Make a Fortune and Become Well-off [90] - Chapter 24

Jiang Ning replied silently, “It’s clam chili sauce.” She then proceeded to explain to Father Jiang how to make clam chili sauce.

Only then did Mother Jiang realize that the river clams and snails she had picked in the morning were gone. Father Jiang patted his thigh, saying “Oh my goodness, these river clams taste so delicious.”

Almost universally, the mention of river clams evoked the impression of a fishy taste, which had already become an established notion.

After all, in those days, there was no money to buy cooking wine to remove the fishy smell. They cooked it all in one pot with a little coarse salt.

Father Jiang’s eyes sparkled. “Show me the snail chili sauce you made.”

Jiang Ning fetched a bottle of snail meat chili sauce and handed it to him.

Father Jiang opened the lid and sampled it with a chopstick. “This snail can actually be used to make sauce,” he exclaimed, clearly delighted by the taste.

Mother Jiang wanted to try, but she remained cold-faced and declined. Father Jiang poured some into her bowl, but she recoiled in disgust. “Don’t give it to me. I don’t want to eat this stuff. It’s not like I have nothing to eat so I’ll eat something like this.”

She transferred it back to Father Jiang. Since it was sauce, she couldn’t transfer it all with chopsticks, so she frowned and resumed eating.

The sauce tasted surprisingly good.

Father Jiang remarked, “I’ll make some later and sell them in town to see if anyone will buy them.”

Mother Jiang frowned disdainfully. “These crappy things are everywhere in the fields. Whoever has money will not buy this thing. Don’t even think about it.”

Father Jiang said unhappily, “How do you know it can’t be sold before we try? Anyway, this thing isn’t worth anything. There are plenty of them at the hydropower station. If we can’t sell it, we might as well eat it ourselves.” Turning to Jiang Ning, he added, “If it isn’t sold, I can give it to Ning Ning and Jiang Bai. It’s more or less considered meat.”

“If you want to do it, don’t look for me. There’s still so much work to do in the fields. You’ll be selling these useless things all day long.”

After Mother Jiang finished eating the noodles, she went back to her room to watch TV.

Jiang Ning suggested, “If you want to sell them, it’s best to keep the snails for two more days to spit out the mud.”

Father Jiang then realized that the river clams and snails she picked up in the morning were made into sauce in the afternoon. “Why didn’t you raise them for two more days?”

Jiang Ning explained, “There is no place to keep them. We only have a bathtub, and we need it at home.”

That was indeed a problem. Father Jiang frowned. If he wanted to make snail sauce, he must have some basin to raise them.

It was definitely too late to pick the snails. It was so dark in the countryside at night, and he had been tired all day and needed to rest.

Father Jiang and Mother Jiang didn’t watch TV for a long time. After watching the weather forecast, they fell asleep.

Mother Jiang had to get up early in the morning and go back to her parents’ house to deliver fish to her siblings.

After a whole day of catching them, there were very few fish on the river, but there were still many people fishing there the next day, mostly young children, but also a few adults.

Even after catching a lot of fish, there would still not be many fresh fish to eat at home. All live fish were taken to the town to be sold. Only the dead fish would be kept. People could either eat them at home or pickle them and dry them. Dried fish could be eaten when guests come to the house or during the New Year.

Father Jiang got up before dawn to catch crayfish, and Mother Jiang got up early too. As soon as the sky turned a little blue, she got up and went over to call Jiang Ning to get up. Unexpectedly, she had locked the door from inside.

She knocked on the door and said, “Get up and marinate the fish. It will stink if you don’t marinate it.”

Not every fish brought back was still alive. Some died during the day, and some died the previous night.

It was so noisy that Jiang Ning couldn’t sleep anymore and got up to wash up.

After a while, Father Jiang came back with a bucket of crayfish. He took a brush to the pond to wash the crayfish. He was afraid that he would not be able to catch the boat to town, so he called Jiang Ning to come over and clean the crayfish with him.

One of them washed the crayfish, and the other removed the heads and threads from the crayfish. After which they hurriedly cooked the spicy crayfish.

Jiang Ning cut a lot of cucumber strips, green peppers, and garlic leaves for him and mixed them in. “When someone buys crayfish, you give them some cucumber strips and green peppers. The soup is also free. If no one buys it, go to my aunt’s house to borrow a few bowls and give them a taste. If they taste them and know they taste good, someone will buy them.”

“Okay, I know,” Father Jiang said with a smile. “I have to go, I won’t be able to catch the boat in a while.”

He picked up the wooden bucket containing crayfish, closed the lid, grabbed two large plastic buckets of fish, and hurried away.

Jiang Ning quickly brought a jar of snail sauce to Father Jiang. “Deliver it to my aunt for me.”

Jiang Ning had been in junior high school for three years. When she was very hungry, she often ran to her aunt’s house and had a good meal there. Her aunt lived with her parents-in-law, so her arrival caused a lot of inconvenience to her aunt.

Father Jiang had no hands free to hold it, and he was very embarrassed.

Jiang Ning followed him and took the bucket from his hand. “I’ll take it to the boat for you.”

In fact, she wanted to go with him. She had hidden a lot of crayfish on the mountain.

When passing by the rice field, Father Jiang pulled some straw, quickly twisted a straw rope, tied it to the mouth of the bottle, and then waved her away. “Go back, school will start in a few days. Hurry back and read more books.”

When she got home, Mother Jiang was already gone.

Seeing that it was still early, Jiang Ning put on her hat and got up to pick long cowpeas in the field.

These were the dishes she would eat after going to school.

There was food in the school cafeteria, but the food stamps her family got by exchanging thirty kilograms of rice were not enough at all. She had to buy more food; otherwise, she would not have enough to eat.

The sauerkraut, beans, and radishes pickled by Mother Jiang and Grandpa Jiang were so bad.

Growing up, the sour cowpeas she ate were always crisp and tangy. Only their beans were soft and bitter, with a color that was particularly striking.

Jiang Ning had tried he black and gray pickled beans.

Grandpa Jiang also loved these bitter, fermented sauerkraut and radishes. It didn’t bother him; he found them very fragrant and flavorful when roasted in rapeseed oil.