In this day and age, life was hard for people in these mountains, let alone for dogs.
They didn't get to eat kibble or raw chicken carcasses. Most of the time, they couldn't even get cornmeal scalded with boiling water. What they usually ate was steamed potatoes and steamed squash.
But when hunting dogs were headed for the mountains, there was a specific way to feed them. You couldn't feed them until they were full, but they couldn't go on an empty stomach, either. You couldn't feed them too well, but you couldn't feed them too poorly, either.
Wang Meilan, however, was experienced. She got up early in the morning and scooped two bowls of cornmeal from a cloth grain sack. She put it in a basin with steamed potatoes, poured boiling water over the mixture, and used a large iron ladle to mash the potatoes and mix them evenly with the cornmeal. After sprinkling in a little salt, she carried the basin out of the house.
