In an instant, Granny Qin’s eyes widened.
As a snack, the taste of the guo’er is very layered.
It has the skin of dumplings, which is slightly hard, and has a unique texture. It’s not unpleasant to eat. If the first bite only gets a taste of the skin, it feels like a very standard chewy white flour snack.
Peeling off that outer layer intentionally kneaded a bit hard for shaping, the inside skin also has a different texture.
The middle skin is soft, and the innermost skin is soft and soaked with broth.
Just like the bun skin, some people love the layer closest to the meat filling in a large meat bun, soaked with broth, it’s greasy and fragrant, feeling that’s the essence.
The innermost skin of the dumplings is undoubtedly the enhanced version of the large meat bun skin.
It looks oily, but the taste of carrots in it wonderfully offsets the oiliness.
It’s the sweet fragrance of meat juice, the joy of scraping a layer of dipping sauce with a steamed bun in one bite, the perfect combination of fat and carbohydrates, truly the essence of guo’er.
A normal person eating guo’er can’t possibly taste the essence in one bite.
Granny Qin tasted it in one bite.
It was her first time eating it.
Granny Qin never understood why anyone would be willing to queue up for food, isn’t queuing boring? Standing for a long time is tiring and it can hurt your back.
When Granny Qin was young, she hated queuing the most, but she always had to queue. Queuing to pay for grain, queuing to buy things at the supply and marketing cooperative in town during New Year, queuing to ride an ox cart, queuing to take a shuttle bus, and especially queuing to buy train tickets.
Sometimes, Granny Qin would browse short videos online at home, seeing people rave about trendy restaurants by how many hours they waited in line, and Granny Qin found it ridiculous.
She wouldn’t even bother to queue for free eggs.
The young people in the big city have too much free time, don’t they go to work? Is the restaurant food really so good they wait for hours to eat it?
Now, Granny Qin understands.
A few hours, so what?
What older folks have the most is time!
Start queuing before dawn?
Perfect, I wake up before dawn every day, and I’m really not working, so I’m a perfect fit, I can queue!
Granny Qin gnaws hungrily, initially just seeing the meat juice drip, fearing it would waste so she used her mouth to catch it, and in the process, the small piece of guo’er was gone.
"Burp." Granny Qin let out a not-so-healthy burp.
Taking a look at the remaining half of the guo’er, Granny Qin shoved it toward Mr. Qin: "You eat the rest."
Mr. Qin took the guo’er.
Originally, Mr. Qin wanted to eat a Dream Come True Sesame Bun; he thought it looked delicious with its golden crust sprinkled with sesame and stuffed with meat, taking a bite would be so delightful.
Mr. Qin knows a lot about baked buns, he knows they’re best eaten hot, once cold they’re not as good.
Unfortunately, his wife gave him the leftover guo’er, and after eating the guo’er, he wouldn’t be able to eat the bun.
The old lady really, why not save it to eat tomorrow, like the snacks on New Year’s Eve? But since he’s already accepted it, he might as well eat it.
Mr. Qin took a big bite.
Mr. Qin forgot about the Dream Come True Sesame Bun.
Baked Bun? What bun? What’s a bun? Is it important?
Mr. Qin takes another big bite of the guo’er.
This is the snack he truly loves...
What’s this snack called again?
Qin Xiong has loved eating guo’er the most all these years!