Chapter 13: Sweet Potato Congee
They had to sell a portion of their grain rations every year so Bai Xiaofeng could buy ink, brushes, and books. As a result, the Bai Family’s food supply was always tight.
Meanwhile, Uncle Hu’s family only had two mu of land. It was enough for the two of them to get by, but you never knew when they might need to buy something or pay for a doctor’s visit. Because of that, their grain supply was also stretched thin.
She sighed, first lighting the earthen stove. Then she put a pot of water on to boil, washed two handfuls of rice, and tossed them in.
After adding more firewood to the stove, she walked out of the kitchen. She went up to Hu Feng, who was hanging laundry under the eaves, and asked, "Hu Feng, where do we keep the vegetables?"
Hu Feng glanced back at her over his shoulder and gestured with his finger toward a pile of black, lumpy things in a corner of the kitchen.
’This is a vegetable?’ She picked one up from the corner, walked back out, and asked Hu Feng, "What kind of vegetable is this?"
Hu Feng ignored her and went straight inside.
’Hey! This guy... Don’t tell me he’s a mute?’
She washed the black lump. Its skin was incredibly rough, so she used a knife to peel it off. Once the peel was gone, a fresh, clean scent wafted into her nose. It smelled a lot like sweet potato.
She cut off a small piece and tasted it. It was exactly like a sweet potato. She just didn’t understand why the skin was so black and ugly.
Having sweet potatoes made things much easier. At least they wouldn’t be stuck with just thin, watery porridge.
She washed a few more sweet potatoes, peeled them, cut them into small chunks, and dropped them into the pot of just-boiling water to cook with the porridge.
Sweet potato porridge. She had always loved it. It was fragrant, sweet, and soft, and it was filling—perfect for the poor.
An hour later, she brought the fragrant sweet potato porridge to the table. The originally thin, watery porridge had become thick and rich with the addition of the sweet potatoes. It looked appetizing, and its wonderful aroma was enough to make anyone’s mouth water.
Before Uncle Hu could even call him from his room for dinner, Hu Feng came out on his own. He saw the sweet potato porridge on the table and raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over Bai Zhi.
Uncle Hu laughed. "So you can eat these lumps this way! We’ve always just boiled them in water and eaten them plain."
"Lumps? Aren’t these sweet potatoes? Why do you call them lumps?" Bai Zhi asked, her face full of curiosity.
Uncle Hu sounded surprised. "So this stuff is called ’sweet potato’? This is our first time eating it. Hu Feng dug them up in the mountains. We were afraid to eat them at first, but we were running so low on rice in the crock that we finally tried boiling them a couple of times. Nothing bad happened, so we figured they were safe."
’They really didn’t know these were sweet potatoes...’
When she was grabbing the sweet potatoes earlier, she had noticed a few at the bottom had already sprouted green shoots. "You can plant these yourselves," she added. "I saw a couple in the kitchen that have already sprouted. We can clear a patch of ground in the yard tomorrow and plant them. In two or three months, you’ll have a harvest. They don’t need much fertilizer and are very easy to grow."
Uncle Hu’s eyes lit up when he heard this. He laughed and said, "That’s a wonderful idea! After we finish planting the peanuts tomorrow, we’ll clear a spot in the yard. Whether it works or not, it’s only a little bit of effort. There’s nothing to lose."
Hu Feng stared at the porridge in front of him. "Can we eat now?" he asked. The aroma was making his stomach rumble shamelessly.
He had worked in the fields all day and skipped lunch, waiting for this one meal in the evening.
"Let’s eat, let’s eat!" Uncle Hu said quickly. "I’m starving!"
Aside from Bai Zhi, it was everyone else’s first time eating sweet potato porridge. The sweet, fragrant, and tender flavor had Uncle Hu beaming.
The pot of porridge was finished quickly. Zhao Lan and Bai Zhi had deliberately eaten less. After all, they were guests in someone else’s home, and the two men had been working hard and starving all day. It wouldn’t be right to compete with them for food, especially since there was only so much in the pot.