For a primary school student like me who has less than a dime of pocket money, colorful candy and non-staple food in the supply and marketing cooperatives are out of reach. Walking into the supply and marketing cooperatives is almost like a pilgrimage.
Supply and marketing cooperatives are divided into many groups, including food group, alcohol and tobacco group, hardware group and electrical materials group. All the goods are put in the wooden counter, separated by large pieces of glass. At that time, non-staple food was supplied by ticket. After the Spring Festival, if you have acquaintances in the supply and marketing cooperatives, you can buy fatter pork or wider hairtail, so it is very decent to work in the supply and marketing cooperatives.
With the continuous development of the market economy, the grocery store has been separated from the supply and marketing cooperatives and has become a unit specializing in the supply of cigarettes, wine, sugar, tea, chicken, fish, meat and eggs. However, the employees of the unit are generally not formally established, that is, unemployed young people, whose wages are relatively low, so the grocery store is also called "youth point".
My deskmate, Ma Xiaoling's mother, is a salesgirl in the youth food group, and her second aunt is the head of the alcohol and tobacco group. Therefore, every Sunday holiday, Ma Xiaoling will go to her mother's office to play all day. As her senior deskmate, I was lucky enough to follow her in and out of the counter of the supply and marketing cooperative. Occasionally, the assistant's aunt will give us some delicious food. At this time, we were both full of pride and superiority, and it was from that time that I developed the bad habit of saving cigarette cases, wine labels and candy paper and became a small collector.
There were not many varieties of tobacco, wine, sugar and tea. Say cigarettes first. The cheapest ones are Sanshan and Amber incense, both of which are black cigarette sticks, without filters, and they also cost 35 1 box. Tianqihua and Qiu Huan 50 cents, Pegasus 65 cents, Qing Ji 80 cents, Shilin 85 cents; Red plum cigarettes are packaged in yellow and white, while the packages of Bonus, Blue and Black Guobin cigarettes are not clear about the specific price. As for a box of black cats in 2 yuan and a box of Ashima in 2 yuan at 5 1 yuan, they are all rare high-grade goods, and even the cigarette cases are hard-capped. But at that time, an ordinary worker's salary was only thirty or forty yuan a month. Who would want to smoke such a good cigarette?
There are few kinds of beer. There is no brewery in our town. The supply and marketing cooperatives went to Suibin Brewery to buy Beiguo Beer, and went to Jiamusi Brewery to buy Jiafeng Beer. There are two kinds of large glass bottles, green and brown, a box of 25. 1 bottle and 24 bottles.
There are two kinds of liquor: bulk liquor and bottled liquor. Bulk liquor is corn liquor or sorghum liquor, generally 60 degrees. In a big jar more than one meter high. The cylinder head is made of wood, because the salesman is active all the year round, showing a shiny dark black. When the cylinder head is lifted, a strong smell of wine permeates everywhere. People often hit half a catty with cans and then weigh two peanuts to go home and have a good drink.
The bottled liquor in my memory is divided into three grades: high school and low school. The lowest grade is a bottle of 56 degrees and 50 minutes produced by the winery in our town. The trademark is printed with a crane spreading its wings and flying. The mid-range wines are xifeng liquor and Fenjiu, and the price is about two yuan. Xifeng liquor is a dark green bottle with two phoenixes printed on the red label. Fenjiu is a white transparent glass bottle with an iron lid. The logo shows a boy riding on the back of a buffalo and playing the flute sideways. Beautiful as Tang poetry. As for the top-grade liquor, it belongs to Maotai. A bottle costs five yuan and is packed in a beautiful white porcelain bottle with a paper shell outside. This is the only liquor with outer packaging in the supply and marketing cooperative. It is said that we can't sell a bottle for several years.
Except for loose candy balls, fruit hard candy looks beautiful. Candy blocks are wrapped in colorful plastic paper and orange candy. Cut oranges are printed on the wrapping paper, apples are printed with apple flavor and pears are printed with pear flavor, which is very vivid and easy to understand. There is also a mint-flavored double happiness candy, a long white hard candy filled with red sugar filaments, which is very beautiful and is usually used to entertain guests when they get married. Soft candy is sorghum molasses, toffee is white rabbit, and there is a kind of wine-centered chocolate with a thin layer of chocolate outside and a thick layer of sugar in the middle, which contains brandy from My Sweetie. If I eat one, I can enjoy the whole weekend.
As for tea, they are all unified yellow and red plastic bags, and a pack of monkey ace jasmine tea is divided into several grades. The higher the grade, the more complete the tea is, and the lower the grade, the more broken the tea is, but the taste after brewing seems to be similar. Better teas are Tieguanyin and Biluochun, which are packed in strong iron boxes with landscape paintings printed on them. After the tea is finished, the box will have various uses, such as food stamps and small change, which are all good choices!