Chapter 110: Chapter 65: A Farmer’s Daughter’s Laughter (Part 2)

Everyone knew by now that while acorns were edible, preparing them was no simple task. It was extremely laborious, so people treasured them.

Juhua nodded, smiling from ear to ear—Meizi had already given her several pairs of shoe insoles, every pair embroidered with beautiful flowers, making her reluctant to actually put them in her shoes.

She led the group into the kitchen, which immediately became bustling and crowded.

Once the basins, pots, and other utensils were ready, Juhua took out a couple of pounds of acorn flour. She began demonstrating the process, explaining each step as she guided them in making the acorn tofu.

She first did a demonstration with a small amount of the flour, then had Meizi and the others each give it a try.

It was clear that everyone had a different aptitude for cooking. Juhua watched over them, but Meizi still managed to burn the acorn paste, leaving a crust at the bottom of the pot. Lanzi did a little better, though she was still flustered and clumsy. Li Jinxiang, on the other hand, was far more adept. After watching Juhua’s demonstration just once, she began working with swift, nimble hands—it was obvious at a glance that she was a talented cook. But the most astonishing of all was Liu Xiaomei. She was so young, yet her movements were incredibly fluid. Her proficiency made one wonder if she had secretly learned from Juhua beforehand.

Meizi pulled a long face, tugging at the end of her thick braid. “Argh! It’s not fair! How is everyone better at this than me?”

Juhua glanced at the countertop, now crowded with basins and clay pots. She comforted her, “I’ll teach you again another time. You’ll get the hang of it after a few tries. We can’t make any more today, anyway. We’ve run out of containers. Just take some of this tofu home with you. It’ll save my mom the trouble of delivering it to your homes later.”

Meizi had no choice but to give up. She then turned to Liu Xiaomei and asked, “Mei, how are you so good at this?”

Li Jinxiang laughed. “You think everyone is like you, sewing shoe insoles in your spare time and, at most, helping your mom wash vegetables or cook a meal? Mei has to cook for her entire family every single day!”

Meizi said indignantly, “Starting tomorrow, I’m going to learn how to cook properly too. I refuse to be a lazy wife.”

Juhua smiled at her. “There’s plenty of time, it’s not like you’re getting married tomorrow. Come on, help me pick and wash some vegetables. Let’s get lunch started!”

Everyone laughed at that.

So, the girls went out to the garden to harvest vegetables, squatted by the well to wash them, and returned to the kitchen to cook. They chattered away as they worked, and Juhua listened with great interest. She had rarely heard all the village gossip before and was learning quite a bit about Qingnan Village.

For instance, Lanzi mentioned that her cousin had taken a liking to the simple-minded Big Mouth Zhao, falling for him at first sight. Her family wasn’t even asking for a bride price. Once their two families scraped together enough money for some furniture next year, she would marry him.

Then Liu Xiaomei shared that a marriage had been arranged for her second brother, but the bride’s family was asking for a bride price of five taels of silver. While it wasn’t an exorbitant amount, her family couldn’t produce it. They were very fond of the girl and didn’t want to lose the match, so they had no choice but to borrow from friends and relatives to scrape together the five taels to send over.

It had made her mother sigh with worry all day long. Thankfully, she cheered up when she heard that acorns could be used as pig feed. Now, they were just waiting for next year to raise a few extra pigs, hoping to pay off their debts and finally help her brother get married.

However, by unspoken agreement, they all avoided the topic of Liu’er’s marriage. Sun Liu’er was getting married at the end of the year. But for these young women, the situation sparked more curiosity than anything else. Becoming a concubine in a wealthy household was a world away from their own lives. They couldn’t imagine whether Sun Liu’er was truly, as her mother claimed, off to a life of comfort, or if she was jumping into a pit of fire. Still, Liu’er’s obvious reluctance earned their sympathy—’Who would want to marry someone they don’t even like?’

Meizi then announced that in a few days, her family would be making peanut brittle, and she’d come get Juhua to watch the excitement and have the first taste. Li Jinxiang, in turn, said her family was slaughtering a pig in a couple of days and invited Juhua over for the traditional pig-slaughter soup.

Juhua listened to their talk of daily life, watching the constantly laughing girls. Some tended the fire while others chopped vegetables. Meizi, meanwhile, just stood off to the side, relegated to handing over a bowl or passing a ladle. A moment earlier, when she’d been chopping a daikon radish, Liu Xiaomei had declared her cuts looked like bricks, snatched the knife from her, and forbade her from chopping any more.

Listening with a smile, she kept her own hands busy. With renewed energy, she whipped up several delicious dishes to treat her group of charming village guests to a meal.

Since they had made so much acorn tofu, they naturally had to cook some for everyone to try for lunch. The problem was, Juhua usually prepared the pig offal in the afternoon. Right now, other than the pig’s head simmering in the large pot, she had no offal ready to cook.

So, Juhua retrieved a cured pig stomach, rinsed it, and tucked it into the large pot beneath the pig’s head, asking Lanzi, who was tending the stove, to add more firewood. Then, she took her knife and sliced into the pig’s face, carving off some cheek meat. She also fished out a few pig’s trotters and set them aside to cool.

She took a tender daikon radish, boiled it briefly in a small pot of plain water to remove its pungency, and then transferred it to a clay pot. Next, she sliced the fattier parts of the pig cheek and layered them over the radish. She ladled some broth from the large pot into the clay pot, then set it on the charcoal stove to stew.

She braised the pig’s trotters with ginger, soy sauce, chilis, and vinegar until they turned a glossy, rich red. To finish, she sprinkled them with fresh green onions and served them up in another clay pot.

Once the dishes were ready, Juhua grabbed four pairs of chopsticks and called the others over for a taste.

Meizi stared, her mouth watering, at the fragrant, steaming-hot red pig’s trotters. She picked up a piece, still dotted with a few flecks of green onion, and popped it between her petal-like lips. She took a bite, and it was so hot that she yelped and spun around in a little circle, making everyone burst out laughing.

Liu Xiaomei was the youngest, after all, and couldn’t wait any longer. She quickly grabbed a large piece for herself and began to gnaw on it. At the first bite, her eyes lit up, and her mouth worked furiously, a look of utter satisfaction on her face. Seeing this, Lanzi and Jinxiang cast aside their restraint and dug in as well.

Worried they might drop bits as they ate, Juhua quickly handed them each a bowl to catch any mess. Soon, the sounds of chewing gave way to exclamations of praise and happy laughter. With no one else in the kitchen, the young women felt free to laugh and talk as loudly as they pleased.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep