Dreaming of Lion Rock: Recipe in Hand

Time passed quickly and it was already the spring of 1977. It had been a year since 17-year-old Chunni came into this era.

She is no longer an ordinary college student in the 21st century, but a village girl from Lion Village. She does not have the intelligence and wisdom of the time-traveling heroines in those novels, nor does she have a golden finger. That recipe does not count, except for completing tasks to earn points, it is nothing!

But the years after 1977 were such a thrilling time!

Can she adapt to the trend of reform and opening up and live the life she wants? Chunni kept imagining in her heart.

That day, Chunni returned home and saw Qiuguo cutting leeks in the vegetable garden next door.

Qiuguo has grown a lot taller than last year, with a cherry mouth, a small and firm nose, and willow-shaped eyebrows. She already looks like a young girl in my family. She is not as lively and playful as Xiazhi. She is quiet and seems to be sensible.

Spring plowing was approaching, and Chunni took some dried mushrooms from home to exchange for five eggs from Aunt Chen. She needed to replenish her energy first, otherwise no one would be able to make enough for the upcoming spring planting.

Today we are going to eat dumplings stuffed with leeks and eggs, which is really a rare meal in Chunni's family.

Chunni went to the pigpen to check on the rabbits. The six little rabbits were almost growing into big rabbits.

Chunni was a little proud. She didn't expect that she would succeed in raising rabbits for the first time. She planned to give one to the old man's family and another to the old captain's family.

"Hey, why is the belly of this white-tailed rabbit so big?" Qiu Guo was sharp-eyed and immediately discovered the clue.

"Um, let me see, it's true." Chunni climbed into the pigpen and took a closer look.

"Could it be that the rabbit is pregnant?" Chunni pondered while asking Xiazhi to invite the aunt over.

In just half a year, the rabbit grew from a small rabbit into a big rabbit that can give birth to babies. The growth cycle of this rabbit is too short, and its reproductive ability is too strong.

Soon, the aunt came and after taking one look at the rabbit, she confirmed that she was pregnant.

"You have too many rabbits. I just checked and there are four female rabbits. If you don't want to raise more, you can find a way to deal with them." The old lady gave practical advice.

"The female rabbit doesn't need any special care, just give her more rabbit grass."

"Auntie, do you raise rabbits at home? If you do, take this pregnant one home." Chunni now feels that rabbits are easy to raise. They don't eat much and grow fast.

I just don’t know if raising rabbits will be slandered by some people as digging into socialism! You know, the villagers have a certain number of chickens and ducks.

Forget it, I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’ll talk about it when the time comes.

Her family can count on killing a rabbit from time to time to supplement their nutrition!

The old lady thought raising rabbits was not difficult, so she agreed.

Chunni thought about it, said something to Qiuguo, and took Donglin's little tail to go to her great-grandfather's house.

The great grandfather's family was quite large. Both of his sons got married and had several children each. As the family grew, they split up. He and his wife lived with the youngest son Yang Anzhang's family.

This is very common in this area. There is a saying that the emperor loves his eldest son and the people love their youngest son.

As soon as I entered the door, I met my eldest mother-in-law, who had just returned from the vegetable garden.

The eldest wife warmly invited Chunni into the yard, washed her hands in a broken clay pot at the front of the house, and took Chunni to the main room. She poured a bowl of cold water for Chunni, and then asked Chunni if ​​she had any questions.

"Grandma, I'm here to look for Grandpa (Yang Anzhang). Is he at home?" Chunni asked.

"Oh, yes, yes." The grandmother replied with a kind smile.

"An Zhang, An Zhang. Come quickly, your niece Chunni wants to talk to you about something!" The grandmother suddenly turned from a gentle and amiable old lady into a tiger mom.

Chunni found it somewhat funny just watching this.

"Oh, Mom, I get it." A voice came from the next room.

Team leader Yang Anzhang walked in. He was also very curious about Chunni's purpose in coming.

"It's like this..." Chunni told him how they caught the rabbit, how the little rabbits were born, and now the little rabbit was going to give birth to little rabbits.

Yang Anzhang looked thoughtful.

"Rabbit's growth cycle is short, and they don't need much food to feed. Just feed them some wild vegetables from time to time. Raising rabbits is not difficult at all. The purpose of my coming here is to see if there is any way for our team to raise rabbits so that the elderly and children can eat meat." Chunni expressed her plan.

Yang Anzhang didn't expect that rabbits were so easy to raise. He planned to ask Aunt Chunni for specific breeding methods and see if it was feasible.

Yang Anzhang first went to find out more about it, and after he felt that raising rabbits was indeed feasible, he reported the matter to the higher-level commune.

What Chunni didn't expect was that Yang Anzhang was actually familiar with He Yanqing, and it was through him that he purchased a batch of rabbit breeds from a breeding farm in the provincial capital.

Yang Anzhang distributed this batch of rabbit breeds to every household, and promised that as long as each household handed over five rabbits to the production team during the New Year, they could deal with the rest on their own!

He also convened a special mobilization meeting for rabbit breeding.

"My fellow countrymen, as the saying goes, man is iron and rice is steel. If you don't eat, you will be hungry. I just want to ask, how long has it been since your children have eaten meat?"

"Let's eat it during the Chinese New Year! Oh! When it comes to meat, I feel greedy and my mouth feels dry."

"We just ate meat yesterday."

As soon as this was said, someone retorted, "Tsk, everyone knows that your family ate two taels of meat during the Chinese New Year, and the rest was made into bacon. Cut a slice today and a slice tomorrow."

"Hahahaha." All the villagers laughed.

Yang Anzhang asked again, "Do you want to eat meat?"

"Of course I have. The last time I ate meat was during the Chinese New Year! I'm drooling in my dreams. I'm so greedy!" A villager immediately followed up.

"Who wouldn't want to!"

"That's right. I also think Chaotou meat is delicious!"

"Here's a chance for you to have as much meat as you want. Do you want it?" The captain's voice was so loud that it seemed to break through the sky.

"Of course!" The people below began to talk among themselves, with both anticipation and doubt.

"In order to solve the problem of people having difficulty eating meat, the commune has given a task to raise rabbits. Each household will be given two rabbits, one male and one female. As long as everyone hands over five adult rabbits during the Chinese New Year, the rest of the rabbits you raise will belong to you. Do you want to take this task?"

The people on the stage were all very nervous. Most of them had never raised rabbits before and were afraid that they would spoil the rabbits. Most of those who had raised rabbits before thought it was feasible. Everyone decided to follow the captain and give it a try, just in case it succeeded.

The meeting discussed the specific breeding methods such as the environment and food required for raising rabbits, and everyone took their rabbits home.

Chunni and her family of three are the happiest, as they can finally eat meat openly.

He Yanqing, the dog-skin plaster, came to their house and brought a bag of winter melon candy, ready to share the cost. Yes, winter melon candy was not common at that time, and you had to go to the commune supply and marketing cooperative to buy it, and it was said to cost several cents per pound. Anyway, Chunni's family had never eaten it before.

The meal was unprecedentedly sumptuous, with fresh pot rabbit, scrambled eggs with leeks, stir-fried sauerkraut, and sweet potato stewed with rice.

After this meal, Chunni could go without meat for a month!

What puzzled Chunni was that the next dish she had to prepare was actually related to rabbits.

Chunni was a bit confused, forget it, let's talk about it later. Her family doesn't often eat meat!