roccoschili Chapter 134: Soul-Catching La8 Porridge
Chapter 134: Soul-Catching La8 Porridge
When the winter wind was particularly cold, the poetry teacher stopped teaching poetry. Instead, she selected a text from the elementary school textbook, "Laba Congee", and read it to the uncles and aunts.
"Students, today is Laba Festival. Let's review the origin and customs of Laba Festival together."
"We have celebrated Laba Festival for decades, and we must have questions about this festival. Today we can discuss the answers together."
“I’ll find a classmate to share this with.”
At this moment, the uncles and aunts who were awake lowered their heads tacitly, and those who were asleep suddenly woke up.
The teacher’s questions are more refreshing than coffee, tea, and essential oil.
Everyone was busy, busy racking their brains to organize their words, busy flipping through poetry appreciation textbooks trying to find the answers, and some were even conspicuously prepared to make speeches that would "blow up the whole audience."
The other uncles and aunts didn’t dare to look the teacher in the eye.
Teacher Qiao didn't dare to look at Mr. Fu who raised his hand.
Mr. Fu has a strong desire to perform, and if he is asked to answer questions, the situation can easily get out of control.
Teacher Qiao still asked Lao Fu to answer the question, hoping that he would be more reliable.
"Uncle Fu, please share your questions about Laba Festival."
Old Fu stood up, looked around the room, and shouted, "Why can't we have a holiday on Laba Festival?"
Teacher Qiao looked out the window in pain. If she is guilty, please punish her directly instead of sending the dramatic master Fu to torture her.
The “serious and reliable” monitor, Mr. Lu, stood up and said, “Student Fu, stop messing around. Can you please listen to the teacher’s question carefully before answering? You are obviously talking nonsense.”
"Laba porridge is sweet, so adding ginger is weird."
"I'm talking about the holiday. Does it have anything to do with whether the Laba porridge is sweet or salty?"
"Laba porridge is sweet."
"I didn't say sweet or salty, I said holiday."
“You just can’t let go!”
The two old men quarreled until their faces turned red, and they seemed determined to fight to the death with each other.
Uncle Li, who was woken up, rushed over and put on Uncle Lu's hearing aid, thus resolving the conflict.
Old Fu sat back on the stool and said, "I said that Old Lu should not be the squad leader. Look at him. He should vote for me."
"Old Fu, I'm wearing a hearing aid, I can hear you saying bad things about me."
Teacher Qiao called the two noisy uncles to the stage, role-played and read the text, and told everyone the good news: "The school cafeteria will provide free Laba porridge at noon today, everyone can go and try it."
Master Wu, who is in charge of making porridge, is worried.
Restaurants rarely cook porridge this thick, and I didn’t keep an eye on it for a moment, so all the water was boiled away.
"It's over. It's going to fail. My reputation will be ruined."
When Chef Wu was hesitating whether to add water, Lin Qinglan came in.
"Master Wu, is the porridge ready?" Lin Qinglan had heard that the canteen was going to cook porridge, so I rushed over to take a look after finishing my morning work.
After eating the Chongyang Cake and Winter Solstice Dumplings made by Chef Wu, she was looking forward to trying the festival-exclusive delicacies.
Master Wu moved the lid of the pot away guiltily, closed his eyes, and prepared to face reality: "Principal Xiaolin, this pot is not cooked well, it's too thick."
Lin Qinglan subconsciously counted whether there were enough eight ingredients in the Laba porridge. She didn't hear what Master Wu said clearly. She just sighed and said, "This Laba porridge looks like it has solid ingredients."
Auntie Zhong, who came in later, blurted out, "It's a bit early to paste the Spring Festival couplets now."
The villain in Master Wu's heart crouched in the corner and drew circles, "You said it so directly, I don't want to save face."
"It's mainly because I was too busy today. I had to prepare the dishes and watch the fire. There weren't enough people in the kitchen. I was really overwhelmed. I didn't keep an eye on it for a while and it became like this."
"The porridge is for uncles and aunts to drink. I wanted to cook it softer, but I boiled it for too long and the pot was almost boiled dry."
"You should have told me earlier. I would have shown you the pot." Aunt Zhong volunteered.
"Aunt Zhong, this isn't a good idea. You skipped class to come here, and I'm afraid your teacher will come after me. You'd better not help me. Let me do it myself." Chef Wu quickly waved his hand to refuse.
"Don't talk nonsense. I didn't skip classes. How could I, a 'three-good student', skip classes? I didn't have classes in the morning. I came to school specifically to eat the holiday specials." Aunt Zhong smiled when she mentioned the food.
A few days ago, my uncles and aunts were guessing that they would make porridge on Laba Festival, and the sweet porridge they imagined was right in front of me.
The rice and millet in the pot have been cooked, and the red beans, mung beans and peanuts are still bubbling.
The color of the porridge turned into red bean paste color under the efforts of red beans. The pitted dates floated out first, the round lotus seeds were plump, the coix seeds were full, and the longan was also full of water.
Various grains gathered in the same pot give off a unique aroma. Even without adding sugar, the porridge has a subtle sweetness.
The hot and sweet Laba porridge becomes the protagonist in the cold winter.
Today's main course is dry-pot duck covered with sesame seeds. The duck meat is evenly sized and covered with sauce after being cooked over high heat. The golden potato strips are soft and sticky after being stewed. They melt in a sip, while the lotus root strips still retain their crispness.
The stir-fried lamb with green onions is wrapped in cumin, and the aroma penetrates into the nose overbearingly, and the green onion segments also become quite delicious.
There are also stir-fried bamboo shoots and hand-shredded cabbage, which are refreshing, crispy and tender when eaten.
None of these dishes can compete with Laba porridge, it is so tempting that I can’t resist it.
Everyone's attention was on the pot of Laba porridge with rich ingredients.
When Uncle Qian drank the third bowl, Lin Qinglan was worried that he would feel full, so she refused his request for another bowl.
Although the bowl of Laba porridge was not big and there was still a lot of porridge in the pot, Uncle Qian had already eaten a portion and a half of rice. They were not afraid that Uncle Qian could eat more, but they were afraid that he would be greedy.
"Uncle Qian, take a break before drinking. Eating too much is bad for your stomach."
Uncle Qian put one hand behind his back and began to "argue", "Principal Lin, think about it, is this bowl of Laba porridge sweet because I put sugar in it?"
There is no sugar in the porridge in the pot because many uncles and aunts can't eat sweet food.
There is self-service sugar on the table where the dishes and chopsticks are placed. Uncle Qian just put two spoonfuls of it.
Lin Qinglan didn't understand why, but she nodded: "That's right."
He continued, "Porridge is sweet, and desserts are also sweet. So is porridge a dessert?"
"You can say that there is indeed such a saying." Lin Qinglan waited quietly for Uncle Qian to say his horrified remarks.
"There's a saying among older people that desserts have their own stomach, so drinking porridge doesn't take up space in the stomach, so is it okay to give me another bowl?"
Having won the argument, Mr. Qian happily walked away holding his bowl.
When passing by the tables of the "Five Great Kings" in the physics class, Uncle Qian went over to listen and join in the fun.
The old men and Teacher Yu were discussing "big things".
Uncle Wang: "I don't want to study anymore."
Teacher Yu suggested: "Stop studying, I'll take you to the music festival!"