Traveling through ancient times, I led my family to prosperity

After Xiaolan's family rested, they collected the locusts that were trampled to death on the ground. According to preliminary estimates, they collected more than 3,000 kilograms. Zhang Shanfeng was knowledgeable and knew that locusts were edible. From this incident, he admired Xiaolan even more. A little girl was not afraid of the locust god and dared to catch locusts. Her courage was greater than his.

"My daughter, why do we collect so many locusts?" Zhang was hesitant and afraid at the beginning. When she went to inform Zhang Shanfeng to catch locusts, her father knew that it was Xiaolan's idea and told her to communicate with Xiaolan more when encountering problems. Xiaolan's future fortune will definitely be more than this. Zhang gradually settled down after hearing what her father said. Thinking about the current situation of her family, her family background is much better than what the villagers see on the surface, otherwise they would not have the confidence to take Zhang Shanfeng's family over.

Zhang thought that these were all brought to her home by Xiaolan. Now that her daughter asked her to catch locusts, she just did it. Besides, her mother secretly pulled her aside and whispered to her that locusts can also be eaten. Many people ate them during famines. When there was nothing to eat even bark and grass roots during famines, many people even exchanged their children for food. Zhang had also heard about these things. She thought that it was not a big deal to catch locusts now.

"Mom, locusts are edible, and they taste good." Xiao Lan looked at the sacks and baskets piled everywhere in the farm and said, "Locusts are pests. They eat crops, and they are not locust gods at all."

Zhang had already told Sheng Xuan what she had heard from Zhang Shanfeng, so he accepted it calmly. Not to mention that Zhang Shanfeng's family had already guessed Xiao Lan's intentions.

Although the family has stored a lot of food, no one knows what disaster will happen in the future or when peace can be restored. Having more food at home is always better than having nothing at all.

"Xiao Lan, we have caught so many locusts. Can we eat them all? The weather is so hot, these things can't be kept for a long time, they will go bad in a few days." After Zhang agreed to eat locusts, she began to worry about how to preserve them.

Xiao Lan knew that locusts were edible because she had eaten them in modern times. In restaurants, they were fried and sold at a very high price. Zhang had lard at home, and she usually added it in appropriate amounts when cooking. But now that the world is in such a bad state, the pork stalls were robbed several times by refugees who were short of food and drink, and the pork vendors stopped selling them. Now Xiao Lan's family has no place to buy lard, let alone fry locusts.

Before Xiao Lan could come up with a solution, her grandmother Xin and her daughters-in-law Fu and Liu got together to discuss how to make locusts. As the saying goes, three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang, especially women, who have been thinking about food since childhood, and they really came up with a solution.

"Let's boil it with water and dry it into jerky. We don't need to add salt. When it's dried, it can be stored for a long time." Xin said, "It just costs some water." Water resources are very precious now. The ground outside is dry and cracked. Fortunately, Xiaolan's family dug a deep well. Even so, the family was afraid that the water source would dry up, so they stored a lot of water in containers at home.

Zhang thought it was feasible. Her family was not short of water at the moment, so she nodded and agreed, "Okay, let's make dried meat."

Cooking is something women are good at, and men don't interfere. After agreeing on how to do it, the family doesn't care about being tired, and Xin directs the young and old men in the family to start working. "It's easy to make dried vegetables, but the important thing is how to dry them later. Grasshoppers are easy to fly, so we can cook them directly, then wash them, and finally spread them on the ground to dry." Xiaolan's yard is paved with blue bricks, and it will be very clean if you sweep it with a broom. Besides, the ancients didn't have so many requirements, and every household dried vegetables in this way.

They got to work right away. The women started by boiling water in a pot. After the water boiled, the men took baskets or sacks and poured locusts into the pot. Each locust was one to two inches long and very fat, but no matter how big it was, it was still a bug and could be cooked in a short time. Then the children washed and dried them, while the men continued to pour locusts into the pot.

It took me a whole day and night to finish it.

Xiaolan's family couldn't sit idle. It hadn't rained in Shengjia Village for a long time, and due to the locust plague, many small trees were bare and some trunks were dead. Zhang Shanfeng took his sons Zhang Qingfeng and Zhang Qingnian, grandsons Xiaohu, Xiaocheng, Xiaoqiang and grandson Xiaowen out to collect firewood and chop wood, while the others stayed at home to look after the house. Now someone had to stay at home to guard the door. If the house was rushed in by refugees and robbed, they would have no way to live in the future.

Fortunately, Sheng Xuan and Xiao Lan were good at archery, and they would not be polite to anyone who dared to break in. Not to mention Mr. Zhang's group, the men were all big and strong, and it was reassuring to have them protect the children.

The dead branches and trunks were everywhere on the mountain, and any firewood they chopped was good enough. In the morning, everyone carried back two loads. The women at home were not idle either. There were too many rabbits at home, so Xiaolan discussed with her family about making rabbit jerky in the same way as locust jerky.

"That won't work. Locusts are smaller than rabbits. They can be dried and stored without spoiling, but that won't work for rabbit meat. We'd better put some salt on it and then dry it in the sun." Xin said.

Only eight rabbits that had just left their nests were left at home, and the rest were slaughtered. All of them were good at work. Fu slaughtered the rabbits, Xin, Liu, Zhang, Xiaoting and Xiaoyan skinned and processed the internal organs, then cleaned them and hung them up to dry. Xiaolan and Shengxuan were responsible for keeping watch and ensuring the safety of the family.

The weather is hot now, and the rabbit meat will be almost dried in the afternoon. In the afternoon, Xin took her daughter and daughter-in-law to start frying salt, first brushing the rabbit with white wine, and then rubbing the salt particles on the rabbit meat. The white wine Zhang brought out was brought by Shopkeeper Xu. Xin saw that it was good wine, so she didn't let her open it. She took out the ration wine that Zhang Shanfeng usually drank, and poured out two jars before she finished processing the rabbit meat.

The family looked at the more than 60 rabbits drying in the yard. This was the result of their hard work for the whole day. If nothing unexpected happened, this would be the meat they could enjoy this year. Meat was hard to buy these days, and the price was expensive. Although the rabbits at home seemed to be many, there were not enough people in the family. But this was much better than the average farmer's family. At least her family could still have some meat.

"Don't throw away the rabbit skin. Your father has the tools and skills. Ask him to nitrate it and make a fur coat for you." Xin said.

Xiao Lan was secretly shocked. Is there anything that Zhang Shanfeng can't do? The more she understood her grandfather, the more she admired him.