After breakfast, everyone went their own way.

Since then, I got up at 6 a.m. every morning and taught my grandfather to practice tai chi for half an hour, and then asked my younger brother to get up and practice martial arts for half an hour. Before you know it, time has passed quietly.

As time went by, the dawn became later and later, and the time to wake up in the morning was delayed by half an hour, and then half an hour.

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, the New Year is coming.

Because of the Chinese New Year, every household has to kill pigs, and there are only a few pig killers in the village, so they are all lined up. After Laba, the Chen family began to kill the New Year's pigs.

On the tenth day of the lunar month, it was Xiaoxi's turn to kill pigs on this day. As early as the beginning of the lunar month, three of the four fat pigs in the two circles of Xiaoxi's family have been sold, leaving the fattest one to be killed for their own food.

On the first day, Xiaoxi's family packed up everything they needed for the next day. The waist basin (waist basin is a wooden barrel with a height of one meter and a length of one meter and a half meters and an oval shape. Because it is a necessary tool for soup pigs, so every household has) full of blisters, because the waist basin is generally only used once a year, it is inevitable that it will be weathered and damaged, this soak waist basin, one is that the wood will rise after soaking in water, it will be stronger than dry wood, dry wood is brittle, if you add water soup pig directly tomorrow, it is possible for the waist basin to be directly fragmented, and the second is to check whether the waist basin is leaking or not, so as to repair it in time.

I found a board to use for cutting meat, cleaned it and dried it. The pigs were killed the next day, so the pigs were not fed at night.

Early in the morning of the eleventh day of the Lunar New Year, after breakfast, Chen's mother began to fill the cauldron in the middle and inside with water and boil it.

Because every family kills pigs, they have to line up several families a day. Today, one end of Xiaoxi's family and one end of Zhao Juan's family are lined up, the second mother-in-law and her cousin kill one together, and the eldest mother-in-law is only one person in the family, so she is ready to buy a few dozen catties in Zhao Juan's house, and Zhao Juan's family only has four grandchildren.

Because Xiaoxi's family killed the pig first, so early in the morning, several families came to help, and about 20 people stood on the dam in a courtyard, which was lively.

When the pig slayer came, the water was already boiling. beckoned his cousin, grandfather, grandfather, and second master to go to the pigsty to drive the pigs out. Knowing that he was going to be slaughtered, the fat pig screamed all the way in extreme misery.

A few people drove the pigs into the yard, and the grandfather saw that a few children were still standing aside, and he was afraid of scaring them, so he drove them to the stove room, which was the most marginal room, and asked the mother-in-law to watch a few children, and not to run to the head of the yard to join in the fun.

Seeing that the pig was panting, several people quickly pressed the pig to the ground, and the pig killer took out his tools - a sharp knife into the pig's neck, a white knife into the red knife out, and quickly put the clean iron basin prepared on the side to catch the pig's blood. The big fat pig who was stabbed with a knife knew that his life was short, so he struggled vigorously and got the pig's blood all over the ground.

When the blood was almost gone, and the pig was out of gas, the mother-in-law took the pig's blood back to the stove on the side of the new house (in the future, my father's house will be called the new house), put the basin on the board, put an appropriate amount of salt in it, stirred well, and found a pot lid to cover it to prevent dust from falling in.

Granny Chen hurriedly boiled the pot, ready to get the pig's blood out, and it was not good to leave it for a long time. After boiling the pot of water, the coagulated pig blood is cut into pieces with a kitchen knife, and then put it into the pot to cook it old, and then scoop it up and put it in a basin of cold water, so that the boiled old pig blood is easy to store.

After pumping the iron basin, the pig killer cut a small hole on the wrist of the two rear pig's trotters of the big fat pig, and then blew it with his cheeks, and when the whole pig body was blown up, he tied the cut with hemp rope to prevent gas from overflowing.

Chen's mother saw that they had almost finished making it, and the water had already been boiled, so she asked a few men to carry the waist basin into the yard dam, and then began to scoop boiling water into it.

It's not that boiling water is good for soup pigs, the water is too hot, it will scald off the pig skin, the water is cold, and the hair is not clean, so the control of water temperature is also a technical job for pig killers.

Chen's mother couldn't grasp the water temperature well, and after a few buckets of cold water went in, she said to the pig killer who was busy next to her: "Master, come and take a look, this water temperature is okay, no, I'm adding." ”

The master came over to check the temperature of the water and said, "Add some cold water, it's still a little hot." ”

The soup pig pays attention to the fact that the water temperature should be low at the beginning, so that the pig skin can adapt to it, and then heat the water inside.

When the master said that the water temperature was right, Chen's mother went back to the kitchen and brought two buckets of boiling water next to the waist basin, and added water later.

Several men worked together to lift the big fat pig of more than 200 catties into the waist basin. From time to time, the master turned over the pig's body and scalded every part of it with hot water, and then scooped a few scoops of boiling water into it, scalded it for a while, and took out a "shovel" from the tool bag, not the kind of shovel that shovels the ground. It was iron, shaped like an axe, but unopened, and blunt. shoveled, and felt that it was okay, so he beckoned a few people to start shoveling pig hair.

The men each took a "shovel", rolled up their sleeves and got busy. After all, it was the water of the soup pig, which was a little hot, so Chen's mother brought a basin of cold water and asked them to pass the cold water from time to time to avoid scalding.

After the pig hair was shoveled, several people went to the street (gai, the first sound) and began to prepare.

The middle of the street is a kind of name for the creek here, and it is such a sound. The middle of the street is one level higher than the courtyard dam, between the earthen wall of the house and the courtyard dam, and it is also blocked by tiles. Every house has a street, but the width is different, and the street center of the new house is three meters wide. Because the front eaves were too deep, the beams could not support it at all, so they were supported by pillars, and several square pillars made of fire bricks stood straight on the middle of the street. Like the inside of the house, the second floor was framed with sturdy wood and then covered with wooden boards, which was very practical for drying corn.

The frame of the second floor is made of whole wood, directly embedded in the earthen walls and columns, and it is very strong.

Because the hall is close to the drainage ditch, the ditch is used to drain rainwater, and it hasn't rained for a long time, so the ditch is dry at this time. And it's the outermost part, so it's easy to clean up, so it's right here to cut the pigs.

Two iron hooks were tied to the horizontal wood on the second floor with thick hemp rope, and several people worked together to hang the pig's head upside down and hook the pig's leg with the iron hook.

The pig's head was cut off and put into an iron basin, and then the master began to disembowel. Cut it from the middle of the pig's body and put a large iron basin underneath it to prevent the pig's internal organs from sticking to the soil. Take off the pig's internal organs, put the pig's intestines in a basin, put the pig's heart, liver and lungs in another basin, and throw some that can't be eaten directly into the drainage ditch on the side. The dogs who came with the smell of meat went to the side to open meat together.

After the internal organs were removed, only two clean pork and four pork legs were left on the iron hook.

After the master saw that Granny Chen had simply cleaned the board, he unloaded a fan of pork and carried it to the board with Grandpa Chen. "Sharpen the knife Huohuo to the pig and sheep", sharpen the knife with a whetstone, first remove the pork leg, and then separate the net meat from the ribs, all cut into pieces, three or four pounds of size, convenient for pickling, drying, and storage.

After the pork is cut and filled with two large panaches, the pig killer begins to clean the pig intestines, only roughly washing. Turn the pork intestines over with an iron rod and roughly clean the food residue inside.

At this point, the pigs of the Xiaoxi family were ready, and everyone sat down, smoked a cigarette and rested, and then rushed to the next house. Grandpa Chen went to help, and the two children also went to join in the fun, leaving Chen's mother and mother-in-law to clean up the house.

After cleaning the waist basin and cutting board, and cleaning the pig hair and pig blood on the ground, the two began to clean up the pork.

Pour the pork from the pan into a large basin and remove the ribs and pork legs. Roughly according to the standard of one pound of pork and one tael of salt, the salt is evenly spread on the pork, and then a hole is poked in the meat skin with scissors, tied with hemp rope buckles, and the ribs and pork legs are also marinated according to law.

There are two tree stumps in the yard, tied with iron wires, which are used to dry clothes. As soon as the hemp rope is buckled around the iron wire, and the small wooden stick is parted, the pork tied with the hemp rope is hung on the iron wire, and it is dried for two days, and then hung on the second floor of the ventilation, and it is not a problem to store it for a year or two.

After cleaning the pot and the pan and leaving it in the yard to dry, it was almost lunch time, and Granny Chen hurriedly cooked the pot.

Chen's mother went to the vegetable garden to pull a handful of garlic seedlings and came back to pick them, clean them and cut them into sections. Scooped up a blanched piece of fresh meat about two catties of fat and thin, sliced it sharply, and fished out a piece of pig blood slices.

Pour in rapeseed oil, wait for the oil to be hot, put in Sichuan pepper, ginger shreds and chili sauce and fry until fragrant, then put in fresh pork and stir-fry, the oil is almost cooked, pour in the pig's blood and stir-fry for a while, pour in the garlic seedlings, put in the seasoning, stir-fry twice with a spatula and get out of the pot.

Because it was not early, the pig soup was just removed and hung up, and Xiaoxi, Chen Yubin and Grandpa came back for lunch. The fragrant pork fried garlic sprouts with fragrant rice, and a bowl of thick rice soup are all eaten. After resting for a while, a few people went to help kill the pig again, and Xiaoxi stayed at home to wait for her mother.

After cleaning the dishes and chopsticks in the pot, Chen's mother carried more than ten catties of fat and thin pork in her hands, and took a bowl of meat and vegetables specially left at noon with Xiaoxi to the old yard. In the courtyard, in addition to the four of them, there is also a family, an old man who lives alone.

Xiaoxi they call it Lao Zuzu, and Zuzu is a generation older than grandparents. The ancestor surnamed Zhao is the elder of the Zhao family, in fact, he also has children and daughters, but the daughter got married, and the son also went to settle down elsewhere, leaving him alone, and no one took care of him, nor did he give rations, which was very pitiful. Because he lives alone, he is a little lonely, so the old ancestor likes them very much to bother him.

"Old Ancestor, are you there?" Xiaoxi pushed open the door, the room was unlit, it was a little dark, and it was not clear to see.

"It's here, it's a stream, have you eaten, I've cooked noodles, let's have some food. Seeing the stream coming, the old ancestor greeted him very happily.

"Old Ancestor, I've already eaten it. Xiaoxi walked a few steps, put the vegetable bowl in his hand on the stove, and said to the old ancestor, "This is reserved for you, or is it hot, you can eat it quickly." ”

At this time, Chen's mother also entered the house, handed the pork to the old ancestor and said, "Grandpa, give it, this is what my mother asked you to take, I have already marinated it, you can just hang it in a ventilated place." ”

Old Ancestor took it and said in a hoarse voice: "Oh, I'm so embarrassed, you think of me for anything good." ”

Xiaoxi didn't want the old man to think about those sad things at his age, so he pulled the sleeve of the old ancestor and said, "Old ancestor, you eat quickly, after eating, let's go watch them kill the pig." ”

"Okay, I'll go with the creek after I've eaten. ”

Chen's mother helped Lao Zuzu wash the dishes, and the three of them went to join in the fun.