Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

Chapter 407: Wild Vegetables That Cause Diarrhea

The vegetarian dish was a pot of stir-fried various fresh wild vegetables and a pot of tea soup made with crushed tea leaves, oil and salt.

Everyone ate with big mouthfuls and enjoyed the meal.

It's just this soup...

"What kind of soup is this? Why does it seem like there's tea leaves in it?"

"That's tea soup. Who came up with this idea? It tastes pretty good."

Zhou Gu smiled and said, "It was made by Guoguo. We don't have anything to make soup at home, but it tastes pretty good with tea leaves."

The Zhou family is now inseparable from this thing. They drink one or two bowls of it every day. If there is rice, they will use it to soak the rice. Even if there is no vegetable, they can still eat two bowls.

When they heard that it was Zhou Guo who made it, no one was surprised. Although they had only been here for less than a year, everyone in the village knew Zhou Guo's name. They knew that she was an expert at cooking and that she could find a way to make any unpalatable wild vegetable taste good.

The bracken, which was not popular before, became a hot seller in the county town a few days ago. Except for those selling sheep mushrooms, almost every vegetable stall on the street has this stuff.

At the beginning, it was six cents a bunch, but later there were so many people selling it that it became five cents a bunch, four cents a bunch, three cents a bunch, two bunches of five cents, and later it was just one cent a bunch. But even so, there were still many people selling it.

This thing is everywhere in the mountains and plains. As long as you find a place, you can pick a lot of it. It can grow again after being picked, and you can sell it in batches for a month. It is much easier to find than other wild vegetables.

Although it is cheap, you can still make money.

Everyone loves to eat it and it sells well.

The few patches of ferns near the village had all been stripped bare, making it difficult to find a meal to eat as they had all been picked and sold.

It’s not surprising that Zhou Guo can make tea soup.

After lunch, Zhou Guo carried a backpack and took Zhou Sulu to the mountain to pick wild vegetables.

It was the first time for Zhou Su to go up the mountain with her sister alone. She was very excited along the way. She pointed at various wild vegetables and said to her, "Sister, this one is delicious and fragrant. This one is not good. It tastes weird. And this one looks good, but it tastes bitter. It's too disgusting. It will give you diarrhea. You can't eat it..."

Zhou Guo looked all the way and saw that many of them were the ones she and Zhou Tao had seen when they were fleeing. There were also many that she didn't even recognize. She touched his little head and said, "We can't eat unfamiliar wild vegetables. The ones you just mentioned are poisonous if you eat them and will give you diarrhea. Diarrhea is a serious illness. If you get it wrong, you may even lose your life. So, we only eat the ones we recognize. Don't eat the others that we don't recognize. I haven't taken you to eat them, so why would you eat them?"

Zhou Su tilted his head back and said, "I didn't find it. Someone else did. It was mixed in with a lot of vegetables, and I didn't pick it out. I cooked it in a pot and ate it. I got diarrhea. Everyone had diarrhea, but we didn't eat much. We had diarrhea after two or three times and then stopped."

Zhou Guo smiled and said, "Then you are really lucky."

Zhou Su laughed happily, "Yeah, I think so too. You don't know, I met many people on the road who died of diarrhea from something they ate. We all thought we were going to die, but in the end, nothing happened!"

When the little guy first came back, he refused to talk about what happened on the road. After being back for such a long time, he slowly started to speak. Now he can happily talk about what he saw and heard on the road. Although everyone feels sad every time they hear him talking, they are already very surprised that he can speak for himself.

Zhou Guo also laughed, "How did you find out that this grass was the cause of the diarrhea?"

Zhou Su's eyebrows danced with joy. "Later, we ate it several times again. Every time we ate it, we had diarrhea. I felt something was wrong, so I picked out the ones I knew, and only two or three were left... Hehe, we tried everything and found it."

It turns out that it can be tasted.

Zhou Guo was angry and amused. "Don't do this again next time. Just ignore those you don't even know. You have to know that nothing is more important than our lives. If we lose our lives, we lose everything. For example, grandpa and grandma, Xiao Taozi, dad and uncle, we will never see them again. Sometimes I even doubt whether they ever existed."

Zhou Su nodded, "I understand!"

The two men went to the farthest area and climbed halfway up the mountain. They saw that the fern field was full of remaining stumps, all of which had been pinched by people.

But there are also some that grew later, and some that escaped the net are hiding in the grass, they are fat, long and tender.

Zhou Su didn't need any instructions. He started pinching the weeds as soon as he got to the field. He didn't spare any weeds, even those as long as a palm. He pinched them right at the roots.

Zhou Guo shook her head and let him go, searching everywhere in the bushes, and she actually found quite a few.

Fortunately, everyone was busy weeding during this period, otherwise there would be no share for them and they would have been stripped naked long ago.

This fern field is also the largest among the several, because there are more or less fern growing on these hills.

She took Zhou Suli and searched the hills, not even leaving out the bushes. After a thorough search, they found a basket full of items.

Zhou Su looked at the ferns and said happily, "Sister, take me with you next time you go into the mountains to pick mushrooms. I have a good eye and I'm sure I'll pick a lot."

Zhou Guo put the basket on his back and led him down the mountain. "Okay, the next time we go into the mountains to look for mushrooms, we have to wait until autumn. At that time, the pine mushrooms in the forest are all out, in piles and piles. I tell you, these pine mushrooms are delicious, even better than sheep mushrooms, especially when they are fried on a stone slab, brushed with a layer of oil, and the fried mushroom slices are slightly rolled up and sprinkled with a few grains of salt. Wow, that tastes so good that we can eat two baskets at a time!"

"Gulp!" A loud swallowing sound was heard, and Zhou Su said, "Dried pine mushrooms are already delicious and fragrant. Are fresh ones so delicious? I really want to try it!"

Zhou Guo laughed and said, "When the time comes, I'll take you to eat your fill!"

Seeing the two carrying back so many ferns, Zhou Xing said happily, "That's good. We have food for tomorrow's lunch. Let's pick them and put them in the pot. They will be perfect for eating tomorrow."

After soaking overnight, the bitterness is gone completely.

The work was finished before dark in the afternoon, and everyone went home happily and joyfully. Thirty cents a day, including meals and meat, was the salary even for a landlord hiring temporary workers. If one could work for a month, one could earn nearly a string of coins.

Those who were working have left, and it's time for the family to eat.

Stir-fried chicken with lamb mushrooms, cold-mixed bracken, and the remaining wild vegetables were also stir-fried and served in several large clay pots. Even though there were a lot of dishes, they could all be finished in one meal.

Zhou Guo said, "We have to go buy some meat for the market tomorrow. We only have three rabbits and pheasants left. If we eat one and a half a day, it will only last for two days. The market only comes once every five days."

Everyone nodded. Although the food should not be prepared too well, it is not good to be too plain. Every meal still needs some oil. Building a house is hard work, and you can't work well if you don't eat well.

As soon as we finished our meal, someone came to the door.