Chapter 852: 842. Red and White
But the sweet potato that can be baked through in an air fryer in 40 minutes is definitely not the one Qiaoqiao is holding with both hands.
He gazed joyfully at the sweet potato in his hand, then quickly grabbed a twig to scrape off the mud on it:
“This one’s for Da Wang!”
It was Song Youde who ca over, tugging at the Sweet Potato Vine, and smiled upon seeing this: “This whole nest seems to have all red-skinned ones, it might choke you if you eat these. Dig sowhere else if you want to eat.”
“Sure!” Qiaoqiao had already placed the huge sweet potato into the basket, and while pulling on the roots to dig them out, she also said, “I’ll dig one up for each of them, and after I’m done here, I’ll change spots. I want to eat it raw.”
Speaking of which, they heard Wang Lifan calling him from the field ridge ahead: “Qiaoqiao, co dig here. This one peeking out is white-skinned, which is crisp and sweet when eaten raw!”
Qiaoqiao imdiately threw aside the red-skinned ones in her hand and ran over, leaping across several field ridges.
Such a sight caused mixed feelings of envy and desire in the live chat comnts:
“Give it to , I’m not picky.”
“I love the red ones stead! I don’t like the mushy texture of the white-skinned ones.”
“
! Look at , strear! I also love to eat them raw!”
“These old varieties of raw sweet potatoes must be crisp, sweet, and easy to bite, right? The honey sweet potatoes and smoke-flavored ones they sell now are hard when raw and don’t have a nice texture.”
“The ripe ones! Honey sweet potatoes are the best to eat! The old varieties are too big, and one person can’t finish them.”
“Speaking of which, with the cold weather coming, it’s about ti for the strear to cook pig feed, right? When I was little, these old varieties of big sweet potatoes were all chopped up to feed the pigs.”
“Damn it! Just thinking about those pigs eating better than , I’m dying to eat a pig-killing feast!”
It had rained a few days ago and the topsoil was slightly dry, but the underside was moist. Qiaoqiao skillfully used the twig to dig underneath—it didn’t matter if the skin broke since they were going to be eaten soon anyway.
Very quickly, a large nest was unearthed!
“Wow!”
He exclaid in surprise: “They grew so well!”
Indeed, this whole nest of white-skinned sweet potatoes was like an embarrassnt of riches! The ends were pointed, and the middle was plump, with a diater of about seven to eight centiters, which was the ideal state for sweet potatoes.
And the sweet potatoes in this nest were all about the sa size, with no pits or scars…
Qiaoqiao was so happy that she sat down on the ground and began to sort the sweet potatoes:
“This one goes into the cooking pit, this one will be stead, this one will be boiled for sweet potato porridge, this one I’ll eat raw—ah, and there’s one for my sister!”
“We also need to dry sweet potato strips! Slice them thicker, so they are semi-dry, not fully dehydrated. Bite into one and it’s especially sweet! Not too hard but still chewy…”
The viewers in the livestream were on the verge of tears.
“I knew it, a sudden live broadcast without notice, is either showing off delicious food or preparing delicious food.”
“Wuu wuu wuu, I want to eat too!!”
“This nest of sweet potatoes looks so perfect! So uniform and large, imagine how delicious and sweet they’d be stead in a rural clay pot!”
“Talking about sweet potato strips reminds
of the ones from my childhood. They tasted the best the first few days after being sun-dried. They’re no good after too long.”
“I rember! To make them last until New Year’s, they were dried until they were super hard. You had to gnaw on a piece for half an hour just to soften it in your mouth!”
“When we were young, we didn’t have much to eat for New Year’s! My mom would light a candle on New Year’s Eve, with a hacksaw blade, making our own rock sugar at ho.”
[??? Lighting candles on New Year’s Eve, is there no electricity? What’s with bagging the white sugar?]
[HAHAHA, you can tell the person in front is young.]
[Lighting candles is for burning saw blades, and burning saw blades is because you need to seal the plastic bags.]
[Sealing plastic bags because every household buys bulk white sugar and packages it themselves.]
[A disappearing childhood mory appears! A bottle of wine, a bag of sugar… Making the rounds visiting relatives, and only after the fifteenth do you realize it’s all been sent back to your own ho.]
[Wow, now we’re talking about the New Year… I just want to eat this sweet potato right now!]
[Does the host sell sweet potato snacks or not?]
[Darn it, if all else fails, I’ll take over you, Da Wang, just save that big sweet potato for , will you?]
[Curious, the sweet potato snacks I dried as a kid were that kind of grayish-yellow, not the honey orange-red ones they sell now…]
A simple appearance of a few sweet potatoes instantly ignited the enthusiasm of the fans in the live stream. Everyone was talking at once, reminiscing about the past or looking forward to the New Year, clearly very engaged.
But Qiaoqiao didn’t share this sentint.
He was born at a ti when everyone in his family had a Nokia, with only faint mories of his grandmother occasionally drying sweet potato slices on a bamboo mat, eating them after half a day in the sun, not particularly tasty, only rembering the white starch powder that ford on top.
However, he did not read the barrage of comnts, which naturally didn’t prompt him to reminisce about the past. Instead, he was sowhat distressed to find out that even though this batch of sweet potatoes was large and plentiful, after counting the shares for his sister and parents, there clearly wouldn’t be enough.
“I need to dig up another batch!”
He was holding a stick, very determined.
Grandma said cheerfully, “Then dig in this row; these should be the ones with the white skin. Dig them up and take them ho for yourselves to eat first. Your grandpa and I don’t like them much.”
“Why?” Qiaoqiao asked with surprise, looking up.
As Grandma skillfully cut the sweet potato vines and spoke with a light tone, “We had our fill when we were younger!”,
“And your dad, he didn’t have much to eat when he was a kid, either gnawing on sweet potatoes or searching for wild fruits in the mountains… Sweet potatoes cause heartburn, and wild fruits are so tart that the more you eat, the hungrier you get… We don’t like them.”
Qiaoqiao blinked, not quite understanding why there wasn’t much to eat. At his ho, his sister used to buy snacks when she went to school.
But he didn’t ask. Adults always have so strange little secrets that are hard to explain. He’d have to wait until he grew up to understand, but right now, he really wanted to eat sweet potatoes!
So he bent down, holding the stick and continued to dig forward from where he had left off.
Song Youde had dragged the sweet potato vines to the roadside and ca back, watching him work with great energy and couldn’t help saying, “This silly kid, once the sweet potato vines are done, he should be digging with a hoe, but there he is, poking and prying with a stick…”
“You mind your business!” Wang Lifan gave him a glance, “Isn’t it enough that the kid is happy… Later, fiddle with that phone of yours and see if anyone can lend a hand, we gotta sort out these sweet potato stalks.”
She said this while flipping over another layer of sweet potato vines: “Look, lots of them are still tender, good enough to eat.”
Song Youde nodded, “Alright, I’ll ask Tantan, get the old buddies who used to weave mats together to co over, we’ll treat them to a al tonight, and get them to help us sort out more sweet potato stalks in the afternoon.”
Then looking at the sweet potato field, he couldn’t help but stand up straight and dream:
“Now that it’s getting cold, these sweet potatoes can save us a lot of money when cooking pig feed!”
The unattended live stream, upon hearing this, went wild—
[If pigs can eat it, why can’t I?!]
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