Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 493 New Year’s Goods
As time went by, the festive atmosphere in the village grew stronger.

Even families like Captain Yang and Huang Laowu, whose new houses haven't been built yet, are busy preparing for the New Year.

These days, there are no New Year's goods to buy on the streets. At most, the supply and marketing cooperative stores will supply a little peanuts, melon seeds, and candy. If you have a job, your company will give you some New Year's goods as a benefit. If you don't have a job, don't worry, the neighborhood committee will increase the quota for each household's food ration book.

I heard that in some cities, each household receives half a pound of peanuts and half a pound of sunflower seeds?

What can you possibly eat with that little bit?!

Well, it's also possible that this was the only quota available when supplies were scarce.

Anyway, this year the standard in Nanhu Commune is based on the number of people. Each adult gets 1 jin of peanuts, half a jin of melon seeds, and half a jin of candy. In addition, the amount of oil is also more... Otherwise, there won't be enough oil to fry the New Year's goods, and some people will really run to the street and jump up and down cursing, which is commonly known as cursing in the street.

Lujiawan, or rather the production brigade, also had quotas for distributing New Year's goods. The specific quantity was the same as that of cloth coupons, industrial coupons, and other ration coupons, and was determined based on the amount of grain delivered and sold.

More grain means a larger quota, and less grain means a smaller quota.

Fortunately, all the production teams in Nanhu Commune had a bumper harvest this year, especially Lujiawan. As a pilot production team for hybrid rice, 10% of Lujiawan's rice fields were planted with hybrid rice, and the combined yield of the two seasons was nearly 15% higher than that of other production teams.

Therefore, the commune has provided more various coupons and New Year's goods quotas this year.

However, apart from buying new cloth to make new clothes and collecting industrial coupons to buy industrial products, the most common New Year's goods bought by the members of Lujiawan Commune were just some melon seeds and candies, and they rarely even bought peanuts.

Because we can grow it ourselves!

In the vegetable garden behind the house, you can just plant a row of peanuts and eat them for half a year.

Moreover, New Year's goods are not just melon seeds and peanuts; many more are homemade foods.

Slaughtering pigs for the New Year, curing bacon, making tofu, steaming glutinous rice, making glutinous rice cakes, making bean curd sheets, boiling sugar, cutting sesame candy... Apart from buying tofu and syrup at the tofu shop in Team 10, everything else had to be made by ourselves.

Some families even make their own sugar syrup and tofu... In the past, it was to save money, since it cost less to do it yourself. But this year, it's about enjoying the process and habit of making New Year's goods yourself.

Without homemade New Year's goods, it feels like something is missing, and they don't taste as good.

At the entrance to their new home, a stone mill with a diameter of one foot was placed on the ground. The dog, Qiuqiu, had a rope tied to the wooden handle of the stone mill and trotted around in circles. Duoduo squatted to the side, ready to be replaced at any time.

A large stone mill has been added to the panda enclosure. The pandas excitedly push the wooden handle around, occasionally letting out a "woof".

Grandpa Chen lay on his recliner, occasionally scooping a spoonful of soaked soybeans and pouring them into the small stone mill hole, instructing Qiuqiu, "Run slowly, keep a steady pace, otherwise you won't be able to grind soybeans properly."

Then he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Gun Gun, don't shout like that, or you'll spit your saliva into the rice and bean milk. You'd better eat the whole bucket of bean curd sheets!"

The hamster was so frightened that it dared not utter a sound and just kept its head down and worked.

Chen Fan snorted, "What's wrong with you? You eat so much bamboo from me all year round, and you dare to complain when I ask you to do some work?"

Gun Gun gave him a resentful look. "What did I do?"
Not far away, a mare was stomping her hooves on a wooden lever, the end of which was a vertical piece of wood, which fell into a stone mortar and pounded a pile of glutinous rice into a ball.

Yang Ju held a wooden spatula, occasionally scooping up the glutinous rice ball, watching the little mare step on the wooden bar with a face full of curiosity.

So this is how you make glutinous rice cakes?
It's a pity we don't have any horses, otherwise we could give it a try.

Hmm, maybe we could try having Big Yellow pull the millstone later?
Inside the kitchen, several girls were also busy running around.

Two large pots, one for frying and one for steaming.

Huang Li and Liu Dan worked together, busy frying sweet potato chips, lotus root sandwiches, spring rolls, vegetable balls, flour meatballs, and so on. Only after frying a whole bunch of New Year's goods did they put a basket of small fish fry coated in flour into the oil.

Frying fish is usually done last because the oil used to fry fish has a fishy smell and is not suitable for reuse.

After frying the fish, Huang Ying brought back the freshly ground rice and soybean milk.

These are the raw materials for making bean curd sheets, made from glutinous rice and soybeans, mixed and ground into a paste according to a certain ratio. After cleaning the large pot and reheating it, Liu Dan scooped up a portion of the diluted paste and poured it down the side of the pot, while simultaneously sharing her experience with Huang Li.
"This kind of bean curd skin is a common snack in the Wuhan to Jingzhou area of ​​Hubei Province, and it is also a must-have for the Spring Festival there. Teacher Chen likes to eat it, so he made it. There are two key points to making it: one is the recipe, and the other is the heat control. I tried more than a dozen batches before I succeeded."

The oriole's eyes widened. "What about those that failed?"

A flicker of horror crossed Liu Dan's eyes. "We ate them all."

Although there were many of them, a bucket of bean curd sheets was not something they could easily finish. They didn't dare to give away the unfinished ones, so they ate both fresh and dried ones for more than a month and were indeed getting tired of them.

She evenly sprinkled a ladle of soy sauce into the pot, leaving no gaps. Once the soy sauce was cooked, she quickly flipped it over with a spatula and her hand. A moment later, she scooped it up and tossed it to the side, and a sheet of bean curd skin was formed.

Liu Dan also explained, "These fresh ones can be stir-fried directly with cured pork and garlic sprouts, which makes them especially fragrant. Alternatively, you can stack them up and cut them into strips, then dry them in the sun so they can be stored for a long time. When you want to eat them, you can either put them directly into a pot to make soup, and cook them until soft like noodles, or you can soak them in cold water first, drain them after they are soft, and then stir-fry them."

The oriole listened intently, its eyes never blinking.

Although I haven't been here long, I've already learned a lot from Teacher Chen. For example, with the bean curd sheets in front of me, if I could get a certificate from the production team, I could rent a stall or a storefront on the street and start a business.

This is a skill that can make a living!
However, she wouldn't do that. Her older sister and parents had repeatedly told her that she must calm down, study hard and work hard under Teacher Chen, and try to learn as much as possible. If she could learn even a fraction of Teacher Chen's skills, she would have a bright future and never have to worry about anything in her life.

Why did she want to learn to cook? It's because she went hungry when she was a child. Back then, she often heard adults say that even in famine years, cooks wouldn't go hungry. In order to never go hungry again, when her third uncle sent her to learn a trade, she made up her mind to learn cooking so that she would never go hungry again.

When she heard Liu Dan say that she had gotten sore from eating soy skin, she was actually quite envious. Would she ever have the chance to eat so much stuff herself?

While they were making bean curd sheets, steam was already rising from the steamer. Huang Ying and Liu Lu quickly carried the steamers to the table. Inside the steamers were round bowls filled with steamed dishes prepared for the New Year.

Liu Lu picked up a pearl dumpling with her chopsticks, took a small bite, and her eyes immediately turned red.

The oriole, who was in charge of seasoning, immediately looked at her with expectant eyes, "How is it?"

She prepared all these steamed dishes herself, so of course I was really looking forward to them.

Liu Lu's small mouth twitched a few times, and after several seconds, she exhaled repeatedly, "It's so hot."

The sudden silence was the worst. Two seconds later, the kitchen erupted in laughter.

After finally swallowing the meat in her mouth, Liu Lu's eyes lit up, and she nodded vigorously, "Mmm, delicious."

Huang Li breathed a sigh of relief and grinned, "It's the recipe given by Teacher Chen. I was just afraid I'd mess it up."

Huang Ying also took a bite, then picked up half and held it to her younger sister's lips, saying, "Try it yourself."

Huang Li carefully tested the temperature with her lips before opening her mouth to eat it. After chewing a few times, her smile widened even more. "Teacher Chen's recipe is amazing!"

She followed Chen Fan's instructions and provided the ingredients exactly, even explaining the cooking time and temperature clearly. So the deliciousness wasn't due to her own efforts, but rather to Teacher Chen's skill.

However, she was not discouraged. Teacher Chen was already very capable. She could learn skills from him. As long as she could learn the skills, why should she think about so many other things?
Huang Ying took two more bowls, each with a few meatballs in it, and carried them out with chopsticks. "Teacher Chen, these are freshly steamed dishes. Please try them."

Chen Fan sat up, took the bowl of vegetables, and pointed to the large enamel bucket next to him, "The soy milk is ready, take it in and make tofu."

Huang Ying grinned and chuckled, giving the two dogs with their tongues sticking out a thumbs up. "Duo Duo and Qiu Qiu are great!"

The dogs looked at the bowl in her hand, thinking, "Great, at least give me some food!"
Unfortunately, Huang Ying turned around and went into the house with the bowl in her hand.

The two dogs looked on with longing, missing Sister Lili!

Inside the living room, Yang Mei was intently grinding herbs. Although she didn't understand why she had to grind herbs to learn how to brew wine, Teacher Chen had given her the instruction, so she did it.

Huang Ying placed the bowl in front of her, "Xiao Mei, have some meatballs, they're fresh out of the pot."

Yang Mei raised her head and smiled, "Thank you, Sister Ying. Let's put it aside for now. I'll finish grinding this before I eat it."

Huang Ying didn't say much. She placed the bowl on the low cabinet by the window, pulled up a stool and sat down next to her. She said, "Your sister and I have also ground herbs before. Teacher Chen said that whether you are cooking or brewing wine, you must carefully understand the characteristics of the ingredients and herbs. Especially when making medicinal wine, you must understand the changes in the properties of the herbs so that you can brew the best wine according to the situation."

Chen Fan sat at the doorway eating meatballs, and upon hearing the conversation inside, he couldn't help but twitch his lips slightly.

Did you actually believe me when I told you to do the work?
Of course, that makes sense, but whether it's cooking or winemaking, he needs to reach his current level before he needs to delve into ingredients and herbs, with the aim of innovating and taking it a step further.

They're barely beginners, like LV1 apprentices. They just need to diligently study and practice step by step, but they're still far from being truly proficient in these things.

Well, it's not exactly a scam. It's about being prepared for the future. Learning master-level skills in advance during the apprenticeship stage is for their own good!
After a busy day, all the New Year's goods are finally ready, except for the tofu, which is still waiting.

The young mare looked at the empty stone mortar, her two front legs trembling slightly, but she walked excitedly towards the back of the stable. Oh my, this job is quite interesting, but it's more tiring than running long distances. I'll never do it again.

It chewed on the glutinous rice ball that Yang Ju had fed it, and looked tenderly at the little foal that was also eating glutinous rice balls and had grown very tall. It thought to itself, "Unless I give this thing to eat again!"

The two dogs finally got to eat the meatballs, then quickly crawled into their doghouses behind the house and lay down comfortably. They'd gone a bit too far running today, so they decided not to leave their kennels until dawn tomorrow.

The hawk perched atop a bare branch, secretly relieved that it didn't have to do any work.

The myna bird had been lying in its nest, afraid to show itself, for fear of being conscripted. But when it saw the girls busy cleaning up, it suddenly flew out and said, "Thank you for your hard work, thank you for your hard work."

In the back of the livestock shed, two sheep were bleating loudly, eager to go out and run wild.

There are also two pigs...

"Kill him!"

Chen Fan chewed on his pipe, took a couple of puffs, his eyes somewhat glazed over, and tried to recall the past. After confirming that he had no connection with those two castrated pigs, he said again, "Let's see which family in the team is going to hand in their task pigs, and we can take one with us while we're at it. Hmm, the smaller one."

"Kill the big one first, then see if Master Zhu is free. If not, I'll do it myself."

He also had a task to complete, ordering a pig, so he decided to finish it early.

Huang Ying looked at him with a face full of surprise, "You can even slaughter pigs?"

Chen Fan curled his lip, "Slaughtering pigs is nothing. To be a good cook, you not only need to know every piece of meat on a pig like the back of your hand, but you also need to know how to slaughter pigs and sheep. A cook who can't slaughter pigs is not a good cook."

Don't laugh, these days there are quite a few places, especially in rural areas, where cooks are required to know how to butcher pigs.

Sometimes when there are village banquets or large events, it's not possible to find a butcher in time, so the cook has to step in and cook.

The skill of skinning and butchering is not required to be superb, but it must be able to "kill the soul with a single cut".

Once the pig is dead, everything else is easy; it's just a matter of "whether my knife is sharp enough"—just swing the knife and kill.

Not worth mentioning.

Huang Li was stunned. Did she have to know how to butcher pigs to learn cooking skills?
Huang Ying was so surprised that she couldn't close her mouth, wondering if her sister had made the wrong choice in choosing cooking.
His gaze swept over, and there she was? A skinny little girl, barely 1.6 meters tall, a pig butcher?
At this moment, Liu Dan, who was standing next to them, delivered a blow, nodding repeatedly and saying, "Yes, yes, my uncle (Liu Jujiang) has slaughtered pigs before, but he's not as good at dividing the meat as Master Zhu, but he definitely knows how to slaughter."

Seeing Huang Li's conflicted expression, Chen Fan's lips twitched slightly, trying hard to suppress the smile. He then deliberately didn't explain, but simply waved his hand and said, "Alright, we're done with our work. I can't possibly eat all this food. You can each take some back and let your families try your cooking."

Several girls quickly shook their heads and waved their hands in unison. Huang Ying spoke up first, saying, "No need, no need. We make them at home ourselves."

Before anyone else could speak, Chen Fan glanced at them and asked, "Can they taste as good as my recipe?"

Everyone fell silent. Two seconds later, they exchanged glances and decisively went into the kitchen to pick out vegetables.

Of course, they didn't pick too many. Each of them brought out a large bowl, waved goodbye to Chen Fan, and left reluctantly.

After their footsteps faded away, Chen Fan looked at the cleaned-up field and the panda enclosure restored to its original state, stretched his arms and yawned, "Hmm... Ah, so tired, but I've finally finished preparing all the New Year's goods. Tomorrow is New Year's Day!"

He then went into the kitchen and soon came out with a basket containing several large bowls covered with a blue cloth. He was still thinking to himself, "Fourth Master must have only prepared two pieces of tofu again. This old man has become lazy these days. He's definitely waiting for me to send over the New Year's gifts. Speaking of which, it's almost New Year's again. I hope the old man won't not give me a New Year's gift."

(End of this chapter)