Volume 1: Reborn in the 1980s, selling lunch boxes with my mother Chapter 81 The Disfavored Uncle
In the evening, Jiang Tian told Hu Qiongfang about digging a pond, and Hu Qiongfang was also somewhat interested.
She had been to the provincial road to sell loaches and eels. When she was selling them, she felt that fifty cents per pound of loaches was really cheap. But if she had to spend one dollar herself to buy two pounds of loaches to improve her diet, she would definitely feel painful.
If you live in the village, you can save this dollar.
Want to eat loach?
I put down a few cages the night before, and when I collected the river fish the next morning, I couldn’t finish eating them all.
When she was planting rice seedlings in the past, she often saw loaches in the rice fields, but she was too lazy to catch them. Only when she saw particularly large ones would she catch them and throw them into a bucket, and then bring them back to cook for the children.
I don’t dare to make it often because loach consumes a lot of oil and my mother-in-law will definitely scold me when she sees it.
My daughter told me that the ditch behind the new house was dug by the family behind it. They used it for their own use and no one cared about it. Hu Qiongfang thought about it, nodded and said:
"If they can dig a ditch, there must be running water that can be brought over. We don't have to go through the trouble of choosing another place. We can just pick a piece of land at the back and dig a small pond next to the ditch. We can catch some fish and shrimp and put them in the pond. It will be convenient for us to eat at home."
Jiang Cheng took a few bites of rice, waited for his mother and sister to finish talking, and then added: "Then our family must build a fence to enclose this small fish pond, otherwise the family behind will definitely claim that this fish pond also has their share."
Jiang Tian was really impressed.
This kid must have at least eight hundred tricks up his sleeve, right?
Unexpectedly, Hu Cuizhi thought that what the boy said was very right. She also told Hu Qiongfang to find someone to dig a fish pond first, and then she would go to the mountain to help cut some bamboo. There was no need to carefully weave a fence or something, as long as they stuck bamboo in the ground to form a circle, others would naturally know that the fish pond belonged to someone.
The next morning, Hu Qiongfang took a ride to the new house. She first went to the town to buy a coal stove and tin bucket for making lunch boxes, as well as a large aluminum pot for cooking. She carried the poles to the construction site and saw that the foundation of the new house had already been dug.
The eldest and second brothers brought a few rolls of reed mats from home and set up two sheds in front.
One room was used for living. The two brothers took turns living here at night to prevent someone from stealing bricks, cement and other things.
A double-eye earthen stove has been built in the other room. All we have to do is wait for the yellow mud to dry up so that we can buy two iron pots and install them on it to cook.
Although coal briquette stoves can also be used for cooking.
But rural people are used to being frugal. When they can use earthen stoves to burn firewood, who would be willing to buy coal briquettes to burn?
After all, it doesn't cost money to go up the mountain to chop firewood. At most, you can borrow a tractor to pull the firewood over, which costs some gas, but it is much cheaper than buying coal briquettes.
The girl has two children and life is already difficult. It is not easy to run a small business either. Of course, she will try to save as much money as possible.
While her mother was shopping in town, Jiang Tian was not idle either.
She gathered together the existing ingredients at home and calculated which ones she would need to set up a stall to sell boxed lunches .
These are things I learned on the construction site in my previous life.
In his previous life, the chef of their construction site canteen was the kind of person who "never stood up if he could lie down". Others were afraid that their apprentices would starve to death, but he was so anxious to teach his apprentice Jiang Tian, and then he lay down to rest.
The construction site boss thought that the canteen had always been managed by the chef, and he never expected that later all the affairs in the canteen, big and small, were managed by Jiang Tian alone.
Therefore, Jiang Tian’s calculation of how many people will eat on the construction site every day and how much food to purchase might be more accurate than that of the chef.
Last year, my family made bacon. We ate a few strips of it while harvesting rice, and there are still seven strips of bacon and two hams left. So we don’t have to spend money on bacon for the time being.
There are quite a lot of dishes that can be cooked with bacon in this season, such as fried green peppers, fried potato chips, fried beans, fried lentils, fried wild rice stems... These can all be considered as side dishes, and they contain meat, so it is not shameful to use them to entertain workers.
We still have a few large blue carps that were dried last year, as well as dried loaches, dried shrimps, and smoked small fish that were dried this year, which can also be made into a dish.
Cut the pickled dried herring into pieces and soak them in warm water for two hours. Add a few spoonfuls of fermented black beans and chopped chili peppers and cook them together. It is especially delicious with rice.
Dried loach, dried shrimp and dried small fish are also good things. They can be steamed together with dried tofu and can be regarded as a dish to go with rice.
There are still a lot of fresh vegetables in the vegetable garden. Workers of this era are not too picky about food when they go out to work. For a meal, one meat dish, one side dish, and two vegetarian dishes are already considered a very good meal.
If you are a bit stingy, you can get some lard, boil the lard residue, stew it with a pot of Chinese cabbage, steam a pot of steamed buns, and stir-fry some pickles with rapeseed oil, and you can have a meal.
However, the lunch boxes that Jiang Tian prepared were not only for her own workers, but she also planned to use them to sell meals at a stall, so the food certainly couldn't be too bad.
Jiang Tian tore a piece of paper from an old exercise book and listed the menu for the next three days.
On the first day of opening, I steamed two pots of corn rice, made a dish of stir-fried bacon with green peppers, a dish of stir-fried dried fish with fermented black beans, a dish of stir-fried cabbage, and a dish of stir-fried edamame with pickles.
The next day, depending on the customers' reactions, if not many wanted to eat corn rice, we would change it to rice and steamed buns . The four dishes remained: bacon and green peppers, stir-fried lentil shreds, steamed fish with tofu, and steamed eggplant with garlic.
On the third day, we can basically determine what staple food the guests like to eat, and replace the staple food with what the guests like. There are still four dishes: fried potato slices with bacon, steamed dried fish, shredded wild rice and pork, and fried sour beans with dried peppers.
The locals, especially those who work, don't like to drink soup when they eat. Jiang Tian thought about it and decided to boil a bucket of herbal tea and give a jar of herbal tea to anyone who comes to her house to buy a lunch box.
Before, she saw other people’s lunch boxes sold on the provincial road. The food standard was much worse than theirs, and the price was also cheaper. Jiang Tian squatted beside them and observed. Their lunch boxes were mainly sold to people who worked nearby.
Jiang Tian didn't want to compete with them for business, so she targeted the buses coming and going near the provincial highway.
In this era, people who can afford to travel around by bus are mostly willing to spend money on food.
If the price difference is a few cents, they should be willing to spend a few more cents and come to their house to eat this box lunch with two meat and two vegetable dishes, right?
That evening, Jiang Tian had just packed the food and vegetables for the stall when she heard the sound of a tractor coming from the door. She ran out to see that it was indeed her second uncle.
Hu Jianjun helped to carry the things into the car. Just as he was about to leave, he was stopped by Jiang Tian, who stuffed an enamel rice bowl into his hand.
"Second uncle, I made some braised tea eggs for you and first uncle, as well as braised dried tofu and braised bean curd sheets. Eat them when you're hungry tonight."
After saying that, he ran back to the kitchen, got a small basket, filled it with more than twenty pure white flour buns, and covered them with a layer of cage cloth.
The two uncles worked tirelessly to help their family build a house. They had to live on the construction site at night for fear of people stealing things. Jiang Tian could do nothing but prepare some "midnight snacks" for the uncles.
Hu Jianjun stuffed the enamel rice bowl into his bag and went back to brag to his elder brother:
"Tiantian made me a braised tea egg!"
"Brother, do you want to eat? I'll give you some~"
Hu Jianguo: “…”
Could it be that he, the uncle, fell out of favor so quickly?
