"Oh! Tofu and natto are also delicious. Especially the 'donatto' from Kyoto Temple Shrine, it is a perfect match with rice! ...Any more?"
"Uh...and there's more..."
The sun set in the west and fell into the sea of ice and snow. The four of them ate hard. The bottom of the pot of venison porridge was about to reach the bottom soon. The horse breeder, Sukeichiro, licked his dry lips and looked at the last bit of venison porridge in the pot.
A little meat porridge, then looked at the monk soldier Watanabe Masumi, and said cautiously.
"Watanabe-sama, do you still want to eat porridge?"
"Huh?...Oh! No, I'm full. Buddha said, 'Don't eat recklessly'... I'll leave this last bowl to you!"
"Hi Yi! Thank you, sir!"
Sukeichiro hurriedly rushed to the pot and scraped off the last rice porridge. Murakami Kidomi smiled, looked at Watanabe Masumi who was chatting happily, and continued the conversation.
"Master Watanabe, in addition to the six staple foods of rice, wheat, millet, barnyard millet, taro, and beans, there is another excellent food that is regarded as a staple food by the villagers and a supplementary food by the adults..."
"Oh! Murakami-kun, you mean the big root (radish)?"
"Exactly! The most delicious and life-saving food is naturally the big root! The big root is easy to grow and live well. It can be eaten raw and can be stored for a long time. It is the life-saving food for the villagers!... When I was young, there was no spring famine at home.
For food, a large sweet stem can last you a whole day! ...And radish leaves can also be eaten, much more delicious than leaves..."
Murakami Jitong looked sad, recalling the spring famine that the peasants of the Republic of China feared the most. It was the time when people really died like grass. The elderly in the village would be carried by their children and sent to the mountains to commit suicide in order to save food rations. Later generations were shocked and horrified.
People's "Narayama Festival" was a very common custom in mountain villages in this era. After all, the mage in the temple also said that if the old man voluntarily starves to death in the mountains, he will be saved by the Bodhisattva after his death, which is far better than
It would be better to starve to death in the village!
Because the country is prone to disasters frequently and has a dense population. Once it encounters severe droughts, floods, typhoons, or earthquakes, whole villages often starve to death, let alone eating leaves, roots, and bark at that time.
It is very common for insects to eat humans! But if eaten into the stomach of humans, they will fall into the realm of animals...
"Oh! Daikon! My favorite food is daikon pickles! Sakurajima's daikon pickles are the most famous in Kyushu. One of them is so big!..."
Hearing this, Watanabe Masumi licked his lips and thought of Sakurajima radish in Kyushu. Well, although Sakurajima is in the southernmost part of Kyushu, it is also the taste of hometown!
The Korean people's love for radishes, especially white radish, is almost as deep into the bone marrow as the Korean people's love for kimchi. And Korean farmers have been cultivating it for generations, and they have also cultivated white radish to get bigger and bigger. This is the way to survive the spring famine.
Important food rations, if not grown properly, people will starve to death.
“Sakurajima’s Daikon pickles…”
Hearing this unfamiliar place name, Murakami Kidomi touched Tsukiyo's head in confusion. Although he had been to the North Sea and the Far North Sea, he had never left Ezo Mutsu, let alone Kyushu so far south. He looked at
With a nostalgic look on his face, Watanabe, a monk who was born in a samurai family, also felt like a chicken and a duck.
However, the country upholds Buddhism and officially prohibits meat eating. There are neither pigs, sheep, chickens, or ducks in the village. The meat that the villagers can secretly hunt and eat is wild dogs, cranes, monkeys, cats, frogs, and birds.
Among them, dog meat is the most common and the most popular on the black market. The wealthier daimyo and merchants will eat fish and shellfish that are not prohibited by Buddhism... Therefore, the only livestock that can be obtained from Japan are farm animals.
Just cattle!
"Sukeichiro, have you finished eating?"
"Uh-huh...oooo...the rice porridge is so delicious!..."
"Hey! Suichiro, why are there still two pieces of venison left in the pot?..."
"Well...the mage in the village said that whatever you eat will change your shape. If you eat a deer, you will turn into a deer in your next life..."
"Well, that's right...you can chat with Mr. Watanabe for a while!..."
Murakami Jitong thought for a while, then gave the last two pieces of venison to the shipwright Jin Xishan, who was eating porridge carefully and kept silent. The other party nodded gratefully to Murakami, and started eating the meat without any taboo.
"Buddha Maitreya bless you! Lord Watanabe, radishes are eaten in spring. Then acorns and chestnuts are eaten in autumn!..."
"Acorns? Fake chestnuts?"
"Yes! Acorns, the seeds produced by oak trees, are put into a bowl and crushed, and then the powder is found out and cooked to eat! It is very filling..."
Sukeichiro pursed his lips, thinking of the bitterness and satiety of acorns, but he felt inexplicably relieved. The villagers of Japan were able to survive from the heavy taxes, and they indeed ordered a wide range of recipes. For example
Acorns are living fruits with high starch content.
In a village in the countryside of the Republic of China, a large oak tree with fruit is the treasure of the village and must be enshrined as a sacred tree! As for the fake chestnuts...
"Fake chestnuts are horse chestnuts! They drop a bunch of fruits in autumn and look like chestnuts!..."
"What? Horse chestnut? The fruit of the Bodhi tree?"
Hearing this, the monk soldier Watanabe Masumi was a little surprised. The horse chestnut tree is also called the bodhi tree, and its flowers bloom like bodhi trees. It is a very common tree in Japan. It is said that Master Xuanzang from Tang Dynasty brought him from Tianzhu
The Buddhist tree in Hui is also one of the "Four Holy Trees" that Buddha Sakyamuni often preached. As the country is a devout believer in Buddhism, this kind of Buddhist tree is planted everywhere with the promotion of temples and monks.
"The chestnut fruit of the Bodhi tree...isn't the fruit poisonous?"
"Yes! Fake chestnuts are not chestnuts, they are poisonous! Eating them raw is bitter and astringent, and can cause stomach upset and death... But there are many such trees in the mountains and outside temples, and they produce a lot of fake chestnuts!..."
Speaking of this, a smile appeared on Sukeichiro's face, and he talked about the benefits of fake chestnuts and how to eat them.
"Blessed by Maitreya Buddha! Although the fake chestnuts are poisonous, peel them off, throw the fruits into the burned vegetation ash water, and soak them vigorously... Soak them for a day, and the bitterness will be much less... Then boil them again, and they will hardly be edible.
Full of life-saving food!…”
"Buddha bless you! If you soak Tubodhi fruit for a day and boil it again, will it be no longer poisonous?"
"Well...it's still a little bitter, and I might get a stomachache or a headache after eating it. But this is actually a good thing, not a bad thing..."
"Ah? It's a good thing? How do you say that?"
"Buddha Maitreya bless you! Because the fruit is bitter and a little poisonous, and your stomach hurts after eating it... the warriors won't eat it, and won't steal it from us!"
Sukeichiro smiled naively, but the look in his eyes was clear and bright, and even a little grateful. Seeing this look, Monk Bing Watanabe pursed his lips, and couldn't help but tilt his head slightly, unwilling to look directly.
stand up.
"Mr. Watanabe, the lives of the villagers are low. Even if you are poisoned, it will hurt for a while and you will be fine! It doesn't matter if you eat poisonous fruit. People will starve to death if they don't eat!..."
After hearing these words, the monk warrior Watanabe Masumi was silent for a long time, feeling a little uncomfortable all over.
When he was a warrior in Kyushu, he never paid attention to the life and death of the villagers under his rule. He only sent samurai to collect rent. After he went to Gyeonggi and became a monk soldier, although he also saw the villages around Gyeonggi, they were the whole country.
The most developed place was still somewhat decent. Only when he came to the North this time did he truly understand the hardship and endurance of the farmers in the Republic of China, which far exceeded the North Korea he had visited by boat...
Thinking of North Korea, which is separated from Kyushu by a river, the monk soldier Masumi Watanabe turned his head, looked at the cautious and taciturn shipwright Jin Shanshu, and asked in a deep voice.
"Blessed by the great Bodhisattva Hachiman! Kim Boatengang, you were born in Korea, and later came to Gyeonggi... How are the villagers in your hometown living, what do they grow, and what do they eat?"
This chapter has been completed!