Meng Yan's Transformation

"It snowed heavily in the twelfth month of winter, and an old couple fought for a warm kang. The old man wanted to sleep at the head of the kang, but his wife refused to let him! The old man picked up the kang broom, and his wife picked up the rolling pin. The old couple fought until dawn, but in the end, no one got to sleep on the warm kang." Little Mengyan's school was on winter vacation. She played Kalaha on the kang with her sister Yingying and Zhang Xiaoying, and sang nursery rhymes...

Galaha is a traditional game among women and children in Northeast China. It is named after the use of "Galaha" (the bone connecting the thigh bone in the middle of the hind legs of animals such as pigs, sheep, and roe deer) as a prop. This game was brought to the Beijing area by the Manchus when the Qing army entered the pass. In the Qing Dynasty, the official Chinese writing was "back bone". A livestock has two such bones. This bone is close to a square. The sheep's is regular, the pig's is slightly longer, the cow's is rough, and the horse's is big. At present, this game is still popular in the northern region. Galaha has four sides, named "belly", "pit", "donkey" and "anvil" according to their shapes. The Galaha game became popular because there is a rule in the Northeast rural area that girls are not allowed to do needlework in the first month of the year, and girls in the first month of the year are not suitable for outdoor activities, so girls became popular with the Galaha game played on the kang in the house.

"Little children, don't cry, we will kill the pigs in the twelfth lunar month", "Little children, don't be greedy, because after the twelfth lunar month it will be the New Year. Drink the Laba porridge for a few days, the twenty-third, the twenty-third, sticky sugar-coated melons, the twenty-fourth, sweep the house, the twenty-fifth, grind tofu, the twenty-sixth, stew mutton, the twenty-seventh, kill the rooster, the twenty-eighth, let the dough rise, the twenty-nine, steam buns, make a fuss all night on the 30th, and twist and turn on the first day of the New Year..." The nursery rhymes reflect people's anticipation of killing the New Year pig and eating pork.

Killing the New Year pig means that the year is coming to an end and the new year is about to begin.

For the rural people in the Great Northern Wilderness, they have never been satisfied with the New Year pork, and they have never talked about it enough! Killing the New Year pig is not only to store meat for the upcoming New Year, but more importantly, it is a reason for relatives and friends to reunite in winter. The pig-killing activity is a warm and simple village story, the taste and expectation of the people in the Great Northern Wilderness for a year, and also a way for all the people in the village to live in harmony!

In the Great Northern Wilderness, every household in the countryside will do their best to kill a pig for the New Year. It can be said that if a family does not kill a pig, they will be laughed at by others, saying that the adults in your family do not know how to live a normal life. The villagers will also compare whose family kills the biggest pig. Every family kills a pig for the New Year, just like holding a wedding, inviting relatives and friends to their home to eat pork, blood sausage, etc.

The pigs in Zhan Yu's family are particularly fat and plump. They have been raised for more than a year.

That day, Zhan Yu and Yun Qing got up early and lit the lantern in the yard, breaking the quiet night. Under the dim light, Yun Qing lit the firewood under the kitchen stove. The firewood rustled in the wind, and the flames kept jumping, flashing red flames in the darkness, which was particularly dazzling.

After daybreak, villagers in the village came to Zhan Yu's house to help. Some carried water, cut vegetables, chopped firewood, peeled onions and crushed garlic, and borrowed tables, chairs, benches, bowls and chopsticks from neighbors. It was very lively. Zhan Yu drove the pig out of the pigsty. Yunqing said she was going to borrow a basin from Aunt Zhang's house in the front yard and deliberately walked away. She didn't want to see with her own eyes that the pig she had fed for more than a year would be killed soon. Several men in the village rolled up their sleeves, held the pig down, tied the pig's trotters tightly with a rope, and two people lifted a bench to hold down the pig's head and tail, and stabbed the pig's heart with a knife. The pig's tragic howling broke the silence of the village, which was a melody of hope in the winter of the Great Northern Wilderness!

Yunqing boiled the water. The butcher cut a small hole in the pig's leg with a sharp knife, blew up the pig, and then tied the four small holes in the pig's legs with thin ropes to prevent it from losing air. He kept beating the pig's body with a wooden stick. The inflated pig became bigger and the pig's skin was tight. He put the killed fat pig into the boiling water pot and poured boiling water on the pig repeatedly (this is the legendary "dead pig is not afraid of boiling water"). He started to pluck the pig's hair. Soon the fat pig was "washed" white. The four men hung the pig on the fork of the tree. The butcher cut the pig in half with his knife. The pig's internal organs slid smoothly into the large basin below. The two halves of the pork were placed on the chopping board. After a while, the butcher had finished cutting the pork. The pork weighed more than 400 kilograms, and the fat was more than a palm thick...

At the same time, Yunqing started to make steamed blood tofu, stewed pig blood, and stuffed blood sausage. She also stewed a large pot of sauerkraut and pork that had been cut earlier, which was enough for everyone in the village to eat.

The dining table was filled with steaming hot meat dishes. The villagers ate meat and drank wine. From time to time, they would say "Hello, brothers, Liuliu". After a few sips of wine, everyone started talking. The more they talked, the happier they became. In the laughter, all the hard work of the year was gone...

Four pig trotters and pig livers were given to the butcher. For the remaining three quarters of the pork, Zhan Yu dug a square pit in his yard, put a layer of meat in it, then put ice and snow on it, and then poured water on it. After it froze, he put meat in it, and then put ice and snow on it, and poured water on it. A natural ice cellar was formed. There was a small hole covered by snow on the side, which was convenient for taking meat from the outside...

Yunqing boiled the water oil, lard and fat from the pig into a large jar of lard, which she used as cooking oil for the whole year. She also pickled some pork. When the beans came out in the summer, she would stew the beans with a few slices of pickled pork, which was very delicious...