Chapter 51
◎Acorns in the Mountains◎
While Su Huimin was away, Tangtang took all of her dad’s books down from the shelf.
If people were to survive, they had to eat grain. But now there was no grain. Was there anything that could replace grain to fill their stomachs? Even if the taste was a little worse, as long as it could fill their stomachs, people would not starve to death.
Tangtang was eager to find the answer in the books.
When Yu Juanfang came back from her bath, she found that she was still reading. It had been several hours. She wanted to persuade the child, but in the end, she swallowed her words and went to the kitchen, taking down the tin of lotus root starch from the cupboard.
Yu Juanfang first scooped two spoonfuls of lotus root starch, then poured in a little hot water from the thermos and stirred it. As she stirred, the lotus root starch in the bowl turned from a white, thin paste to a transparent, thick paste.
This tin of lotus root starch had been brought back from the south by Juesheng when he came home on leave. They were usually reluctant to drink it. This lotus root starch was a good thing, with high nutritional value. It had a smooth texture and a light, fragrant smell of lotus root.
A pair of hands gently covered Tangtang’s eyes. “Have a bowl of lotus root starch. Don’t work too hard.”
When Yu Juanfang’s hands moved away, a bowl of lotus root starch had already appeared in front of Tangtang. She smiled at Yu Juanfang. “Thank you, Mom.”
She wanted to change her posture and sit up, but she found that she had been in one position for too long, and her two legs were sore and numb. She could only continue to sit cross-legged and move her body a little. Tangtang picked up the lotus root starch and took a sip, her gaze falling on the Jiuhuang Bencao in front of her.
“Mom, is lotus root starch made from ground lotus root?” The coarse porcelain bowl was filled with an amber-colored paste. The lotus root starch itself had no taste. Yu Juanfang had added a spoonful of paper mulberry jam on top. Tangtang gently stirred it with a spoon, watching the transparent liquid swirl with the red jam.
Yu Juanfang was making a knot on the side. “If lotus root starch isn’t made from ground lotus root, what else could it be made from? Are you confused from reading?”
“Why can lotus root starch turn into a paste just by adding water?” Tangtang was thinking about something. She unconsciously scooped another spoonful of lotus root starch into her mouth. The sour and sweet jam spread on her tongue. The sticky lotus root starch was sticky and sweet to drink, and her words were also unconscious. “Oh, I know. It’s because lotus root is rich in starch. The lotus root starch is the starch extracted from the lotus root. It would be great if starch could be extracted from other plants.”
“Don’t talk while you’re eating. Be careful not to choke.”
Before she could finish her sentence, Tangtang suddenly coughed violently. “Cough, cough, cough…”
Her movements were so big that even the water cup on the table was knocked over. The water spilled onto the book. Tangtang was so scared that she quickly took a rag to wipe off the water.
She happened to have turned to the page on Quercus in the Jiuhuang Bencao. The annotation on it was:
“Acorns, can be used as a substitute for grain in years of famine.”
“Take the seeds and change the water, soak them fifteen times, wash away the astringent taste, steam them until they are very cooked, and they can be eaten to satisfy hunger.”
“Acorns? Acorns?” Tangtang recognized this thing. In the deep mountains of Dagu Mountain, there were many oak trees, and the fruit that grew on them was acorns. Before they were ripe, there was a layer of prickly green hard shell on the outside. After they were ripe, this hard shell would turn dark brown. Tangtang had once used a stone to smash the outer shell. Inside was a white kernel the size of a little finger. It was bitter and astringent to eat, and the bitter and astringent taste went straight from the tip of the tongue to the temples.
No one in the mountains ever picked this thing. Every year, the acorns that ripened and fell naturally would cover the ground in layers. The outer shell was too hard and would not rot for a year or two. If the soles of your shoes were thin, you would get pricked if you stepped on them.
…
At five in the morning, the morning mist was still thick, and the room was filled with the sound of snoring.
“Third Brother, Brother Juesheng, Brother Juesheng…” Tangtang knocked on the door but heard no response. She could only push the door open and walk in, patting her brother’s cheek with her hand.
“Ugh… don’t bother me. I’m so sleepy.” Su Juesheng turned over in a daze, pulled the quilt over his head, and ignored her.
Tangtang was not annoyed. “Brother Juesheng, let’s go up the mountain to pick something delicious.”
“Pick something delicious? Delicious things are bought. How can you pick something delicious in the mountains?” Hearing the words “delicious,” Su Juesheng was immediately no longer sleepy. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and sat up from the bed.
“You’ll know when you go up the mountain with me.”
Su Juesheng finally grunted and sat up, picking up the clothes next to him and putting them on.
At 5:10, Tangtang and her brother went up the mountain. The air in the mountains was very humid, and the dew was cool on their skin. Not long after they went up the mountain, Tangtang found an oak tree. She took off the basket on her back, squatted down, and dug away the leaves covering the ground. Soon, she saw the traces of fallen acorns. She picked up a handful of acorns and shook off the rotten leaves on them.
The acorns that had accumulated year after year were thick and solid under the layers of rotten leaves.
The branches and leaves of the oak tree wove a dense net above their heads. The faint morning light leaked through, casting mottled shadows on the ground covered with withered leaves. The acorns were piled at the base of the tree, hidden in these light spots, like a scattering of rusty copper coins.
Tangtang looked up. There were still dense acorns growing on the tree. They would ripen and fall off in another two months.
If acorns could really be extracted for starch, these worm-eaten, moldy, and leftover acorns from previous years could all be turned into grain. They might be able to save many, many lives.
“Tangtang, what are you picking this for? Not to mention the hard outer shell that you can’t bite open, the inside is bitter and astringent!” Su Juesheng’s eyes widened. “Are you hungry? Maybe Mom is already cooking breakfast at home.”
“Brother Juesheng, this is the delicious thing I was talking about. You can pick it with me. With the two of us, we can pick more!” As Tangtang spoke, her hands did not stop.
Su Juesheng knew that this thing was called an acorn. No one ever picked it from the trees every year, and no one picked it up after it ripened and fell into the mud. When they were little, they had picked them to eat. It took a long time to bite them open, and there was only a small white kernel inside, which was bitter and astringent to eat. Over time, no one paid any attention to them.
Although Su Juesheng didn’t understand, he knew that Tangtang was usually a girl with her own ideas. He hesitated for a few seconds and still chose to squat down and pick them with her.
There were many acorns in the mountains. The brother and sister didn’t work for long before they had picked a full bamboo basket of acorns.
When they returned home with the basket of acorns, the sound of pots and pans clattering came from the kitchen. Yu Juanfang had already gotten up to make breakfast.
Tangtang looked at the acorns in the bamboo basket and was in a dilemma. She thought of the book’s words, “take the seeds and change the water.” That should mean to peel off the hard outer shell and take out the white kernel inside. She tried to bite it with her teeth and almost broke a tooth. How could she peel off this hard outer shell?
“How about we use the crack of the door to crack it like walnuts?” Su Juesheng suggested.
The brother and sister tried it. With a click, the shell broke in two, revealing the nut wrapped in a brown seed coat inside.
But this was not realistic either. How long would it take to crack this full basket with the crack of the door?
“How about we try smashing them with a stone?”
When the stone was smashed down, the direction was not controlled well, and the round acorn rolled to the side. On the second try, the outer shell and the nut were both smashed into powder.
Yu Juanfang was carrying the congee to the main hall when she saw the two of them fiddling with something by the well. She frowned. “It’s time for breakfast. What are you two doing?”
“Mom, is there any way to remove the outer shell of these acorns?” Tangtang looked up, her eyes pleading.
Yu Juanfang went over and took a look. “I remember there’s a stone mortar at the village entrance for pounding glutinous rice cakes. We can try using that.”
Tangtang and her brother hastily shoveled a bowl of congee and then went straight to the stone mortar at the village entrance with the basket of acorns. This stone mortar had not been used for a long time. Tangtang swept away the withered branches and leaves on it, then poured a portion of the acorns into the stone mortar.
The brother and sister then began to pound the acorns with a wooden pestle. The wooden pestle was better for controlling the force, and this way, the acorns would not run around. This was a strenuous job. Even an adult man would find it difficult, let alone the two of them.
Soon, the bowl of congee they had eaten in the morning was almost digested. They were tired and out of breath, their bodies drenched in sweat, and their coarse cloth clothes were soaked and stuck to their skin.
Su Juesheng wiped the sweat from his forehead, exhausted. “Tangtang, can these acorns really be made into grain? Look how dark and hard they are, and they have a strange smell. How can they be swallowed?”
“I don’t know either, but I think that since the book says so, there must be a reason for it.” Tangtang rubbed her sore and numb arms, but her hands did not stop.
She gritted her teeth and forcefully lifted the wooden pestle in her hand to pound down again.
“We can’t just give up halfway.”
Su Juesheng thought about it and felt that it made sense. He knew that Tangtang was pounding these acorns to save more people. He also felt bad when he saw the miserable state of the old Zhu family.
“Is it done like this?” Juesheng went over and picked up a handful of acorns to look at. The outer shells were all crushed, and the nuts inside had been separated.
“It looks about right.” Tangtang’s eyes widened in surprise.
She went home to get a winnowing basket, put the acorns that had been separated from their shells in the stone mortar into the winnowing basket, lifted her hand and shook it, shaking out the hard shells on top. After a few rounds, only the brown acorn nuts were left in the winnowing basket.
Su Juesheng rubbed the acorn nuts with his hand. They were still hard. “What should we do next?”
“I don’t know either. Let’s grind them into powder with the stone mill first. The book says that this thing has to be steamed before it can be eaten. It must be ground up before it can be steamed.”
After returning home, Tangtang poured all the acorn nuts into a large vat and soaked them in water. After soaking for an hour or two, when they were almost soft, she began to pour them into the stone mill to grind them into a paste.
The ground yellow paste was bitter and astringent, with a strange smell.
After working from morning to night, Su Juesheng had no strength left. The only hope in his heart was also dashed. “This doesn’t look like something that can be eaten.”
Tangtang was afraid that leaves would fall on the surface of the vat, so she took a winnowing basket and covered the large vat full of paste. “Let’s just soak it for now and see what the situation is tomorrow morning.”