"Mom, I’m going to town in a bit, need to buy anything?" Lian Manman consulted with Lady Zhang.
Yesterday, Lian Manman had already bought five jin of soybean oil, a jar of salt, and so daily necessities. Lian Shouxin had also moved a bag of millet and a bag of millet flour from the Upper Room, which was their monthly ration.
"Manman, you bought soybean oil yesterday, but we still don’t have lard. Go to the butcher’s and see if there’s any pork lard to buy a piece, so we can simr in lard," suggested Lady Zhang after so thought.
"Okay." Lian Manman took so money from the kang cabinet and asked Xiao Qi, "Xiao Qi, are you staying ho with Mom, or going to town with your sister?"
Xiao Qi’s big eyes whirled around; he really wanted to go to town with Lian Manman, but his assigned task was to stay with Lady Zhang.
"Mom, how about I... still stay with you at ho," Xiao Qi said to Lady Zhang, but his big eyes clearly shone with a pleading light.
How could Lady Zhang not understand.
"Go with your sister, but don’t run around, and co back early," Lady Zhang instructed Xiao Qi.
With a cheer, Xiao Qi carried a basket and followed Lian Manman out of the house.
Arriving in town, Lian Manman first visited Zhao’s Copper Workshop.
"Sis, why are we here?" Xiao Qi asked.
Lian Manman took out the two broken pieces of the dry tobacco pipe and handed them to Zhao the Coppersmith, asking if he could weld them back together.
Zhao the Coppersmith examined the tobacco pipe and nodded, saying it was possible.
"I often do this kind of work. It’s just that it won’t look very nice after welding. How about adding a copper hoop? Though it will cost a few more wen," he said.
"Okay, it’s my grandpa’s treasure, you must fix it properly, otherwise, I will have to co back for you," Lian Manman negotiated the price with Zhao the Coppersmith.
"Got it, got it," said Zhao the Coppersmith, "Little Miss is quite formidable."
"We’ll leave the tobacco pipe with you for welding; we’re going to buy so other things and will be back to pick it up later," Lian Manman said.
"No problem, I’ll get started on it right away for you," Zhao the Coppersmith replied.
After leaving Zhao’s Copper Workshop, Lian Manman entered the town’s largest grocery store, picked the best white sugar, and bought five jin of it, each jin costing fifteen wen. Then she went to another store and bought three jin more. Having visited several grocery stores, she bought a total of twenty jin of white sugar, spending three hundred wen in all.
White sugar was a key step in making grape wine. Without white sugar, one could still make grape wine, but the wine, due to its low alcohol content, would spoil and turn sour easily. With white sugar, the alcohol content of grape wine could be increased, resulting in a true dry red wine. If stored properly, such wine could last for two to three years, and its taste would be much better.
After buying the white sugar, it was divided between two baskets, one carried by Lian Manman and the other by Xiao Qi.
"Sister, didn’t you say we were buying at?" Xiao Qi reminded Lian Manman.
"Don’t worry, sis hasn’t forgotten," Lian Manman smiled and said.
Lian Manman walked into the butcher’s shop and saw a fresh half-side of pork on the chopping block; the at looked good and in the thickest part of the fat, it was the thickness of three fingers. Such pork had a lot of back fat, yielded a lot of oil, and was fragrant.
"Uncle Zhang, do you have any back fat?" asked Lian Manman.
"Third Miss Lian, you’re in luck, we’ve got a piece just in," said Butcher Zhang as he brought over a piece of back fat from the back of the chopping block.
Back fat is the thick layer of fat inside a pig’s stomach; the rendered oil from it is called lard. In ordinary rural households, soybean oil is also a valuable commodity; most households typically eat lard. So families would just buy a piece of back fat, render the oil from it, and use a spoonful of it sparingly in cooking, enough to last a whole year.
The Lian family had both lard and soybean oil, although they consud more lard.
"Do you have any at bones too?" When Lian Manman turned over the back fat and saw it was clean inside, she asked further.
"Yes." Butcher Zhang said, bending down to pick out two pork leg bones and a piece of pork spine from a big wicker basket underneath the block. "If you buy this back fat, I’ll sell these bones to you cheap."
"Sis, after rendering the oil, we can use the crispy bits to make stuffed pancakes," Xiao Qi suggested to Lian Manman.
Lian Manman looked down at Xiao Qi, then thought of Lian Zhizhi and Wu Lang’s frail little bodies and nodded her head.
"Just using the crispy bits isn’t delicious; we should buy so at too," said Lian Manman.
"Crispy bits are enough; we don’t need to buy more at," said Xiao Qi sensibly.
"We won’t buy a lot, just one jin," said Lian Manman.
Lian Manman had calculated that with the ration already secured for the coming year. She had so money saved from selling herbal ointnts, yesterday Lady Li had left her one string of coins, and she had two more silver pieces, each almost weighing two liang, which added up to a total of five liang of silver. Once the grape wine was sold and the land purchased, the next year’s living would be even more comfortable.
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