sjar Chapter 242 Toads are good stuff too!
Chapter 242 Toads are good stuff too!
Sun Weimin's great-grandfather was a warm-hearted old man named He Shangguo. According to him, in this Hezhe language tradition, the He family used to have the surname "Bila Kangka" or "He Zhe Re," meaning "river ditch," both of which have water connotations. For example, his wife's surname was Kuyala, meaning "great river."
The villagers living along the river have unique cultural connotations in their names and surnames, almost all of which are related to water.
Lu Zhiqiang teased Sun Weimin, laughing, "Why doesn't your name have the water radical? If it did, you wouldn't be running around in the mountains all the time. Fishing would be so much more enjoyable. Nobody in our village has ever eaten fish before."
No one in the family village ate fish; even the brigade leader, Yang Dezheng, rarely tasted it. In those days, food and meat were rationed with coupons. If you wanted fish or shrimp, you had to go to a market far away, and you might not even be able to exchange them for other commodities like eggs.
He Shangguo called his wife, and they washed the five- or six-pound river carp thoroughly in the snow. After cleaning it, they used a knife to remove the entire piece of meat from both sides. Then, with the family, they laid the fish skin down and sliced the meat diagonally into pieces. He's wife chatted with the hunters, telling them funny stories about Sun Weimin's childhood, before turning back to slice the fish meat into strips, slowly cutting them off the skin.
"Weimin is a good kid, he's just a bit stubborn. You young people get along well with him, so please be understanding."
Li Ju'an and the others smiled knowingly and said, "Don't worry, Grandma. Sun Weimin is always causing trouble. If we hadn't come with him, he would have been throwing a tantrum all night and freezing in the mountains."
When Grandma heard this, she was furious. She picked up the iron spoon and lightly tapped Sun Weimin on the head, scolding him, "Are you out of your mind? What are you doing making such a racket in the middle of the night? If it weren't for Li Pao and Qin Pao taking care of you, your mother wouldn't be able to control you. Who knows where you'd be in the mountains."
His maternal grandfather and second maternal grandfather were both inside. His maternal grandmother and second maternal grandmother were also there, pointing at him and nagging him earnestly. Sun Weimin held his head in his hands, looking like he had lost a battle, and he was extremely frustrated.
He could only curse Li Ju'an in his heart, "Serves you right for talking so much. You'll see what happens later."
My great-grandmothers were excellent cooks, spending most of their lives preparing meals for the family. They were masters at stewing river carp. Fresh river carp was seasoned with vinegar, salt, and other condiments, and in spring and summer, it could be served with shredded potatoes, cucumbers, bean sprouts, and pickled mustard greens.
But in the freezing winter, the cellar only contained stored potatoes and cabbages.
Grandma called to Sun Weimin: "Weimin, go to the cellar and get the potatoes, and bring over the bean sprouts that are growing inside."
Sun Weimin muttered to himself for a while, then called on Li Ju'an to help out, telling him that if he didn't contribute, he shouldn't expect to get any fish. In his petty mind, he thought: "We've already been scolded so badly by Grandma, you guys should at least put in some effort to freeload."
Li Ju'an knew his petty nature, so he smiled and followed him out the door, heading into the He family's vegetable cellar.
In the 1970s and 80s, almost every household built a cellar to store the "three essentials" for winter in late autumn: cabbage, potatoes, and radishes. Families with the means could also store apples, which were easy to preserve, to enjoy during the winter. The He family's cellar was allocated to them in 1965 when the orchard team built adobe houses, and the great-grandfather dug a cellar at the head of the house.
However, during the spring planting season of 70, the orchard team planned to build a forest belt along the river, passing through Hejia Vegetable Cellar. But in the following few years, although the forest belt grew and the fruit trees looked beautiful, Hejia Vegetable Cellar was also flooded and collapsed by the water diverted into the forest belt.
Later, when her great-grandmother fell seriously ill, her mother returned home to visit her relatives and found that her second great-grandfather had been transferred to work on a logging team in a faraway place. Her mother could only lead her son, Sun Weimin, to help her family dig a new vegetable cellar. Otherwise, when it was time to store winter vegetables in late autumn, the new cellar would not be ready and they would not be able to survive the winter.
Li Ju'an stood at the entrance of the vegetable cellar, looking at the rectangular pit that was 2.5 meters long and 1 meters wide, and said, "Sun Weimin, did you really dig this? You're old enough to dig a vegetable cellar? Don't brag, it's no fun bragging."
Sun Weimin was so angry that he jumped up and down. He climbed the wooden ladder down to the cellar first and said, "How can it not be me who dug it? Look, the corn stalks are still there. I laid them down back then."
This cellar is 1.8 meters deep, with several thick logs, about the thickness of an arm, laid across the pit. There's a wide opening at the corner for climbing up and down. There's a layer of corn stalks, a thick layer of wheat straw, and a layer of muddy straw. After the muddy straw dries a bit, a layer of loose soil is added on top, and the cellar is complete.
Sun Weimin's face was beaming with pride. He confidently declared, "When our Sun family builds a new house, just you wait and see. It'll be so dazzling it'll dazzle you. It'll be the most beautiful two-story house in our village, and definitely the first one built. When the villagers from the neighboring village come to visit, they'll all be drooling over our Sun family's new house."
The Sun family also planned to start building their house soon. Li Ju'an thought that by the end of the month, in just a few days, construction on his house on the dry land would begin, and he couldn't help but feel excited. The Li family would have their own house too! And Zhang's design was for a three-story house.
Li Ju'an followed Sun Weimin down the wooden ladder, and looking up, he could see a burlap sack at the entrance of the cellar. This sack was filled with wheat chaff and used to block the ventilation opening of the cellar. Because rural cellars need ventilation but also insulation, so that the fruit inside won't dry out or freeze, it's a form of cellar management.
Li Ju'an followed Sun Weimin and picked up two large cabbages, three carrots, and two pounds of potatoes before he was about to climb the wooden ladder. Suddenly, he felt something slippery under his feet. Looking down, he saw a toad crawling in the damp, warm cellar.
The cellars along the riverbanks were mostly dug by workers and local residents. The warm and humid environment is perfect for toads to live in.
Li Ju'an called out to Sun Weimin, who exclaimed in surprise and excitedly aimed the toad with a cloth bag, put on his glove, aimed carefully, and then quickly pressed the toad down with the cloth bag.
He felt the toad struggling fiercely in his palm, which gave him a strange sense of pleasure. Excitedly, he slowly grabbed the toad and was about to throw it towards the cellar entrance. Li Ju'an shouted, "How can you throw that? Give it to me!"
Sun Weimin grumbled, "What kind of crap do you want to keep to eat? How can you eat this? It's full of bumps, it's creepy."
Li Ju'an put the toad in his pocket, looked down and searched again, shining his flashlight around. Sure enough, he found more toads in several corners. Delighted, he quickly put on gloves, caught the toad, held it down, and put it in his pocket, saying, "These are good stuff! You know forest frogs? They sell for three yuan a pound at the market. Those rich guys in the south buy them all."
The Xinganling toad, also known as the forest frog, is considered a "great tonic" due to its nourishing, medicinal, and cosmetic properties.
Sun Weimin's eyes widened as he listened, and he said excitedly, "Is something this creepy really valuable? Come on, move aside a bit, let me feel around and look for it too."