Affection for Sidaogou during the Famine

The children sat together and listened to Han Zhaozhao talk about her life in the capital.

The five brothers and sisters listened with great interest, their eyes full of longing for the future.

When it was time for dinner, Han Zhaozhao followed his uncle's family to the village canteen.

My uncle has already gone to the village and paid one yuan for one pound of food coupons as Han Zhaozhao's food expenses for the next two days.

Now, Han Zhaozhao can also eat from the big pot in the village canteen.

The big canteen in the village is a blue brick courtyard. My cousin told me that it used to be the only landlord’s house in the village.

Now the landlord has been overthrown and is in charge of the cowshed. This house has become the former village committee and is now called the brigade headquarters.

The canteen was a former warehouse of the landlord. It was tall and solid, with five rooms, and could accommodate more than 300 people from the village to dine at the same time.

There are no tables or chairs in the restaurant, but rows of wooden boards, which are broken boards from whole logs with wooden sticks nailed on them as table legs. It has a rough beauty.

The only pity is that it has not been polished or painted, and there are many traces of soup spilled on it, making it look a bit dirty.

The stool was also made of a long wooden board, without wooden legs, and was supported by adobe stones at intervals. Han Zhaozhao sat down and shook his butt gently. Hey, it was pretty stable!

The whole village sat together to have dinner, and the atmosphere was very lively.

"Hey, Uncle Liu, this is your niece from Beijing? She is so pretty!" My grandfather is the third child in the clan and is called Uncle Liu by the younger generations in the village.

The villagers looked at the little guests from the big city curiously and talked about them.

"Tsk tsk, the climate and soil of the capital really make people beautiful. Look at this little girl, she's so pretty!"

Grandpa was very proud when he heard this, "There is no ugly person in our family! What does being good-looking have to do with the climate and soil?

The capital is so big, there are ugly people there. Although our village is small, there are also many handsome people, young and old.

As for the water and soil, most of the wells in Beijing have bitter water, but they are not as sweet as the old wells in our village."

"Hahaha, that's true! The young men and girls in our village are all very handsome. Isn't there a saying that goes, 'Beautiful birds emerge from deep mountains!'

We just don’t dress well, but if we dress up, no one can be said to be ugly!"

There are only five or six major surnames in one village, and there are also a dozen individual households who have fled here. Over the years, they have been intermarrying with each other, and there are really no outsiders.

Everyone likes to hear good words, everyone laughs, and there is a harmonious scene in the cafeteria.

Han Zhaozhao looked around and didn't see any sarcastic or rude people.

On the contrary, this place reminded her of her rural hometown in her previous life, and she felt the strong human touch!

When the food was served, Han Zhaozhao was dumbfounded!

What is this? Pig food?

Han Zhaozhao looked at the large coarse porcelain bowl in front of her, filled with dark brown sticky soup. After looking at it for a long time, she couldn't tell what was in the bowl. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger, but her appetite was gone.

"Eat it! This is sweet potato flour and wild vegetable porridge, it's delicious!" Cousin Liu Xiaoqin pushed the bowl in front of her.

Han Zhaozhao didn't dare to eat it, but the villagers next to him had no worries. Each of them held the bowl and drank the sweet wine reverently.

Everyone around was secretly looking at her. Han Zhaozhao said that she would never be a loner. She picked up the bowl, summoned the courage of Wu Dalang, and took a small sip.

"Cough, cough, cough!" What's that smell?

It tastes like swill, bitter, astringent, and sore throat, and it also has a smell of rotten sweet potato. It is indeed made of sweet potato flour, but it is just flour ground from rotten sweet potatoes.

"What's wrong? Can't get used to it? Hehe, the taste is not very good, but the porridge is made of pure grains, not substitute grains.

The sweet potatoes planted before the New Year in the village were not harvested in time and are now frozen in the ground. They are frostbitten, not rotten, so feel free to eat them. They may not taste good, but they will not hurt you at all.

Second cousin Liu Xiangbei lowered his head and explained to her with a smile.

Frostbitten sweet potatoes also have a rotten smell, which is no different from the smell of spoiled and rotten sweet potatoes.

Facing others' mocking looks, Han Zhaozhao closed his sense of smell and taste, picked up the bowl, quickly poured the food into his mouth, and tried hard to swallow the bowl of "sweet potato paste" into his stomach.

"Hey, eat slowly, don't choke. You have a really rough throat, kid, it seems you are really hungry!"

Grandpa was horrified when he saw how she ate. "You guys in Beijing eat three meals a day, but we in the village only eat two. It's no wonder you're so hungry."

Han Zhaozhao: I was not just hungry, I was scared.

Drinking this porridge is like drinking Chinese medicine. She drinks it slowly for fear of vomiting it out! In front of the whole village, at dinner time, it would not only disgust herself, but also the whole village!

After drinking the porridge, Han Zhaozhao said he was going out to play, put down the bowl and ran away.

She didn't know that while others were embarrassed, her little cousin did not hesitate. He quickly picked up her bowl and started licking it, not leaving even a single drop of the bottom of the bowl.

"You guys eat quickly, follow and keep an eye on Zhao Zhao, don't let her get lost and lose her way home."

My aunt was chasing after her older children.

Sister Liu Xiaoqin quickly finished the porridge, scraped the bottom of the bowl with their fingers, and went to chase their cousin.

Han Zhaozhao had already run far away and reached the back of the village not far from the foot of the mountain.

"Zhao Zhao, why are you here?"

Han Zhaozhao calmly stepped on the loose soil under Ding's feet, and underneath was her vomit.

"Didn't Shitou say there was a small river at the foot of the mountain this afternoon? I'll check out how wide it is and whether I can skate on it.

I haven’t skated this year, and I’m thinking about it.”

Han Zhaozhao pointed to the ice in the distance, which was a small river about ten meters wide. It was sparkling and looked like a silvery white winding ribbon from a distance.

Liu Xiaoqin quickly called her home, "It's getting dark, if you want to play, let Xiao Shitou take you out tomorrow.

There is a sled at home. Go home and find it. Tomorrow morning after breakfast, you and Little Stone can paddle together."

Han Zhaozhao had vomited and was no longer feeling nauseous. She obediently followed her two cousins ​​home.

In the evening, her grandfather called her into the house and made her a bowl of fried noodles.

"Drink up! The food in the village is not good, are you not full?

Fortunately, you only stayed for two or three days, otherwise you would have starved and become thin, and your grandma would be very sad when you returned. I wouldn’t be able to explain to her.”

"Grandpa, you drink too. I can't finish this big bowl by myself."

She was no longer picky and just blew on it, slurped up half the bowl, and said she would not drink the remaining half.

Grandpa looked at her lovingly and drank the remaining half bowl of fried noodles with a smile.

"It smells so good! Your grandma is really willing to spend a lot of time and effort on the ingredients. There are a lot of good things in it!"

After drinking it, grandpa didn’t forget to comment!

Han Zhaozhao pretended to be silly and smiled, and seemed to be talking to his grandfather unintentionally about the spectacular scene of the canteen in the capital being disbanded and the citizens rushing to buy iron pots and food.

Grandpa asked from time to time, with a thoughtful look on his face. Han Zhaozhao was secretly happy, it worked, her hint should be effective!

At night, she was arranged to sleep on the same kang with her aunt and cousin. Little Shitou made a fuss and also slept in the same room with them.

The winter in Northeast China is very cold. There was not much snow this year and the air was dry and cold.

The north wind was blowing, and the doors and windows were rattling in the night.

My aunt and cousin were used to it and slept soundly. But Han Zhaozhao didn't sleep a wink the whole night because she was too hungry!