Chapter 5
At the door of the blacksmith's shop, Li Yao ran into Da Zhuang.
"Mother," Da Zhuang said, "Prices have risen sharply. A catty of flour costs 12 wen, and a catty of rice costs 15 wen. I only dared to buy 10 catties each."
"It's okay," Li Yao said.
Prices will continue to rise later on.
"I didn't buy any meat either," Da Zhuang said. "Pork belly is too expensive."
In ancient times, fatty meat was the most expensive. Now, a catty costs 40 wen!
Lean meat, pork ribs, and pork legs are a bit cheaper, while pork offal and bones are the cheapest, almost half-priced.
Li Yao went to a pork stand and saw that the entire pork offal hadn't been sold out at all, totaling 25 catties. After some bargaining, she took it all for only 80 wen, which worked out to just 3.2 wen per catty.
She spent 20 wen to take all the bones that were picked off.
She also bought a pair of straw sandals for each person.
Although it wasn't winter yet, mornings and nights were getting cold. Wearing straw sandals was better than going barefoot.
After selling 800 wen worth of herbs, she only had over a dozen copper coins left. Li Yao gave them all to Da Zhuang to hold on to.
"From now on, you'll be in charge of handling petty cash for the family," she said.
"Oh!" Da Zhuang happily accepted the coins.
Although he wasn't managing the whole family, at least Mother had started letting him manage money!
"Mother, why did we buy so much pork offal?" Da Zhuang asked in puzzlement on the way home. "That stuff stinks badly and doesn't taste good either."
"What do you know?" Li Yao said.
It's not that it doesn't taste good, it's just that you don't know how to prepare it.
She had just picked enough spices yesterday and planned to try making stewed meat.
After a simple lunch at home, the family started cleaning the pork offal together.
They washed it repeatedly with warm water, soaked it in ginger, scallion and salt water for at least two hours, then blanched it.
At the same time, bone broth was being simmered in a pot.
When the ingredients were ready and the bone broth simmered into a milky white color with a slight fragrance, the spices were stir-fried briefly and poured into the broth, along with oil, lots of scallions, ginger, salt, soy sauce and brown sugar for color. It was brought to a boil then the pork offal was added. After another boil, it was turned down to a simmer until thoroughly cooked, then left to stew with the heat off.
Once the flavors had fully penetrated, the meat was taken out to drain and brush with oil from the surface of the stew, giving it a brighter, more appetizing color.
"Mother," He Xiaoya had been watching the entire time, amazed. "Where did you learn to make it this way?"
"You didn't know I could cook just because you hadn't seen me do it before?" Li Yao said. "Today I'm showing you a thing or two, so watch carefully."
"Oh!" He Xiaoya understood that Mother had kept her skills hidden.
Besides meat, stew also needed vegetables. But the only things readily available at the market this season were cabbage and radish.
Li Yao scooped out most of the stewing liquid into another container to use as the stock base next time. She cut up some radishes and cabbage to simmer gently in the remaining liquid until completely tender and absorped in flavor.
She also shredded some radish as a refreshing, palate-cleansing side dish. Once He Xiaoya had the steamed buns ready, the family sat down together for dinner.
The children had never seen such fragrantly flavorful dishes before. Not only was the meat tender and tasty, even the radish and cabbage had fully absorbed the complex flavors, making them taste as good as the meat.
It was nothing like the boiled pork offal they had eaten before! Dipping the hot, soft steamed buns into the oily broth and pairing it with the crisp, sour-sweet shredded radish was absolute bliss.
"Mother, the stew is so delicious! Even better than roast chicken!"
"Mother is so skilled."
Li Yao once again received admiring looks.
"Let's sell the stew at the market," Li Yao said, "along with rice and steamed buns."
The children's eyes lit up simultaneously.
Something so fragrant and tasty that required so little capital would surely sell very well and make money!
"Mother!" Da Zhuang was getting excited already. "I think it's a great idea!"
"We'll help out too!"
"Then it's decided. You guys prepare at home tomorrow while I go dig up more herbs for capital."
...
After telling He Xiaoya to properly preserve the stewing liquid, Li Yao headed into the mountains again with a cleaver.
This time, she prepared a long rope to make descending and ascending the mountain valley much easier, leaving her more time to gather spices and dig herbs.
With experience now, she directly skipped herbs of low value and focused on digging expensive ones.
After a whole day, she filled up a entire basket.
When selling to the herb shop again, the shopkeeper was greatly surprised.
He had never seen anyone able to dig up so many quality, mature herbs in just two days, and was secretly delighted.
"The total this time is 1,500 wen," he said.
Li Yao frowned and picked up her basket to leave.
Did he think she was some village woman to be easily fooled?
"Hey, don't go!" The shopkeeper couldn't bear to lose so many premium herbs and hurried out from behind the counter. "The price is negotiable! Negotiable!"
"Three taels of silver. Otherwise I'll sell to someone else."
"I've never seen someone bargain so skillfully before!" Three taels of silver was the fair price, so the shopkeeper agreed without much hesitation. "You must sell your herbs to me in the future."
Three taels of silver was 3,000 wen.
An official laborer could only earn that much in a whole year, so it was quite a substantial amount of wealth.
But there were still many things to buy.
Ensuring adequate rice, flour, oil, salt, sauce...fulfilling the basic living needs of the family was the priority.
Pork offal, some spices, an iron pot, stove, table, bowls and chopsticks, steamer, and more rope. She also bought the best cleaver from town.
After another round of spending, only a few dozen copper coins were left, not enough for a cart for now.
With all the items purchased and the family working together to wash, stew, and steam buns...
By dusk, everything was ready except the rice, which had to be cooked early next morning.
Because it used the original stewing liquid, this batch came out even more flavorful, with more umami and stew fragrance and less bitterness and herbal taste from the spices. As long as the stew liquid was preserved properly, it would only get more delicious over time.
"Mother," Da Zhuang suddenly remembered, "I have to go borrow a cart from Grandma."
Li Yao scooped a bowl of pork offal, ladled two spoonfuls of the stew sauce over it, and told He Xiaoya to pick ten steamed buns for Da Zhuang to bring as well.
One should not visit empty-handed when borrowing things from others.
...
It was almost dark.
Li Yao's mother-in-law, Wang Xue Shi, was making flatbreads with wild vegetables and buckwheat noodles.
"Grandma!" Da Zhuang walked into the yard. "I wanted to borrow..."
"We don't have any," Wang Xue Shi didn't even lift her head, rejecting him outright. "Go back and tell your mother to borrow from her own parents if she wants to borrow food. We have nothing to eat here either."
Da Zhuang quickly clarified, "It's not to borrow food, Grandma, but to borrow a cart."
Only then did Wang Xue Shi look up to see him holding a bunch of items, and asked, "What have you brought?"
"Oh," Da Zhuang set the things down on the table, "these are some food that Mother wanted me to bring for you."
"Her? Being so kind?"
Wang Xue Shi was skeptical, but when she uncovered the cloth over the basket, she was stunned.
Good heavens, so many steamed buns!
And they were so big and white, clearly made with pure refined flour!
There was also a bowl of meat!
She had never smelled anything like this aroma in her life!
"Where did this come from?"
"Mother went into the mountains to dig herbs and sold some these past two days..." Da Zhuang explained.
"Wasting money as soon as she earned some? Not even thinking of saving it for your Second Brother to get married? Acting like she's rich just because she birthed four sons, even daring to eat white flour buns!"
"It's not like that, Grandma. We're planning to sell food at the market in town."
"She can even run a business? Don't lose your pants gambling it all away!"
Da Zhuang didn't want to argue further with her. "So Grandma, about the cart..."
"Take it, take it."
Da Zhuang was overjoyed. Mother was right, bringing a little something made borrowing the cart much smoother.
"Alright, I'll take it away then."
After Da Zhuang left, Wang Xue Shi put away the steamed buns and stew. That bowl of pork offal did smell appetizing, and she couldn't help salivating.
"Sister-in-Law even went to dig herbs and is thinking of doing business, borrowing things without showing up empty-handed," Da Zhuang's second sister-in-law Zhou said. "Looks like she also knows she should live properly now."
"Who knows what she's scheming?" The third sister-in-law immediately followed. "She probably really can't get by and wants to return to her maiden home. So she's buttering up to us in advance..."
"Shut up if you've got nothing to say!" Wang Xue Shi yelled when she heard this. "The eldest daughter-in-law sent over some food, and even that offends you? Go chop grass to feed the pigs!"
The third sister-in-law Shen pouted and quickly buried her head in chopping grass.
Mother-in-Law scolded harshly to their faces, but still spoke up for Eldest Sister-in-Law behind her back. Her heart was clearly biased toward the Liu Family Bay!
Just because Eldest Sister-in-Law had birthed four sons!
What's the big deal.
If it wasn't for Zhao Laosan working year-round as a docker at the Yizhou pier, and was never home, she wouldn't have had eight!