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Chapter 87: Chapter 85 Buying Meat (Third Update)
Shen Yunfang, although she didn’t join the conversation, had gathered a lot of useful information from it.
For instance, Wuxing Brigade also had educated youths from the cities, but these youths were arranged to live in a specific location, called the Educated Youth Spot, which was why Gaijiatun had no outsiders.
Also, these educated youths were learned individuals, with every big girl and young wife in the village eager to come closer, resulting in several matches over the past years.
Moreover, the commune’s processing factory had also become busy recently, since where there are poor, there are also rich people. Just after the grain distribution, many families with extra money took their grain to be milled by machines.
Well, it’s not that they couldn’t mill it themselves, rather, many people took machine-milling as a form of showing off, See, while you all are bending over to toil away, my family has the money to mill grains with a machine.
Gaijiatun wasn’t very affluent, so this sort of flaunting wealth hadn’t occurred yet.
After all, one yuan was the equivalent of twenty chicken eggs, and many people would rather spend the effort to hand-mill grains with the village’s stone mill rather than pay the milling fee.
Also, the oil-pressing machine was scarcely used, as each household only received thirty jin of soybeans per year, and aside from keeping some for tofu, there wasn’t enough left to fill the gaps between one’s teeth, let alone press for oil.
Furthermore, villagers rarely planted their own soybeans since the crop yield wasn’t high, and with limited land, everyone preferred to plant corn or sweet potatoes instead.
So, no one in the entire hamlet used soybean oil; most simply bought a chunk of fatty pork during New Year, so they had both meat and oil.
Shen Yunfang was extraordinarily delighted by this news; she had planted quite a bit of soybeans and estimated she could get more than a hundred jin. According to the yield of four taels of oil from one jin of soybeans, rounding up the numbers meant two hundred jin of soybeans could produce about eighty jin of oil.
Well, that was roughly enough for a year’s consumption.
The news about the injured old ox especially brightened her eyes. She’d been in the village for almost a year without tasting beef, and she wondered if she could also buy some whenever other brigades butchered their cattle.
"Auntie Wang, the cattle slaughtering that they just mentioned, if we go to buy, will they sell it to us?" Shen Yunfang asked quietly, turning to the Auntie Wang next to her.
Auntie Wang wanted to laugh at her eager look, This child has indeed become livelier over the year, but also much greedier and could eat a lot — see how her eyes lit up at the mention of meat, "You, at this age, still act like a greedy cat. Be careful, or your future in-laws might despise you."
Shen Yunfang sniffled a bit. She wasn’t afraid – she would be lucky not to despise others.
"We don’t easily slaughter cattle, they are beasts of burden after all. However, if they’re injured and can’t recover, then we have no choice but to cull. Meat from such cattle doesn’t require ration tickets; whoever wants to buy can do so with cash. If you want to eat beef, have Yunxiu accompany you there tomorrow."
The idea that she could buy some made Shen Yunfang even more delighted, "No need for Yunxiu to come with me, isn’t it just the village next door? I know the way, I can go by myself." Dashuan’s wife was starting to show a little now, how could she still ask her to accompany her?
After hearing the news, Shen Yunfang couldn’t focus on her work anymore. With an ear of corn in hand, her mind wandered to what delicious dish she would cook once she got the beef, and as she pondered, she almost drooled. Oh my, how craving!
The next day, Shen Yunfang first went along with the work, and as it was getting close to noon and time to break, she sidled up to Uncle Shen and quietly asked for leave. Of course, she couldn’t say she was taking time off to buy meat; otherwise, once she brought it home, would she have to share some with Uncle Shen’s family?
Shen Yunfang wasn’t stingy but couldn’t bear to give the meat she bought to Shen Yunxiu. So she made up an excuse, and with Uncle Shen looking hopelessly resigned, she hurried home. After getting ready, she grabbed a small basket and headed out the door.
This time her objective was clear, and her steps were much lighter as she walked. After more than an hour, she finally saw the village’s outline in the distance.
She briskly walked into the village, not knowing where the cattle were being slaughtered or sold, so she decided to find someone to ask.
However, her timing was not good, coinciding with the lunch hour when hardly anyone was on the streets.
Luckily, she knew where the consignment shop was located, and after asking there, she found out that the cows were slaughtered at the production team, and following directions given to her, she made her way to the production team’s location.
As she entered the courtyard, she saw the doors of the house wide open with a large table in the middle, on which lay the beef.
Sitting on a stool beside it was a man in his forties, swatting away the flies that buzzed back and forth.
"Uncle, this is where you sell beef," Shen Yunfang called out in a slightly raised voice as she entered the yard.
"Ah, right, this is it," the man inside hurriedly replied upon hearing someone had come to buy beef.
Shen Yunfang stepped into the house and saw that the cow on the table had already been cut into various pieces; she guessed the cow had been slaughtered early in the morning and many people had already come to buy the meat.
"Uncle, how much is the beef per pound?" This was her first time buying meat since crossing over; the process should be similar to later times, she guessed.
"Eighty cents a pound, how much do you want?" The uncle picked up a sharp knife beside him, waiting for Shen Yunfang to specify the amount she wanted so he could start cutting.
Beef was cheaper than pork now, as many people didn’t like beef because it was almost all lean with no fat, and it wasn’t as tender when stewed, making it somewhat tough, so generally older people didn’t eat it.
Shen Yunfang thought it over; she wanted to stew brisket and also simmer some beef sauce. She had an iron plate she had not used yet. If she could grill some meat herself, it seemed like a nice idea...
"Uncle, please cut me some meat from the belly and also some from the rump. I’ll take a few pounds from the leg too..." Shen Yunfang began gesturing at the cow as she spoke.
The uncle smacked his lips, "You need to decide which part you want. If I start cutting here and there, I might as well give you everything."
"Hehe, I don’t have enough money, or else I would have happily taken it all," Shen Yunfang said, tugging at the corner of her mouth, feeling slightly unhappy inside. In truth, she did have money in her pocket. Although she didn’t have much left of her own, Li Hongjun had been consistently sending her money every month, varying in amount but certainly more than the five yuan per month from the year before. Over the past six months, she had saved up over a hundred yuan.
The uncle thought she was boasting. It’s common for some amounts of meat to be either slightly under or over when selling. The leftover meat must weigh around seventy or eighty pounds, how could she possibly take it all. "Nonsense, if I had the money, I would have taken everything myself, and it wouldn’t have been your turn. Hurry up and tell me how much you want."
His attitude was extremely impatient.
Shen Yunfang was very dissatisfied with his service attitude, but she endured it for the sake of buying the meat.
She pulled out a wrapped pack from her pocket, opened it right there and then, glanced at the uncle across from her, and started to read aloud, "Just wait a minute, I need to add this up. Two pounds of belly meat for Dad, a pound and a half of thigh meat for Second Uncle, three pounds of belly meat for Auntie Wang... "
"Hey, wait, wait, slow down," the uncle hurriedly picked up the pig-killing knife next to him, ready to cut the meat as the girl recited her list. He had just seen that the paper wrap contained a stack of banknotes, some whole, some in change, obviously cobbled together.
This kind of situation with the girl was quite common; a single person would come and bring back all the meat the village wanted to buy, although usually, the villages sent boys for this task.
Shen Yunfang smiled with a twinkle in her eye as she shook the paper in her hand. It hadn’t been easy for her to get more meat, acting like an undercover agent, juggling courage with wits.
In no time, she was walking back home with more than fifty pounds of beef and two shiny, bare beef bones. That very evening she made a big pot of beef and radish stew.
