OBS Chapter 358 Making glutinous rice cakes
Chapter 358 Making glutinous rice cakes
Zhou Guo, Zhou Su and others followed behind everyone. With her strength, she could make them slide far away with just one push, and everyone laughed happily.
She also asked Hei Dadan to pull them forward.
Hei Dadan stuck out his tongue and ran until he slipped and fell, and the person sitting behind him had to somersault.
Everyone fell down, but laughed even louder.
The days pass slowly.
The end of the year is here in a blink of an eye.
The village became busy and lively as soon as the twelfth lunar month came. The village mill never stopped and there was always a group of people guarding it all day long.
The Zhou family came from the south.
In the past years when things were still good at home, we would make glutinous rice cakes every year. We would put some in a jar and soak it in water, and eat it slowly. We could eat it until the middle of the year. It was nice to have a bite when we came back from working in the fields and were extremely hungry.
Qian next door also wants to be beaten. She is a woman with two children. During the busy farming season, she is afraid that she will be too busy to cook, and glutinous rice cakes can fill her stomach.
All the families that came along wanted to make glutinous rice cakes. Life was better and they could prepare some food. Children and adults loved to eat them. Making glutinous rice cakes was strenuous work, so everyone decided to make them together and pool their money to buy two stone mortars.
Because the Zhou family’s yard is big, everyone gathers together at the Zhou family’s house.
The women were responsible for cleaning household items, steaming glutinous rice, making dumplings... and doing odd jobs.
The men only have one job, which is to beat the glutinous rice. They hold the wooden hammer and beat the glutinous rice in the stone mortar again and again. The women are also responsible for turning the glutinous rice over and over again. It takes many beats to beat the glutinous rice into a smooth ball.
Zhou Guo was responsible for making the fire at first. When the glutinous rice in the wooden barrel was cooked, she grabbed a lump of it, kneaded it into a ball, and wrapped it with sour cowpeas. Some leftovers became the glutinous rice. Even if nothing was wrapped in it, it was still very fragrant, both fragrant and sticky. She and Zhou Su, who were standing by the pot, didn't know how many they ate.
Zhou Suli's belly was swollen from eating so much, while Li Lai and his two younger brothers had been going crazy along with the other children from several other families.
The old man came in later, and while Zhou Guo was eating, he did not forget to make one for him as well. The old man and two children hid in the house and ate glutinous rice balls.
Zhou Xing came in and saw her eating non-stop by the stove. She smiled and said, "Based on your appetite, this bucket is not enough for you. You should go out and get some sticky rice. I think they are all tired."
Zhou Guo went out burping. Glutinous rice is still more filling than rice. He only ate a few of them but he felt full.
Zhou Xing didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "It's only been a short while since you had breakfast, of course you feel full. I was worried that you guys were stuffed. Look at Xiao Su's belly, it's so round, how much did you give him to eat?"
Zhou Guo thought for a moment and said, "There aren't that many. There are probably only about eighty or ninety of them. They're not very big, just this big of a dumpling."
He even stretched out his hand and gestured.
When Wang Fugui saw her, he waved at her, "Guoguo, come quickly, your uncle Sanyuan is not strong enough, he can't swing it after just a few hits, come, let's do it together."
Zhou Guo walked over, took the wooden hammer from their hands, and started hammering with Wang Fugui on the opposite side.
After beating for half an hour, the glutinous rice in the mortar had been replaced twice. Wang Fugui panted and waved his hands, "No, no, I have to take a break."
Zhou Guo nodded, "Uncle Fugui, you take a rest, I will try it alone."
As he spoke, a man really started swinging a wooden hammer rhythmically. Wang Fugui said, "How can I let you fight alone? Sanyuan, you should have some sense and come to take it. How can a grown man stand there like that?"
"Oh, Uncle Fugui, you can't say that. We, Sanyuan, started working as soon as we arrived. We have been busy all morning. It's been our turn so many times. Guoguo is a girl with plenty of strength. This little bit of hard work is like tickling her. You should let her do it, otherwise the little girl will have no place to use her strength and will run away, so as not to cause any trouble."
Zhou Sanyuan's wife had a shrill and thin voice, and she was somewhat unhappy when she saw Wang Fugui ordering her husband to do work.
Li was even more unhappy, but she didn't show it on her face. She smiled and said, "Yes, you said that this early in the morning, except for a few children, our family has been busy running around without a break. People who don't know would think that all this glutinous rice belongs to our family, Sanyuan's family. I remember that you have always been frugal, so why did you buy so much glutinous rice this time, more than ours and his uncle Fugui's family combined? Are you planning to only eat glutinous rice cakes next year and save on everything else?"
When the bystanders heard this, they said, "That's right. I'm not saying anything bad about you. Your family makes so many glutinous rice cakes, but only two of you came. Look at us, every family has three or four of us. It's the off-season now, so everyone has nothing to do. Otherwise, if it were a normal day, you would have to return the work to everyone. You can't take advantage of us like this."
Zhou Sanyuan's face flushed red, and he shouted loudly, "I, we don't have enough manpower at home, so why don't you help us? The children and grandma are not feeling well, so they are resting at home. As a daughter-in-law, I can't ask my parents-in-law to work when they are sick. My brother-in-law is unstable and went out early in the morning. I don't know where he went crazy. My sister-in-law still has to take care of my parents-in-law. What can I do? My whole family is incompetent. If I don't think of ways to save some money, they will squander it all."
Everyone thought of their family's previous situation. In winter, the whole family only wore one set of thick clothes, and whoever went out had to wear that thick coat. Everyone else stayed on the kang all day, huddled in the quilt.
I don't know who my brother-in-law got involved with, but he got addicted to gambling and the only two acres of land in the family were mortgaged. My sister-in-law is not an easy person to get along with either, and we often quarrel, but my parents-in-law protect her.
Thinking of this, Li's anger subsided. Never mind, it would be better for them to try not to work together in the future.
He turned to Zhou Guo and said, "Guo Guo, come here, give your hoe to Brother Cheng, and you come and press down the table."
"Oh, here it comes." Zhou Guo handed the hoe to Zhou Cheng who was standing beside him, "Mom, what do you want me to do?"
Li pointed to another table above the table and said, "Pick up this big stone and roll it around to press down the dumplings below."
This was easy. Zhou Guo easily picked up a huge rock that required the combined strength of four women to lift, and placed it on the table.
I pressed the big stone back and forth several times before I was done.
It's cold at this time, so if you press it for a while, the glutinous rice cake will become cold and hard, and you can pick it up and put it in the jar.
Zhou Guo found this job and spent the whole day in front of these tables, pressing this and that. When he had nothing to do, he would go into the house and grab some glutinous rice balls to eat.
Zhou Gu has been assigned the job of making glutinous rice cakes. Boys of this age are already half an adult, and when they get married, they will be a full adult. They have already started doing this kind of work in the village, and they can even go to the fields and pull the plow.