Chapter 333: Chapter 332: The Honest Zongzi
“`
Since the zongzi were already out of the pot and Jiang Feng had peeled the leaves and placed them on a plate, it was naturally time for the salted duck eggs to be served.
When Jiang Feng carried the zongzi out, Mrs. Jiang had already completed a round at the mahjong table, her face carrying the smile of a victor.
There was a noticeable change at the mahjong table, with Zhang Weiyu and Qi Rou having bowed out of the game. Newly joined were Chen Suhua and Jiang Weiming. It was uncertain whether Sang Ming felt pressured sandwiched between three players whose ages together exceeded 200 years.
Spotting Jiang Feng emerging with two plates of zongzi, the others, also very discerning, went to the kitchen one after another to help bring out the zongzi. Zongzi of various shapes, some looking nothing like zongzi but rather like sticky rice balls, were placed on the table. Cut in half, the golden, oily salted duck eggs followed closely behind, and all those who had been watching the mahjong or trying to find an opportunity for romance were now reaching out with chopsticks to dig in heartily.
Ji Yue picked up a pair of chopsticks and casually jabbed at one of the ugliest zongzi closest to her.
As Ji Yue bit into it, Jiang Feng, seated right beside her, acutely noticed that she had bitten into a piece of meat. Although the zongzi was ugly, it had a significantly large chunk of meat inside. Jiang Feng surmised that this zongzi was likely wrapped by Jiang Zaidi.
The beauty contrast among the zongzi on the table was stark, with only those made by Mrs. Jiang and Chen Suhua meeting the aesthetic expectations of the average person. The two women’s zongzi were quite different—Chen Suhua, a northerner, made her zongzi small and delicate, shaped into little triangles. Mrs. Jiang, a southerner, made hers twice as big as Chen Suhua’s, in a long triangle shape, big enough to serve as a meal for an average university girl.
Wu Minqi did not know how to wrap zongzi. She had attempted it at the start, but after realizing she couldn’t get the hang of it, she gave up and later went to help Ji Xue shell beans. Not having seen Mrs. Jiang and Chen Suhua wrap the zongzi, Wu Minqi simply reached for the long triangle-shaped zongzi wrapped by Mrs. Jiang closest to her, driven purely by her love for beautiful things.
“Qiqi, eat this one. I peeled it first, so it should be cool by now,” Jiang Feng said, poking a zongzi made by Chen Suhua with his chopsticks and placing it in Wu Minqi’s bowl.
Wu Minqi was somewhat puzzled—she remembered that the first few zongzi Jiang Feng had peeled were the larger ones, with the small ones peeled last.
“That zongzi is wrapped by my grandma. My grandma’s zongzi are… rather… substantial,” Jiang Feng explained in a low voice.
Mrs. Jiang’s zongzi were more than substantial. If they cooled down, they could be eaten directly as sticky rice.
When wrapping zongzi, most people go by feel, stopping when it seems about right. Mrs. Jiang, on the other hand, filled them until she could poke with chopsticks, packed them in tightly, added a bit more, poked it again, filled the gaps, and so on. The final product was so dense that it was tougher on the teeth than the average zongzi. Mrs. Jiang’s technique was born from the Jiang Family’s special circumstances. With nearly ten robust eaters, each with a hearty appetite, and a tradition of consuming zongzi for several consecutive days around the Dragon Boat Festival, Mrs. Jiang had to wrap her zongzi tightly or she would spend two to three days just wrapping them.
This also resulted in the zongzi, aside from the meat portion, being almost flavorless. A single zongzi combined the features of both a meat-filled zongzi and a plain sticky rice zongzi. While the fragrance of the leaves and the sticky rice was present, it always felt a bit underwhelming after tasting the meaty part.
Therefore, to infuse the entire zongzi with meaty flavor, the Jiang Family didn’t use plain water to cook their zongzi. They used meat broth instead.
Before enjoying zongzi, the Jiang Family would have a few meals of slightly greasy braised pork. The leftover broth from those meals became the key to creating Mrs. Jiang’s delicious meat-filled zongzi.
Today, without meat broth, Mrs. Jiang’s meat-filled zongzi was as substantial as ever.
Jiang Feng scanned their table and noticed that only Qi Rou was eating a zongzi wrapped by Mrs. Jiang. She seemed to be having a hard time biting into it, indicating that despite her youth, her teeth were not in the best condition.
After scouring the table for a while, Jiang Feng finally found the unremarkably ugly zongzi he had wrapped with his keen eye and swiftly poked it into his own bowl.
He’d been especially careful when selecting the meat as he wrapped his zongzi, choosing pieces with a good ratio of fat to lean. Although ugly, he was certain the taste would be exceptionally good.
Ji Yue finished off the zongzi in her bowl in a few bites, savoring the lingering taste of meat and feeling somewhat unsatisfied. But remembering the number on the scale from that morning, she controlled her desire to eat a second one and started chatting with the person next to her to distract herself from thinking about eating more zongzi.
“What shall we do later?” Ji Yue asked, knowing that the noon zongzi was just a prelude to the evening’s main event—a birthday celebration for Jiang Weiming.
And there would be hot pot.
“We here in the back will go to the kitchen to cook, and if you don’t mind, you could prepare the ingredients for tonight’s hot pot. Sang Ming didn’t he bring two mahjong sets? You could also play a few rounds of mahjong,” Jiang Feng said, biting into a big piece of meat, chewing a few times before swallowing it, “Why aren’t you eating anymore?”
“…I’m full,” Ji Yue said, trying her best not to look at the zongzi on the table.
“Have you tried the salted duck eggs? They’re really good. Look, they’re all double-yolked, but the whites are a bit salty,” Jiang Feng warmly recommended the salted duck eggs which were temporarily being ignored by everyone.
Ji Yue hesitated for a moment, then decisively reached for half of a cut salted duck egg.
He noticed that Jiang Shoucheng and Jiang Zaidi had already finished off their second zongzi and were scanning the diminishing supply on the table with eyes like hawks in search of prey.
“De, that zongzi in the middle of the big plate is the one you wrapped,” Jiang Feng kindly pointed out.
Jiang Zaidi was overjoyed as he reached out with his chopsticks to claim his own large meat zongzi.
Wu Minqi also finished the small meat zongzi in her bowl.
“Qiqi, do you want another zongzi?” Jiang Feng asked.
Wu Minqi nodded, eyeing the remaining nine zongzi on the table. She finally settled on one that was so uniquely unattractive that it didn’t bear the Jiang Family’s trademark, making it hard for Jiang Feng to guess who had made it.
“I want that one!” Wu Minqi pointed to the zongzi furthest from her in the plate, and Jiang Feng stood up to help her get it.
Ji Yue silently turned her head away, feeling a sudden flash at her side.