spoke, “Anyway, all you need to do is teach others how to raise earthworms and use earthworms to raise chickens. You don’t need to worry about anything else.”

Jiang Lili thought for a moment, then looked at him and asked, "Do I need to be taught too?"

Chen Fan looked at her and smiled, "Since you also know this skill, of course it should be counted as one of your skills."

He paused for a moment, then laughed and said, "But don't worry, you'll earn much more work points doing this than working in the fields, so you won't lose out."

(End of this chapter)