Chapter 66

Translated by Aviana

This chapter took more time than I thought

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The new year was drawing nearer and nearer. New Year’s day was just ten days away. Though there was a snowfall outside, it couldn’t dampen everyone’s jubilant moods as they waited for the new year.

In Luoxia village, there is a popular piece of doggerel, which tells about the activities carried out by the villagers from the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month. It goes like this, “On the twenty-third day, offer the sacrifices to the kitchen god; On the twenty-fourth day, clean the house thoroughly; On the twenty-fifth day, grind soybeans and make tofu; On the twenty-sixth day, stew the pork; On the twenty-seventh day, make chicken; On the twenty-eighth day, ferment the dough; On the twenty-ninth day, steam the mantous; On the thirtieth evening, keeps the vigil on the night, waiting for the arrival of the new year.”

Since she wasn’t short of the silver in her hands, Lin Qingwan decided to celebrate her first new year in the Daxi dynasty splendidly. Even in her past life, Lin Qingwan had this strange quirk; she had to celebrate the new year every year well.

She had Yang Tiegen go to the porkseller beforehand to buy the pork. She directly had him bring two butchered pigs. Pig head, pig trotters, spare ribs, and the likes were all saved for the new year’s feast. And the rest of the portion was all used up in making Laweixian.

The restaurants in the town would close on the 27th for new year celebrations and would only reopen on the 15th of the first lunar month. But even after the restaurants closed their business for holidays, Lin Qingwan didn’t stop making Laweixian. After talking with Yang-shi and the third branch’s husband and wife, she planned to stock them a little before the new year. Because soon after the new year, not much pork would be available in the market.

This was why Lin Qingwan had asked Yang Tiegen to buy a few more hundreds of jin pork back. Along with this, she had also had Yang Tiezhu mention their regular pork seller to deliver the pork to Yang-shi’s place as soon as the new year celebrations were done.

Thus, for these few days, all of them were swamped with work. Yang-shi and the third branch’s couple were busy preparing Laweixian to stock them up. Even Yang-shi’s daughter-in-law, Zhou-shi, also assisted them from the side. While Lin Qingwan, because of her pregnancy, wasn’t allowed to meddle much with their work. So, with no other choice, she stayed back at home and made food and other stuff for new year’s celebrations.

Lin Qingwan intended to make the dishes similar to how she made them in her past life. So, she took whole spare ribs and marinated them, planning to make cured ribs. Alongside, she also marinated a jar of meat to make bacon. Earlier, Lin Qingwan also had Yang Tiegen buy a few big grass carps and chicken meat as well. She marinated these two as well to make cured fish and cured chicken.

When all of them were adequately marinated, she tied them with a straw rope and hung them over the beam of the house’s roof.

While Yang Tiezhu was clueless about what strange things his wife was doing, he nevertheless lent her a hand from the side. He was aware that his wife, Wanwan, had a lot of crazy ideas and knew a lot about food, so he didn’t ask her much.

At a glance, they seemed to be some sort of food. When they were prepared, he just needed to eat them.

On the other hand, Yang-shi prepared lots of Laweixian. The days flashed in the blink of an eye, and it was already the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. After taking a day’s rest, they began preparing for the upcoming New Year.

On the twenty-third day, people usually offer sacrifices to the kitchen god. In the past years, Yang Tiezhu and Yang Tiegen used to offer sacrifices in the kitchen of the main house and others. But this year, having been separated, they had to offer sacrifices by themselves.

Image of Chinese Kitchen God (Source: digmandarin)

Before this ritual of offering, zaotang needs to be made. Lin Qingwan didn’t know how to make them. But, Yao-shi knew how to make them, for every year Yang jia makes and offers them to the kitchen god.

Zaotang

* 灶糖 (Zào Táng): Zao means kitchen and tang mean candy or sweets; literally it means “Kitchen Candy,” is a sweet treat made of maltose, used as a sacrifice to the Kitchen God. As the legend goes, the Kitchen God is sent to the earth by the Jade Emperor to supervise the life of every household. The Kitchen God will return to Heaven to report the activities of every household over the past year to the Jade Emperor on the 23rd of 12th lunar month, which is called the Kitchen God Festival or the Little new year. Chinese believed that no foul language could come out of a sweet mouth. Thus, p eople offer the Zaotang to Kitchen God to sweeten his words to the Jade Emperor or stick his teeth together to prevent him from saying bad words.

Early in the morning of the 22nd, Yao-shi brought the prepared ingredients to the second branch to make them along with Lin Qingwan.

To make zaotang, first, an ‘enzyme’ needs to be prepared. As Lin Qingwan wasn’t aware of this ‘enzyme’, Yao-shi explained it to her: Initially, a few jin of millet were added into the water and soaked thoroughly. While doing so, the moisture content and warm temperature were checked such that they were optimal for the sprouting of the millets. As the current climate was cold, Yao-shi had soaked the millet in her room beforehand. After a few days, when the sprouts on millet grew to about half an inch, these millet sprouts and water were ground up to form a juice-like consistency, which would act as an ‘enzyme’ for the making of zaotang.

斤 (jīn): catty.

As Yao-shi had already prepared this ‘enzyme’ in advance, she simply explained the making process to Lin Qingwan.

Lin Qingwan could only partially understand but still mesmerized the recipe.

While speaking with her, Yao-shi began steaming another batch of millet rice in a wok. And once it was done, she put it aside for it to cool down. When it was no longer hot to touch, she added the prepared ‘enzyme’ into it before stirring the mixture until they were uniformly mixed and placing it aside.

Yao-shi then told Lin Qingwan that they could only start making zaotang when the millet rice would turn into a syrupy consistency. Generally, this process takes about one or two shichen.

1 shichen is equivalent to two hours.

After lunch at noon, Yao-shi checked the contents of the pot. The millet rice had turned into a thin syrupy consistency.

She picked the pot, directly placed it on the stove, and lit the fire before adding a bit of honey. She let this sugar paste simmer until the consistency turned semi-thick consistency. Once she got the desired consistency, she removed the pot from the stove and let it sit aside.

When this sweet was no longer hot, Yao-shi took it onto the chopping board and skillfully kneaded it into long strips.

Lin Qingwan watched all of these in amazement from the side. This was an ancient simplistic method of making candies. However, using these millets to make candies was beyond Lin Qingwan’s imagination.

Just as she was about to grab one and taste, Yao-shi stopped her, saying they would be more delicious if they let them stay overnight in this cold climate. And it wouldn’t be tasty at the moment.

Lin Qingwan glanced at the two little girls beside her who were, though impatient yet waiting, and then at the candies. She thought, ‘since the two kids could wait, I can endure too. ‘

The following day, Lin Qingwan woke up early in the morning and brought in the candy, which was placed outside last night to freeze. Immediately, she picked a piece and tasted it. The candy was quite crispy to bite and sweet.

But saying it was tasty would be quite implausible. After all, in her previous life, she hadn’t eaten any fewer candies and chocolates of various types. After coming here, she hadn’t even eaten candy. Thus she vigorously ate in a bite and felt it was not bad.

But contrary to her feelings, the two little girls loved it. Thus Lin Qingwan stuffed another piece in each of the girls’ hands. But, the two kids seemed to be reluctant to eat it. Therefore they took a small bite and put the remaining in their pockets. However, not long after, they took the candies out and took another small bite.

Seeing this, Lin Qingwan was overwhelmed with sadness. She told the two girls that they could eat as much as they wanted, saying that once they were done eating, their second shen would make more for them.

婶 (shěn): wife of father’s younger brother

The two little girls thanked their second shen. Nevertheless, they were reluctant to take big bites of the candy. Lin Qingwan could only touch her nose helplessly and drop the subject.

The offerings to the kitchen god would be offered in the evening. In the evening, once Yao-shi was done with cooking all the offerings, she pulled Lin Qingwan out of the room, leaving only Yang Tiegen and Yang Tiezhu in the small cubicle.

Ever since the second and third branches separated from the family, this small cubicle had become their kitchen. When they had built a stove here, Yang Tiegen had even specially brought an image of the kitchen god and set it up on the wall.

Lin Qingwan didn’t understand why they had put the image there at that time, but now after listening to Yao-shi, she could understand the reason. It turned out that they not only had to present nice offerings to the Kitchen god, but also ‘seal’ the kitchen god’s mouth with zaotang. Once all the offerings were given, the image of the kitchen god would be burned.

On this day, images of the Kitchen God are burned as a symbolic act of departure, often accompanied burned along with some gold or silver money for traveling expenses. In some households, the lips of the Kitchen God will be lightly brushed with honey or sugar prior to its immolation, to ensure sweet things are said by the Kitchen God

Lin Qingwan couldn’t understand why they couldn’t watch the ritual from the side and asked Yao-shi the reason. Only then was she able to understand – it turned out that, according to the local tradition here: Men do not worship the Moon while women do not offer sacrifices to the Kitchen God. Thus, women must not offer sacrifices to the kitchen god.

Lin Qingwan pouted, thinking that this was blatant discrimination against the majority of the working women!

After a while, Yang Tiezhu and Yang Tiegen stepped out. Yang Tiegen took out the newly bought portrait of the kitchen god and pasted it on the kitchen wall where the previous image of the kitchen god was set up.

When the ritual was done, they gathered around the kang table, and began to have their supper.

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