She had already figured out what she was going to do.
Lin Shan nodded and brought her to the meat stall, even stepping forward to bargain, looking very familiar with the place.
The butcher at the stall looked helpless. “Alright, little lady, your mouth is really sharp. Pork fat is fourteen wen per jin. Two jin is twenty-eight wen. I’ll add two big soup bones and a pig lung for you, make it twenty-five wen total. How about that?”
“Alright, please wrap it up for me.” Lin Shan was still trying to bargain, but Zhou Xing quickly paid instead.
The butcher tied the meat and bones together with straw rope. “We’re a small business, we don’t use oiled paper. Everything is tied with straw rope. Don’t mind it, miss.”
Zhou Xing was stunned. So that was how it was. She realized she had been misled by too many costume dramas.
“Thank you, big brother. We’ll come again next time.”
“Alright!” The burly butcher happily placed the meat into their basket lined with grass leaves and welcomed them back.
“Sister A’Xing, those bones can only be used for soup. They waste a lot of firewood. And that pig lung isn’t tasty either,” Lin Shan said. She did not think they got a good deal.
It wasn’t that the bones were bad, but firewood required labor too. She just felt it was not cost-effective.
Seeing her expression, Zhou Xing patiently explained. Big bones could be used to cook porridge for children, helping them grow taller.
As for pig lung, if paired with the right medicinal herbs, it could be stewed into soup that cleared lung heat and detoxified the body.
If there were braising spices, it could even be made into braised pig lung, which tasted excellent.
Lin Shan was enlightened. “So there are so many ways to use it. I really didn’t know that. Sister A’Xing knows so much.”
“Can bone soup relieve leg pain too?” Lin Shan asked. “If it can help children grow taller, can it also help with leg pain?”
“Of course it can. Especially for elderly people. If they have weak legs or joint pain, drinking it often helps strengthen the bones.”
Lin Shan was delighted and decided to buy some bone soup for her grandmother next time. The elderly often suffered during rainy weather.
The two then went to a general store and bought salt and plum vinegar. Zhou Xing originally wanted to buy more, but she immediately gave up.
Salt was too expensive.
One jin of salt cost thirty wen. Plum vinegar was better, only six wen per bamboo tube.
“Salt is really expensive. My brother hunts a wild chicken for only fifty wen, and this salt is almost the price of a chicken,” Lin Shan said in shock.
Her family did not often buy salt either. Most villagers rarely did—it was a luxury.
Unless they truly ran out, or during busy farming seasons, they would not come to buy salt.
“I’ll go buy two fish,” Zhou Xing said, heading toward the dock where fish sellers gathered.
“My father and brother can catch fish. I’ll ask them to bring some back,” Lin Shan quickly stopped her.
“That won’t do. Besides, it doesn’t cost much,” Zhou Xing insisted.
Fish was indeed cheap. Two carp weighing over two jin cost a total of fifteen wen. A piece of tofu cost five wen. And just like that, all one hundred wen were spent.
Zhou Xing felt money truly did not last long, but she now roughly understood the purchasing power of this era.
One wen was roughly equivalent to one yuan in purchasing power today. Meat prices varied, with fatty cuts being more expensive. The most expensive was fatty pork belly with some lean meat, at about twenty wen per jin.
As expected, controlled goods like salt and sugar were the most expensive.
Returning to the village, Zhou Xing first went to the Lin household to pick up the two children and thanked Aunt He.
She originally intended to bring a gift, but since she had no money left, she planned to cook something good later instead.
Neighborly relationships had to be maintained.
“Mother, what did you buy in town today?” Xiao Yao asked, holding her hand.
“You’ll find out later. I’ll cook something delicious tonight. By the way, has your uncle returned?” Zhou Xing asked.
Xie Yuan had said he would still go into the mountains today.
Although they would not be extracting sugarcane juice for the next few days, the materials for the juicing machine still needed to be prepared.
He truly was an action-oriented person.
“My uncle hasn’t returned yet,” Xiao Zong said.
Although they did not know what he was doing, they knew he must have important matters to attend to.
“Alright, let’s ignore him for now. Later, Xiao Zong and Xiao Yao will help me start the fire, okay?”
“Okay!”
The two children were very happy. The best part of this task was being able to taste the food first when it came out of the pot.
By the time they returned home, it was already past midday.
After walking all morning, Zhou Xing was starving, but there was nothing ready to eat at home, so she decided to render pork fat first.
Rendering fat was delicate work but not difficult.
After cleaning and cutting it into small cube-like pieces, she added water and slowly simmered it. As long as she controlled the heat and avoided burning it, it was fine.
“Here, one piece each,” Zhou Xing said after blowing on it.
Soon, the pork fat had turned into a bowl of cracklings.
The fragrant aroma filled the children’s noses, making them almost unable to resist.
They had not tasted oil for who knew how long.
“So good!”
“Ah! Hot! But delicious!”
Zhou Xing also picked up a piece and put it in her mouth. It cracked pleasantly, and the oil burst in her mouth—truly delicious.
In her previous life, she had never known pork cracklings could taste this good.
At that time, she had only focused on dieting and low-fat meals, and had missed out on such a delicacy.
Now, this thin body urgently needed fat nourishment, so she simply ate as she pleased.
She sprinkled some coarse salt over the cracklings, divided them into two bowls, and let the children eat in the courtyard.
Afterward, she continued preparing food in the kitchen.
The fish was kept in a water vat, but tomorrow’s dishes still needed preparation.
There was fresh water celery at home, as well as wild vegetables previously gathered.
There was even a handful of wood ear fungus near the water vat, likely brought back by Xie Yuan from the mountains.
This was good—perfect for a cold dish.
It was just a pity there was no chili. If there were chili oil, the taste would be incredible.
This era did have spicy seasoning, called zanthoxylum berries, but the taste was slightly bitter. Once one had tasted chili, zanthoxylum no longer felt as good.
In the evening, since tofu would not keep for long, she used the oil-rendering pot to pan-fry tofu cut into small cubes, adding salt so it could be stored longer.
Thinking of the earlier mention of mantou, she hurriedly washed a clay jar and placed it under the sun to dry as a form of disinfection.
She thought that if she could make mantou, perhaps she could sell them in the county town—or even sell yeast. That could also be a business idea.
She did not know how much it would earn, but since she was short on money, she had to try every possible way.
At the very least, she needed to buy a large pot first. Otherwise, even boiling sugarcane juice would be impossible.