Chapter 29: Gray Flour

That evening, as the four members of the Qin family gathered around the small table by the first-floor window to eat stir-fried dishes with buckwheat steamed buns, Zhao Rong couldn't help herself and once again recited, with added embellishments, the scolding she had directed at Qin Congwen that afternoon.

This time, Qin Huai heard the whole thing, including the exaggerated version.

As Qin Congwen's dutiful son, Qin Huai felt compelled to defend his father's culinary skills: "Mom, although Dad's cooking is just average, it's not so bad that the steamed buns he makes are inedible. The reason the buns from back then didn't taste good might be because..."

"... the batch of flour Dad bought to save money was of extremely poor quality."

Hearing Qin Huai speak up for him, Qin Congwen was so moved he was nearly in tears; after so many years, someone had finally spoken out in his defense.

Qin Congwen nodded repeatedly, agreeing fervently: "Yes, yes, that pockmarked flour seller deserved to be locked up for ten or eight years. He claimed his family member was sick and he urgently needed money, so he sold me a large batch of flour cheaply, swearing it was top-grade white flour with absolutely no quality issues. My heart softened, so I agreed."

"But how could that be top-grade white flour? It was pure 'gray flour,' even more authentic than the gray flour I ate as a child. What a black heart he had! If he had just sifted the flour once, he wouldn't have been able to sell me that stuff."

Zhao Rong retorted sharply, "You still have the nerve to say that? You didn't inspect the goods when buying them; the top layer was white flour, but underneath it was all gray flour. Even back then, having run a shop and done business for so many years, you still fell for such a petty trick."

"Being cheated was one thing, and we could have accepted it, but you couldn't bear to waste that batch of flour and insisted on steaming those damn buckwheat buns. You drove all the neighbors away, and the shop nearly went out of business because of you!"

"Mom, what is 'gray flour'?" Qin Luo asked curiously. "Brother, do you know?"

Qin Huai shook his head.

"It's flour ground very coarsely, including the wheat bran, without being sifted—the kind your father and I ate when we were children," Zhao Rong explained.

Seeing that Zhao Rong's explanation wasn't detailed enough, Qin Congwen continued, "The flour you eat now is all refined flour. In our day, conditions were poor, so we ground everything edible together into flour; back then, even corn flour was ground with the corn cobs still attached."

"Ground together with the wheat bran, the resulting flour was gray in color, hence the name 'gray flour.' If it was even coarser, mixing wheat flour with buckwheat flour until it turned black, that was called 'black flour.' The steamed buns made from that were far coarser than the buckwheat buns of today; they were truly rough, and anyone with a sensitive throat had to wash it down with water just to swallow."

"The 'gray flour' your mother mentioned was actually considered fine grain back then; the gray flour sold at the time was wheat flour mixed with buckwheat flour, making its color even grayer than flour ground in the traditional way."

"Do you remember Grandma Zhang who lived diagonally across from your grandfather's house? By generation, you should call her Seventh Granny. She married here from Jin Province, and the noodles she made were incredibly fragrant."

"Every Chinese New Year, she would make noodles using gray flour and crack an egg into them. Her son would carry the bowl of noodles to sit at their doorway and eat, making countless children cry with envy."

Qin Luo stared at her biological father and asked a soul-searching question: "So, Dad, were you envious?"

Qin Congwen indicated that he couldn't remember whether he was envious or not; right now, he felt a bit like hitting a child.

Accustomed to her father's silence and neglect, Qin Luo simply turned to ask Qin Huai instead: "Brother, I think what Dad just said about gray flour tasting good sounds interesting. Can you make gray flour noodles for me tomorrow?"

Qin Huai:?

Zhao Rong tapped the back of Qin Luo's hand with the handle of her chopsticks: "Don't listen to your father talking nonsense. Back then, we had nothing to eat, so anything containing a bit of white flour tasted delicious. Besides, where would we buy gray flour for you now? Should we ask your father to find that swindler from back then and buy another batch from him?"

Qin Congwen felt that if she was going to scold their daughter, she should just scold their daughter, without dragging their father down for comparison.

Qin Congwen stubbornly countered, "That's not necessarily true; gray flour can also be made into something delicious. Going back even further, when our parents were children, even landlords couldn't afford white flour. Doesn't Dad often say this? The reason that landlord in our village went bankrupt and became a poor peasant was precisely because he loved white flour steamed buns; eating them at every meal consumed his entire family fortune."

"Luo Luo, I'll figure out a way to have your grandfather get some gray flour from the countryside and make you a bowl of gray flour noodles in a few days!"

Qin Luo:...

Dad, I want to eat what Brother makes. As a considerate daughter, Qin Luo swallowed this inner monologue along with her steamed bun.

For the next few days, Qin Huai continued making buckwheat steamed buns.

The discussion about gray flour during dinner that night reminded Qin Huai that for buckwheat steamed buns, he didn't have to insist on mixing white flour with buckwheat flour; he could mix in other types of flour as well.

Qin Huai mixed in this and mixed in that, even incorporating dough kneaded with water boiled from elm bark, turning the process of making buckwheat steamed buns into an innovation competition, yet he still failed to create the dream steamed bun of Chen Chen Chen Huihui's dreams.

Just as Qin Huai was considering whether to prepare some retro, nostalgic, authentic gray flour mixed with wheat bran and pure corn flour ground with corn cobs to give Chen Chen Chen Huihui a small shock of coarse grains, the gray flour sent by Grandpa Qin arrived.

Qin Congwen had indeed called home and asked Grandpa Qin to procure some gray flour so he could serve Qin Luo a bowl of "remembering the bitterness and reflecting on the sweetness" gray flour noodles.

Upon learning that Qin Congwen had actually managed to obtain such a retro item, Chen Chen Huihong rushed over to witness the spectacle firsthand; she grabbed a handful of gray flour, rubbed it carefully between her fingers, and sighed that it had been many years since she had last seen such a thing, having only eaten it during her childhood.

To celebrate Qin Luo's upcoming experience of life's hardships, Qin Huai decided to pause the buckwheat steamed bun tasting for one day, allowing Chen Chen Chen Huihui to taste Qin Congwen's cooking, thereby realizing that the buckwheat steamed buns he made were actually quite good.

Qin Congwen knew how to make hand-pulled noodles.

His skills were decent; it was said he had learned from Grandma Zhang, and when he became her apprentice, he had paid tuition consisting of one pot of oil, thirty eggs, and an old hen. In view of such generous tuition, Grandma Zhang had taught him everything she knew without holding anything back.

The Qin family breakfast shop was able to open solely because Qin Congwen's noodles were passable. However, later on, when egg hanging noodles became widespread, Qin Congwen's normally skilled noodles appeared not very cost-effective compared to the cheap egg hanging noodles, which is why the breakfast shop switched to selling only buns and no longer sold noodles.

Today, Qin Congwen felt it was time to show off his skills.

In the kitchen, Qin Congwen kneaded the dough with great vigor.

Outside the kitchen, the crowd waiting to eat the legendary gray flour noodles was equally enthusiastic.

Chen Chen Huihong, now financially free and able to calmly forget the hardships of her youth, was very happy to have the opportunity to remember the bitterness and reflect on the sweetness.

Zhao Rong, who had almost forgotten that her husband possessed the skill of making hand-pulled noodles, happily pondered that if Qin Congwen's gray flour noodles this time turned out well, she would have him make some hand-pulled noodles in the mornings from now on to earn a bit more money.

Qin Luo, who had never eaten it before and wanted to, loved to, and liked to eat it, was already impatient with anticipation.

Qin Huai, who had also never eaten it and wanted to try whether the texture of gray flour could be directly used for making buckwheat steamed buns, shared the same expectation.

Chen Chen Chen Huihui, having eaten steamed buns for many consecutive days and urgently needing to eat something else, was extremely happy.

Seeing Seeing Ouyang, who had rushed over midway to join the fun, harboring the attitude that since it cost nothing, he might as well eat at least one bowl, was poised and ready.

Under the expectant gazes of everyone, Qin Congwen confidently and gracefully dropped the noodles into the pot.

It had truly been many years since he last experienced this feeling of everyone waiting for him to cook so they could eat.

I am indeed still sharp as ever, hahahaha!

(End of Chapter)