"Oh! You eat it raw? Is it good?" Zhou Mengdie asked in surprise.
"It's not bad, a little sweet. There are also wild fruits in the mountains, like strawberries, that are delicious—even sweeter than regular strawberries," Yi Anguo said. "The mountains also have wild persimmons, wild grapes, wild hawthorns, and wild chestnuts. When the spring thunderstorms rolled in, we could find lots of wild mushrooms and matsutake. They're incredible in noodle soup, and even better stir-fried with meat.
"Unfortunately, my family was poor when I was a child, so we couldn't afford meat. If we were lucky, we'd catch a wild rabbit or pheasant in the mountains. Sometimes, we'd even come across a wild goat. But back then, the fields and small ditches around our house were full of fish we could catch, like loaches and eels. However, the adults never liked it when we brought fish home. Do you know why?"
