Again by the creek.

At this time, the sunset is gone, the river is murmuring, the mountains, rivers and fields are slowly shrouded in a layer of mist and mist, and the thatched huts near and far at the foot of the mountain are beginning to have curling smoke rising, and there is no figure to be seen around, only a few children's laughter and cries and adults' shouts.

The day is coming to an end, the world slowly falls silent, and in the distant mountains, there seems to be the roar of jackals, tigers and leopards faintly, which makes people feel cold in their hearts, as if to remind Chen Xu that this is an era in which the living conditions of two thousand years ago were extremely barbaric and primitive.

Tie the fish basket with a slender and tough green vine, then lift the lid of the fish basket to a gap of about ten centimeters, fix it with the green vine, and then throw a stone weighing about one pound inside, choose a backwater bay with a relatively gentle flow and throw it into the river.

Watching the fish basket slowly sink to the bottom of the water, Chen Xu tied the green vine in his hand to a small tree on the bank of the river, clapped his hands and turned to leave.

Fishing in such a rudimentary way is a matter of fate.

On the way home, Chen Xu walked along the ditch to the foot of the mountain, squatting down from time to time along the way to pull up a few wild garlic and wild onions, and finally dug a few pieces of wild turmeric with a wooden stick in the soil for a few minutes at the foot of the mountain.

These ingredients are all seen when he picked herbs in the afternoon, at this time just along the way to get some back, accustomed to the later generations of various seasonings carefully cooked dishes, and then suddenly eat boiled frogs in water This kind of food may be a little unbearable, can not eat the dry pot field chicken this delicacy of later generations, but add a little wild onion, wild garlic and ginger simple seasoning is still OK.

After going out for half an hour, it was even darker at this time.

Before he reached the gate of the courtyard, Chen Xu had already smelled the smell of meat floating in the air, and he couldn't stop spitting out with saliva in his mouth.

He was so hungry that in an instant Chen Xu felt countless gluttonous insects crawling out of his bones, and he was a little trembling when he walked, so he ran under the eaves in a few steps, looked at the snow-white frog meat floating in the steaming clay pot on the stove, and couldn't help but grab a pair of chopsticks from a bamboo tube next to him and fish out one.

"Hey, it's so fragrant!" Chen Xu couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva.

And the little girl is no better than him, she has been staring at the crockpot almost without blinking since the beginning of cooking, and she has already been tempted by this fragrance.

Chen Xu broke off a frog leg and tasted it, and found that there was only a faint taste of salt, and it was not completely ripe.

"Brother, can you give me a taste!" The little girl wants to wear it.

"Here you go!" Chen Xu broke off the other leg and handed it to the little girl, then threw the remaining half into the crockpot and continued to cook.

A few minutes later, Chen Xu washed the onions, garlic and ginger and came back, and found that the little girl was still licking the frog leg in her hand little by little, there was no meat on it, only a thin bone, and her eyes were still staring at the crockpot.

Alas~

Yang Bo couldn't help but sigh in his heart, reached out and touched the little girl's messy hair and said, "Go and bring the bowl, I'll put some ingredients and start eating!" ”

"Mother, mother, come out and eat meat!" The little girl jumped up excitedly and went into the house to get the bowl, and soon followed Chen Jiang out with three pottery bowls.

And Chen Xu had already thrown the onion, ginger and garlic in his hand into the crockpot, and suddenly a strange fragrance came out with the steam.

These condiments such as onions, ginger, garlic and Sichuan pepper occupy an important place in China's food culture, and they were used very early, almost dating back to the time of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, at least in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

Although it has gone through the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Great Qin Empire, the peasants at the bottom are still struggling with extreme hardship.

At present, at the turn of spring and summer, it is the time when the green and yellow are not harvested, the wheat has not yet been harvested, all kinds of wild melons and fruits in the mountains and fields have not yet ripened, coupled with the years of war and harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, every household has almost no surplus grain, and it has become everyone's greatest wish to be able to have food to eat every day to harvest grain in summer and autumn.

I don't dare to think about eating well, it's good to have a stutter.

And seasoning is not necessary for eating, maybe the princes and nobles and wealthy families have this demand, but for the poor families who have eaten the last meal without the next meal, the seasoning has no meaning, far less important than a little salt.

Therefore, in this era, ordinary families generally do not deliberately plant onions, ginger and garlic, and occasionally go to the mountains to pick some seasonings.

And for the Chen Jiang family, who have not been able to eat meat for several years, there is no need for it, Chen Jiang has pulled two children by himself, and has planted more than 20 acres of crops on the river beach, so he has no extra thoughts to serve these meaningless things for survival.

But for Chen Xu, seasoning is almost the same as life, what is the difference between eating vegetables without seasoning and chewing wax?

Especially for meat, without condiments such as onions, ginger, garlic, peppercorns, chili and soy sauce, dragon meat has no desire to eat it.

In the light of the fire, a family of three sat around the fire and ate the fragrant and hot frog meat.

The little girl's head had never been lifted from the bowl since the beginning, and she was humming and chirping like a little pig.

Chen Xu was already too hungry to support it, except for the first time he gave Chen Jiang a frog, he couldn't help but bury his head in the food.

Although the taste is average, there is no need to be too picky for people who are hungry to the extreme.

As a mother, Chen Jiang naturally eats very carefully and slowly, looking at the two children who are immersed in eating, the circles under his eyes slowly redden, and tears roll down his cheeks.

She is only thirty-two years old, but the perennial poverty and hardship coupled with hard work, the wind and sun are dark and rough, the corners of the eyes have a lot of crow's feet, she looks like a middle-aged woman in her forties and fifties, poverty is still second, since her husband joined the army and never returned, the burden of the whole family is all on her head, her parents have died one after another, and there are a pair of children waiting to be fed, a woman who should be in her prime in the eyes of later generations has been forced to the verge of collapse at any time.

Especially when her son fell from a tree three days ago and didn't know whether he was alive or dead, it was like a thunderbolt from the sky that hit her and almost fainted.

But fortunately, my son has come to his senses, and he doesn't seem to be in serious trouble, especially in the short half a day after he woke up, it seems that he has suddenly changed a person.

Chen Jiang felt a window reopened in his life and saw a glimmer of light.

Soon, a can of frog meat was eaten cleanly, even the soup was drunk cleanly, and the three of them were all eaten, especially the little girl, who was lying in Jiang Chen's arms with her little belly and only hummed, Chen Xu also kept burping and finding a thin bamboo stick to start picking her teeth.