Reborn in the 70s / Reborn in 1978

After eating, the whole family went back to the house. Naturally, they were afraid again, and they praised Heihu again.

Chapter 4 Pickled sauerkraut, a doomed wound

As time passed, the vegetables in the vegetable field were ripe, and a large area of ​​the mountains and fields by the river bank had withered and turned yellow.

The south wind turned north, and the leaves on the trees trembled in the wind. The roots of the leaves had turned yellow, and only a little tip of the leaves was still a little green.

From time to time, leaves are torn from the trees by the wind, dance a few times with the wind, and fall to the ground, telling people that it is late autumn.

Autumn in the Northeast is beautiful. The mature crops in the field are the most green in their life, while the weeds on the mountains have been haggard and yellowed, their waists are bowed, and they are gradually withering to the end of their lives.

The trees on the mountain stand up straight under the vast sky, the coniferous pines and cypresses look greener and darker, but the broad-leaved trees still have new green leaves, but most of the leaves have turned red, and the old leaves have withered and yellowed It begins to fall off, and from a distance, several thick or light leaves are crowded together, swaying in the wind, one by one.

The river will appear bluer and deeper, with a cool breeze in the wind.The temperature difference between morning and evening can reach ten degrees, which is the season of messy dressing.

In that era, people in Northeast China were busy preparing winter dishes as soon as autumn entered.

September was cool, October was frosty, snow began to fall in late October and November, and the land could no longer produce anything, entering a seven-month rest period.

From the beginning of September, no matter whether it is urban or rural, no matter whether it is poor or rich, every family starts to get busy. The rural area is busy harvesting from the field, and the city is busy buying green onions, cabbage, radishes, potatoes, etc. from non-staple food stores. are the main four.

Sweet potatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, cowpeas, kidney beans (called kidney beans in the south), peppers, etc. are all based on luck. Sometimes you can buy them, but most of the time they are out of stock, or grab a little bit, and they will be gone after a few meals. .

I can buy it, but I am not willing to eat it directly. Cook the eggplant in a big pot until it is half mature, and then dry it in the autumn sun. Cut the cowpea from the middle and dry it. Kidney beans can be boiled or directly dried, anyway. Dry it, then put it away, and wait until the winter is snowed and then take it out to eat.

At that time, those who could make these kinds of winter food were generally wealthy families.Generally, people either get a piece of land to grow it themselves, or have immediate family members in the countryside who collect it and send some to the big and small bags, but there are not many.

At that time, there were actually only a few vegetables in winter in the entire Northeast: green onions, cabbage, radishes, and potatoes.Generally, they are bought in hundreds of catties, especially cabbage, and it is very common to buy thousands of catties.

Green onions roll up the green onion leaves, a few bundles, and hang them under the eaves with wire. Put the radishes and potatoes in the vegetable cellar. Generally, a pit three to four meters deep is dug underground, and a strong roof is built on the top. Only when it is covered with more than one meter thick soil can it play the role of storage, leaving only a hole that can barely drill a person.

Cabbage is more complicated. First, pick out the ones that are [-] catties long, cut off the old leaves, and then put them in the vegetable cellar. to a long time.

The rest of the cabbage is used to pickle sauerkraut.

Peel off the old leaves and roots of the cabbage, then boil water in a large pot, put the trimmed cabbage root down into the pot and boil it, take it out when the cabbage stamens are just hot and the leaves are slightly curled, and put them in the In an open clay pot.

When it is hot, the heat is very important. Take it out when the pistil is still cold. It is not easy to be sour, but the sourness is slow. Others have eaten it. Your family has not responded yet, and it is easy to break the meal. And it tastes tough.The sauerkraut must be ready before opening the vat, that is, it can be fished out and eaten, otherwise it will be completely spoiled.

If it is too hot or too ripe, it will not work. It will be sour soon, but it will rot easily.

When sizing the vat, you need to pinch the vegetable leaves tightly and roll them towards the roots, and then squeeze the roots one by one to make them evenly sized outwards. The sizing should be very tight, usually one layer, and then the adults put it on and scrub it clean Stand in and step on your rain boots, and add a few more if they feel loose.Make a good layer and sprinkle some aniseed salt. Refined salt is not good, it can’t be sauerkraut, it’s not delicious.

In fact, salt is mainly used for anti-corrosion. The anti-corrosion function of refined salt is weaker. If you add too much, it will become salty and unpalatable.

After a tank is stacked, the cabbage should be three to four layers higher than the tank mouth, and it will be stowed layer by layer from the tank mouth to the inside. Finally, put a small bean stone on top of the stacked vegetables.The weight of small bean stones depends on the size of the tank. For example, tank No. [-] needs about [-] catties of stones.

Only one complete stone can be placed in a tank, and several small pieces cannot be placed in this way. If it cannot be pressed, it will rot.

Adzuki bean stone is the kind of stone whose cross section looks like a bunch of small beans squeezed together. It is blue-gray and heavier than ordinary stones.Why do you put small bean stones instead of other stones? I don’t know, it’s been passed down from generation to generation.

A stone will continue to be used year after year, generation after generation.The urn stone in my grandma's house has been used for at least 100 years, and the water soaked in the stone is sour.

After the cabbage is packed into the vat and pressed, it is placed outdoors. Sometimes the temperature is too low, and the vat needs to be covered with cotton clothes.

When I lived in a bungalow, I didn’t think much of it. Every family had a yard. Later, when I went upstairs, there was a sauerkraut vat at the door of each house. When I entered the door in winter, the smell in the corridor was so sour.After the sauerkraut is soaked, it smells sour.

At that time, life in the city was more difficult than that in the countryside. There was not enough food, enough to eat, and vegetables to buy, but in the countryside, as long as there was a piece of land, you could grow whatever you wanted to eat, and you could still eat. So many people in that era tried their best to get Go to the countryside, say nothing, and go to the city to work as a worker.

But being in the city also has its benefits.

Zhang Xingming's father is an employee of the mineral processing plant, and every September, the benefits come.

For each employee, [-] catties of eggs, [-] catties of pork, [-] catties of beef, [-] catties of sea knife fish, [-] catties of cod, [-] catties of soybean oil, [-] catties of bamboo-jointed shrimps more than ten centimeters long, [-] catties of shrimp chips, and [-] catties of flour Jin, one hundred catties of rice.

One hundred catties of green onions, sometimes two hundred catties.Five hundred catties of cabbage, sometimes eight hundred catties.Two hundred or three hundred catties of potatoes.Fifty catties of apples and fifty catties of autumn pears.There are also vermicelli, yuba, kelp, radish, and sometimes one or two more items, which are fixed every year.

From September to the end of November, the workers kept carrying things home, dividing one day into another, and bustling until the end of the year.Every household is beaming. When the things are brought back, several families get together to clean up. This is the new year's goods. After packing up, it will be the root of the new year.

By 95, each worker had [-] catties of eggs per month, and [-] catties of pork, beef, and mutton each year. The most I remember was [-] catties.

There are also more types of fish, not only sea scallop cod, but also mackerel, squid, yellow croaker, and crystal fish (voice, I don’t know what it is called, fusiform sea fish, silvery white, delicious).

Eggs are divided with folding nets, made of metal, one per month, and at the end of the year, people will collect them everywhere, for a few yuan each.

In addition to the distribution in the factory, like green onions, potatoes and cabbage, each family still has to buy, and the distribution is not enough to eat.

At the end of September and the beginning of October, Zhang Xingming's family went to the neighboring villages to directly lease land and buy a few ridges of cabbage.Vegetable ridges in the Northeast are generally very long, generally several hundred meters long, and even kilometers are common.

Once the land was set and the money was paid, the whole family mobilized. They pulled up the cart (the same size as a standard bullock cart, pushed and pulled by human power), and brought a kitchen knife. Zhang Xingming and his elder brother sat in the cart, with his parents alone. Push and pull, and walk a few kilometers from home to the field where the vegetables are bought, and then the parents chop the vegetables, and Zhang Xingming and his brother hug the cabbage on the cart to make the cabbage neatly stacked on the cart.

Cutting cabbage is a tiring job. (It seems that there is no such thing as not tiring in the field.) One has to squat halfway, hold the cabbage with one hand, and cut off the root of the cabbage with a kitchen knife with the other hand, that is, the cabbage cannot be hurt. It can't be rooted, and then it keeps moving forward, forward.

It is not acceptable to squat down completely, which will greatly reduce work efficiency, and if you squat together, you will get tired more easily.

When a car is full, it is necessary to pull it back, use a soft rope to hold the cabbage, the father pulls it back alone, the mother stays in the field and continues to cut, Zhang Xingming and his brother also continue to hug each other, pile up a pile on the ground, Wait for the car to come back and then install it.

Later, when they got older, one stayed here to hug, and the other had to follow the car to help push it.

Generally, two to three trips are enough. This amount is quite accurate for each company, and there are very few cases that are not enough or exceed too much.

When the last car arrived, it must have been dark, and the cold wind blew, and I felt my face was hot and spicy. At that time, there were no street lights, no entertainment venues, and it was pitch black everywhere.Occasionally, the light of someone's house is just a dim bright spot. No one is willing to use a big light bulb, and it can't shine outside the room at all.

Mom and Dad pushed and pulled one by one, and Zhang Xingming and his elder brother staggered along behind. At first, they usually pretended to push for a while, but they were too young and couldn't keep up soon. I just dragged my mother's clothes and followed, unable to see the road under my feet at all.

After the cabbage is bought, it needs to be piled up, that is, to be stacked again, and it needs to be ventilated, otherwise it will be overheated, that is, the inside of the cabbage pile is heated, and the vegetables are particularly easy to rot.It is said that both vegetables and fruits have this characteristic, they are particularly easy to get hot, and once they are hot, they will rot very quickly, and a lot of them will rot in one night.

Where does its heat come from?Can't figure it out.

The cabbage is piled up before cooking and eating. During these few days of the year, children only eat when they are hungry.

The next day, Dad set up a large pot in the yard with a diameter of more than 1.2 meters, filled half of the pot with water, and started to boil.

This should be fired with split wood, not coal.My mother is cleaning the tank on the side. The tank must be cleaned, and there must be no oil or water.This is quite strange. It is understandable that there is no oil, but it is clear that the cabbage will be boiled with water, why can't there be water?But it is impossible to have it, and it needs to be rubbed repeatedly.

Then Zhang Xingming and his elder brother started to hold the cabbage, put it into the pot, and then carried the boiled cabbage to the side of the vat in a basin.

My mom scalded it, and my dad coded the vat. It took half a day to make it, and then pressed the cleaned small bean stones on it, and this year's sauerkraut was soaked.

When it comes to pickle jars, there is another joy here, but I don’t know why, everyone says that people with a sour personality usually pickle pickle jars, the sauerkraut will sour quickly, and it is delicious.In the Northeast, it is derogatory to say that people have a sour face.A sour face refers to a person who has a small mind, is very angry, caressing, and stingy.

Then in the factory, you can always hear: "Old Wang, come to my house to help with the tank tomorrow." "... Caoni."

Or: "Hey, Lao Li's sauerkraut is delicious, and it sours quickly." "... Cao Ni."

Or: "Oh, you've all tasted it, my house hasn't turned over yet." "... Get out of here", this is a group mocking mode.

After the sauerkraut is soaked and the things in the factory are divided, it's time to wrap them in silver makeup.