Although Tian Fei set up a farm, he never thought of pulling his father Tian Zhensheng into the farm, at most he only helped occasionally. He believes that his father has his father's way of life, and it has been like this for decades, and there is no need to force a change.

Tian Fei's father has always been a farmer, conscientiously managing his own few acres of land. Then he learned to make maltose from Tian Fei's grandfather, and when his grandfather was older and didn't do it, Tian Zhenfei split up and set up his own business, and the business could still be maintained.

After the "seventh and a half months" of the lunar calendar, Tian Fei's father would start making maltose. Basically, it is a pot every day, and the sugar is made at about 6 p.m. Most of the people in Shuanghe Village will come to Tian Fei's house to buy it.

In other villages in Zhuzhai Township, some villages also make maltose, and some do not. Those who are not available in the village are often Tian Zhensheng's potential customers. Every morning, Tian Zhensheng would also carry the maltose made the day before in two wooden barrels and sell it from house to house.

Whenever he walked to a village, Tian Zhensheng would use a small hammer to hit the small cutter that broke the sugar, making a crisp "clanging" sound, followed by a bunch of children. Then whoever wants to buy it will call Tian Zhensheng, and Tian Zhensheng will stop at the door of the house to trade.

And whenever the township market is open on the third, sixth and ninth days, Tian Fei will also make more sugar and bring it to the market to sell.

As a must-have delicacy for every family, Tian Zhensheng's business is still good, but unfortunately he can only do it for four or five months a year.

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In Zhuzhai Township, although maltose is a delicious snack, people buy it mainly to make traditional foods for the Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, every household in Zhuzhai Township will prepare delicious food. In addition to the must-have mooncakes, there are also sugar cakes and sugar chips.

The sugar cake is wrapped in fried sesame seeds on the surface of maltose, and then pressed into the shape of a biscuit the size of a palm, which tastes crispy and sweet; The slices are made with fried dried peanuts, sesame seeds and melted maltose stirred together. It is then pressed into a block in a wooden mold, and after it is solidified, it is cut into thin slices with a knife, similar to how girls make ejiao paste.

The taste that is sweet to the heart is called happiness. Tian Fei likes to eat sugar very much, especially when he was a child, his mother always put sugar cakes and sugar tablets in an urn padded with lime as a desiccant, and then put them away. An urn of sweets will be eaten until the Chinese New Year, and Tian Fei is only allowed to eat one and a half pieces every day. Sometimes his sister loves him and will save half of it to give to Tian Fei to eat. This feeling of never being satisfied can make Tian Fei reminisce for twenty years.

……

Tian Zhensheng not only makes sugar, he also makes wine.

The wine is glutinous rice wine.

Most of the glutinous rice is mainly beige white, yellow or maroon, clear and transparent, fragrant, mellow and unique.

In the eyes of traditional Zhuzhai villagers, brewing glutinous rice wine should be a daily and essential life skill, just like cooking. But with the development of the times, only women and old ladies after the age of fifty or sixty can make their own wine. People have become accustomed to buying what they need, and the same goes for rice wine. This also gave Tian Zhensheng an opportunity, Tian Zhensheng found a business opportunity, set up a winery, and made glutinous rice wine every year to sell to his neighbors.

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To make sake, the first step is to make koji. Tian Feijia Distillery uses solid wine cakes as koji, and the raw material is mainly spicy knotweed.

Every year around the eighth month of the lunar calendar, Tian Fei's family will go to the wild to harvest spicy knotweed, this half-human tall weed, many people do not know, but in fact, it is widely divided in rural fields. When picking spicy knotweed, choose the young stems and leaves with white on the top, then wash and dry, chop and set aside.

Prepare the leaves of sun-dried osmanthus flowers, orange leaves, bamboo leaves, field edge grass and spicy knotweed, and then use a blender to crush them together with rice; Then pour in warm boiled water and stir, and knead it into a ball of appropriate size by hand.

Put the pinched balls into the bamboo basket and shake the basket to make the balls shake back and forth, and evenly sprinkle the powder crushed by the old koji while turning; Then put the made balls into the basket, and lay a layer of grass on the first layer, taking care not to put each layer too densely.

The frame is then wrapped in nylon film and placed in a cool place to ferment. After the koji ferments for 1~2 days, it can be opened and allowed to be ventilated and dried, and a qualified wine cake is ready. Tian Fei's wine cakes will also be bought for those who make their own wine, for five cents a piece.

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With wine cakes, Tian Zhensheng can make wine.

Tian Zhensheng uses large-mouth clay jars for brewing, each of which is about 40 catties of glutinous rice.

Wash a large clay jar and set aside. First of all, soak all the glutinous rice in water overnight, and then scoop the rice into a basket and rinse it **, drain it and put it into the retort for steaming rice. When steaming rice, the heat should be fierce, 5 minutes after the steam, open the lid and sprinkle an appropriate amount of water into the rice layer. Steam for another 10 minutes, the rice grains are swollen and shiny, loose and soft, chewing without sticking to the teeth, that is, it is ripe and can be retorted.

After that, put the cooked glutinous rice on a large plate, cool to room temperature, boil a pot of boiling water to bring the water temperature to about the same temperature, and grind all the sake cakes into powder for later use.

Sprinkle the wine cake powder on the glutinous rice, stir while sprinkling, then the glutinous rice will stick to the hand and is not easy to fall off, you can dip some boiling water that has just cooled to your hand, this water is to prevent the glutinous rice from sticking to your hands, and the second is to make the glutinous rice that gradually dries after a long time moist. Remember to use boiling water, not tap water.

After mixing, put the glutinous rice into the large vat that you prepared before, do not fill it, leave one-third of the space, and then put a clean bowl on the surface of the rice and press it in. Finally, seal a layer with newspaper and tie it with a rope, then seal it with a plastic bag and tie it tightly, and if it is winter, add a quilt to the surface. Put it in a dark place in the room and leaven.

After seven or eight days, you can enjoy fine wine.

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Glutinous rice wine is sweet and mellow, which can stimulate the secretion of digestive glands, increase appetite and help digestion. After brewing, glutinous rice is easier for the human body to absorb nutrients, and it is a good product for middle-aged and elderly people, pregnant women and weak people to replenish qi and nourish blood. Stewing meat in glutinous rice wine makes the meat more tender and easier to digest. Glutinous rice wine also has the effect of refreshing and relieving fatigue, quenching thirst and relieving heat, promoting blood circulation and moisturizing.

……

"Mom, you have to get up early every day to make tofu, and you have to go to the village to sell it, it's too hard. Now that my son can earn some money, you might as well stop doing it. After breakfast, seeing that his mother was going out to sell tofu again, Tian Fei said distressedly.

"When you have a little money, do you spend lavishly? Your dad and I are still young, how can we not do things at this time. Besides, buying tofu is also convenient for everyone, these villages sell tofu at our house, but they didn't do it, and people in the village have to go to the market if they want to eat tofu, which is not good......" Tian Fei's mother used simple reasons to make Tian Fei give up the idea of continuing to persuade his mother.

Even the idea of persuading my father to stop and rest was broken. Needless to say, Tian Zhensheng will definitely not stop doing things at such a young age. Tian Fei could only think of other ways to make it easier for the second elder.