Chapter 30 Broken Meat

Broken Meat Grandpa loves to eat meat in his old age, so we had no choice but to try our best to be filial and buy two triangles every day—at first it was based on the principle of two corners, but later the price of meat has risen, and the two corners of the leg meat are not enough to be cut into thin slices The pelvic floor had to reluctantly take out the triangle. ——The rest of the money is only enough to buy some tofu for soup, plus that bowl of hygienic Shirong that I eat every day-fried mung bean sprouts with Xiangqiansi. The children held their chopsticks in their mouths and shouted, "Mom wants meat!" No matter how much I talked about the nourishment of tofu, they still wanted to eat pork without fear of microbes.Actually, why don’t I think about this taste, because we haven’t bought meat since the New Year. It wasn’t until my grandfather fled to Shanghai because of the bombing in his hometown a month ago that we bought a piece the size of a palm every day. At home, it is boiled in clear soup—of course we never want to overcook it, and it will shrink even more if it is overcooked—grandfather eats meat, and children drink soup.

Grandpa became a little unhappy: "Young people always pay attention to hygiene, pork has worms, and the beef is good for foreigners; I have lived to eat this pork every day in my sixties, and now I have a bad appetite and can't eat fat. When I wake up in the morning, I always eat a pair of stewed jujube thick soup. ——Look at how thin these children are. When I lean on my back, I think I should let them eat some fat slices to nourish them, don’t you mean Will this be unhealthy?" I don't have a word; children, you two slices and I'm three slices, and I robbed a whole pot of white cut meat, so I had to buy triangles again at night.

The next morning, when I picked up the small vegetable basket, my grandfather called to me: "I look at these little greedy ghosts, you are so pitiful, give them a good mouth - here is Sanmao, you take it to cut it into pieces." Stuffed pork belly—the leg meat in the countryside is twenty-eight cents a catty, but here it costs a little more, even if it costs thirty cents a catty, the ribs are just under him." There were some suet, ribs, and rice stews hanging here and there on the meat stand. After the five yuan bills were paid, they didn't find much.I stopped by the stall, chatted up and asked about the price of meat today, and the owner of the stall said something astonishing: the meat will be cut off tomorrow.

"Damn it, when will it be peaceful?" he continued angrily, "a hunting silver needs to be donated more than ten yuan, and the ship carrying pigs has to be choked up frequently. The huge Shanghai should not be able to eat pork or human flesh." This time, the livestock market is going to be seized and seized, so we will do our best not to close the butcher shop, take down the butcher stall, and I won’t be able to make any money, and you won’t be able to draw donations, so that’s good!” "The meat will be broken tomorrow!" I reluctantly took out a one-yuan bill from my pocket, and only exchanged it for a catty of two taels and five flowers on the market scale.He chopped a rib for me, but would never pick it out.

The children were so greasy that they clamored to eat meat every day, but the white sliced ​​meat in front of grandpa disappeared, and a bowl of slightly stinky liquid meat was replaced.Grandpa always doesn't talk when he eats. Every time he sits at the table, he sweeps his eyes to the few bowls of side dishes, and then lowers his head to take a big bite of the rice. After taking two bites, he adds some salt to taste.He often sighed, regretting that he shouldn't have escaped to Shanghai, and living and suffering here would be better than dying in the countryside!There are fresh broad beans, big abalone, kidney flower soup, roasted pork with bamboo shoots in my hometown...

I know he is resenting our unfilial piety, but what can we do here?Most of the monthly income of 80 yuan is spent on the rent, and the price of rice is more than 17 yuan per shi, and I can't support myself with salt and rice every day. How can I lament "no meat to eat"; I didn't tell him clearly that if he knew that Shanghai pigs were worth more than the big girls in the country, and he was worried about being out of stock, he would pack his luggage overnight and go back to his hometown to fight his old life. But unexpectedly, the night before yesterday he finally said to me: "Just now I took Shou'er to the street, and every butcher shop had empty counters and no meat; they told me that they would rather cut off meat than go hungry. What kind of donations do you want them to accept from my mother? They also told me that in peacetime Shanghai had to slaughter 4,000 pigs a day, but after the war more people lived there, but only half of the number was slaughtered. It's hard, most people can't afford meat, and their business is in trouble. This time, there is a new trick to set up a livestock market, and it will be even more difficult in the future. It's better to close the market as soon as possible... I see these People are ambitious, no wonder you only feed me flesh these days; but why are you keeping this from me?"

I couldn't figure out what grandpa meant, so I just vaguely reassured him that things would get better soon, that there would be more goods at that time, and the prices would always be cheaper, so grandpa just shook his head. I couldn't get some fresh meat for him, so I had to go to the third aunt's house to discuss it.The third aunt came over yesterday afternoon, holding a paper bag in her hand, which contained a large piece of leg meat.We were all busy asking her where she got it from, but she tilted her head and smiled triumphantly: "Guess how much this piece should sell for? - It's more than three catties on the market scale, and two and a half catties on the scale."

Before we could answer, she spoke up again by herself; "It only costs one yuan of the national currency, do you think it's cheap? A man came to sell it." A dark shadow flitted across my heart.But the children clapped their hands and squealed with joy, Sanmai solemnly brought the meat to Grandpa. Grandpa ignored everyone, turned around and told me: "Throw all these meats into the trash can!" We couldn't help being stunned, Grandpa urged with a straight face, "Throw it away quickly—they are reluctantly closing the market, and we still buy illegal meat?"

This morning the small vegetable market was particularly lively: there was meat on all the butcher stalls, saying that the concession authorities urged them to resume business for the sake of "maintaining people's food", and sold the pigs on scales first, and then waited for a solution from the merchants. , Everyone has meat to eat. I thought: saving pigs is no better than private meat, so grandpa should be happy to accept it.So I bought another triangle and made a bowl of roast pork with bamboo shoots when I got home. Grandpa asked about the origin, and distributed all the meat to the little glutton; but he tidied up his clothes and decided to return to his hometown. He said, "What are you doing in Shanghai if you have nothing to do? If you have one more person, you will pay them an extra tax. I don't think it's enough to cut off meat, you need to fast!"