It was not possible to cook with fire every day at home. In order to save firewood, they steamed cornmeal or baked cakes with kaoliang flour for five or six days in hot days and half a month in cold days.
The so-called meal was to take out a piece of salted vegetable from the salted vegetable tank without washing or cutting it. He would grab a corn (or kaoliang) cake (or cornbread) with his other hand, squat in the yard, take a bite of dry food, eat a bite of salted vegetables, and then take a ladle from the water tank to drink a few mouthfuls of cold water.
When it was too cold in winter, he would be more serious about eating. He would cook some millet porridge, which was actually as thin as rice soup, and then put the bread in the pot to heat it up.
At that time, agricultural technology was backward, and most of the land was saline-alkalized, so the grain production was very low. Only 200 to 300 catties of wheat were harvested per mu of land, and the grain harvested was not enough for farmers to eat for a year.
The yield of sweet potatoes was high, so the villagers planted many sweet potatoes. Every household had to eat dried sweet potatoes (slices) for a few months a year. During the sweet potato harvest season, the freshly dug sweet potatoes were cut into pieces, scattered in the ground to dry, and then collected and stored. If the dried sweet potatoes were to be dried on a rainy day, the sweet potato slices would become moldy and bitter (poisonous).
The wheat and miscellaneous grains had to be prepared to be handed over to the government's public grain first. The public grain did not accept sweet potato slices, so the farmers could only eat the sweet potato slices themselves.
As long as it was edible, people would keep it. When harvesting sweet potatoes, the old sweet potato vines were all chopped up and dried, and they were stored away until the spring when the food supply was insufficient.
During the lean season, every family would drink mixed porridge, which was made of sweet potato flour, cornflour, sweet potato vines, or other dried vegetables. The color of the cooked porridge was black, the smell was unpleasant, and it was difficult to swallow.
People ate cottonseed oil, and even cottonseed oil was precious. Although the village also grew beans, no one was willing to use beans to extract oil. At most, they would fry the soybeans and grind them into powder. When cooking porridge, they would stir a spoonful of cooked soybean powder in the pot as oil.
Afraid of spoiling the food, I had to lick the bottom of the bowl clean every time I finished the porridge. When I was young, I was often scolded for not licking the bowl.
Eating meat was a rare thing for Dafutun, and pork was even rarer. No one raised pigs, because feeding pigs required food, and food was related to the lives of a family.
The villagers would raise some sheep. The sheep only ate grass and did not need to be fed with food. In winter, they would kill a sheep and hang the mutton under the edge of the house to freeze it. This was to remove the smell of mutton. When the New Year came, they would wrap the mutton into dumplings and eat it.
The yield of wheat was too low. The villagers were usually reluctant to eat white flour, steamed buns, and noodles. They had to save the flour and use it to mix with miscellaneous grains and sweet potato noodles. Because the miscellaneous grains were rough and difficult to swallow, mixing some flour would make the miscellaneous grains taste smoother.
Only when the wheat was harvested would they take the opportunity to eat white noodles. Other times, they would eat noodles mixed with miscellaneous grain noodles. Even the skin used to make dumplings during the New Year had to be mixed with miscellaneous grain noodles. It was rare to eat dumplings made of pure white flour.
Grains were usually ground into grits to be eaten. However, there were no machines in the village at that time to grind them. They could only rely on the grinders and rollers of a few large families. The grinders and rollers of these families were busy day and night. In order to use the mill, my mother accompanied her with a smile and went from house to house, saying good things to the mill owner's family. It was often late at night before she could use it. Many times, she waited for the people in front of her to finish using the mill. The chicken had already crowed twice. Don't mention how tired she was. My brother and I pushed the mill while sleeping. As we walked, we fell on the grinding path.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。