The emergence of stone mills and steamed buns seemed to suddenly open a door to magical food for tribal men, women and children.
For the next period of time, Xu Chen guided a group of women and men to grind flour and soy milk every day. In addition to making simple and common steamed buns, he also learned to make hand-rolled noodles, knife-shaped noodles, dumplings, pancakes, vegetable cakes, scones, etc.
Grow pasta.
Of course, he also tried to make tofu several times, but it was not very successful. I don’t know whether it was due to the variety of wild beans, gypsum or other reasons. After all, the tofu was not very solid, just like steamed eggs.
It's still too soft to be molded, but despite this, this kind of soft and fragrant food with a strong bean flavor still surprises all the tribesmen, especially a group of women who are raising children, who are even more excited.
This kind of food called tofu brain by Xu Chen is as delicious as steamed eggs, but it is extremely affordable. Grinding a pot of beans can make several large pots, enough to feed all the children. Coupled with the soft and delicious pasta, the children will be weaned after weaning.
The food became very abundant.
Therefore, although Xu Chen's tofu, dried tofu skin and other bean products were not successful, it also made all the tribesmen feel that besides wheat, beans, which they did not like to eat, were also liked and praised by everyone.
Soy milk is delicious, tofu curd is delicious, and bean dregs can also be made into scallion-flavored bean dregs cakes. After roasting, they are so fragrant that everyone will praise them.
In addition, in order to completely solve the problem of food for infants and young children, Xu Chen also asked people to fry wheat beans and some other grains, then use a stone mill to grind them into powder to make multi-grain fried noodles and put them in clay pots as daily staple food.
This kind of fried noodles is very convenient to eat. You only need to add a little salt, add boiling water and stir into rice paste, and you will have a bowl of fragrant and delicious food.
This simple and convenient food has greatly alleviated the children's habit of eating small meals frequently every day, making it countless times easier for a group of women who are responsible for taking care of children.
In fact, fried noodles can also be used as dry food when traveling. It can be carried in a leather bag. It can be eaten dry or boiled and stirred. It is better than using boiling water to brew multigrain scones and dried meat when I conquered the Pi tribe last time.
easy and convenient.
March is the season when wild vegetables grow crazily. The women of the tribe are busy collecting and making more pickles, salt and sauerkraut every day. They can also use these fresh and tender wild vegetables to make countless kinds of delicious pasta.
Faced with these delicious temptations, pasta quickly became the most popular food in the tribe, and various types of pasta have also become the hottest topic in the tribe recently.
Babies and toddlers love to eat batter.
Children love to eat crispy scones.
Men like to eat big steamed buns.
Women love dumpling noodle soup.
Older people prefer softer noodles.
In fact, most people like to eat anything.
Xu Chen likes to eat duck egg pancakes.
Stir the bean noodles with minced green onions to form a paste, smear it with lard in a small flat-bottomed copper pot, then put it on a low heat and spread it into pancakes, then add a duck egg, fry both sides until it is cooked, sprinkle some pickled sauerkraut grains, and add a few slices
Fresh thorn melon and some washed wild vegetables rolled together create an unparalleled delicacy.
Compared with steamed buns that cannot be fermented and have a rigid texture, this kind of duck egg pancake is almost the same as the street food of later generations. It even tastes more original and natural, with an indescribable special aroma.
However, in order to eat this duck egg pancake, Xu Chen still spent some effort and asked the foundry to cast several pans from bronze with a relatively high tin content, which can not only fry eggs and pancakes, but also fry various fish.
In fact, the foundry has been able to cast various copper pots and even woks. However, there is too little oil. Not to mention vegetable oil, animal oil is currently in scarcity. There are nearly 200 people in the family, old and young. If they all change to cooking, I am afraid that there will be no more
Even the excess oil is not enough to eat. I used a clay pot of lard from two pigs killed last winter and used it frequently. Now it has basically bottomed out.
Even if Xu Chen wanted to eat, he could only look away and sigh.
In this era of extreme scarcity of supplies, it is doomed to be impossible to have a full meal.
Even if he could invent everything, he couldn't invent oil crops.
Whether raising animals or cultivating plant-based oil crops, it is an extremely long and laborious process that does not allow for the slightest bit of opportunism.
But now, in order to eat food that I am more accustomed to, it seems that I still have to work hard to find an economical oil plant.
It doesn’t have to be rapeseed and sesame. Judging from the current warm and humid climate, there must be other edible oil plants, such as some wild grasses or wild fruits with high oil content.
In later generations, there are tea oil, olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, walnut oil, peanut oil, etc.
Xu Chen can believe that there should be more various oil crops now, just like there are a large number of tung trees near the Jia tribe. These oil crops can only be eaten or not.
The edible ones can naturally be used for cooking, while the inedible ones can also be used as industrial materials.
…
Time flies by in an instant.
While the Ba people are busy collecting wild vegetables and making pickles in large quantities, and are immersed in making various delicious pasta every day, Mother's Day is also coming as scheduled.
Three days before Mother's Day, the Ji, Cang, Muya, Hu, and Wu tribes all came to join in the fun on the same day.
Because the entire line of Bacang Avenue is connected, it is not only convenient to travel, but some dangerous areas where wild beasts are found along the way are also being expelled by hunters patrolling from several tribes during the road construction, so the safety of the road is greatly increased.
In addition, various tribes have also changed a lot this year. Almost all tribes ride horses and carts and push carts and wheelbarrows. They are no longer the same scene as in previous years where they all carried simple rattan baskets and baskets.
Except for the Hu tribe, which has no access roads and carriages, the other four tribes all came with at least one carriage, and the Wu tribe came with five carriages, and others such as carts and wheelbarrows, adding up to more than 20 carriages.
It looks spectacular on the river beach.
As the core tribes of Bameng gathered together, the valley suddenly became lively.
The tribes who arrived early soon learned that the Ba people had a magical stone mill this year, which could grind wheat beans into flour or even soy milk, and then produce countless kinds of unique delicacies that they had never tasted before.
So these people gathered in the Ba Clan compound all day long, watching the lively and noisy scene.
The most excited group of people are undoubtedly the clan leaders and family leaders of each tribe.
After arriving, the Ba people warmly entertained the group and after several meals of steamed buns, noodles and soy milk, everyone was completely conquered by the sudden appearance of these novel delicacies.
All day long, I followed a group of women such as the little witch and the mother, and worked tirelessly to learn how to grind, feed, and make various pasta and bean products. The mill shed that I built was occupied by men, women, and children of all races all day long.
The outer three layers were filled with water, and the men were eager to learn how to grind the mill, while the women were learning how to feed the mill from several Ba women.
In this bustle, almost everyone forgot their mission.
A group of wealthy Uzbek family leaders clamored to order stone mills.
Compared with the stone mortar which can only simply crush and process grain, the effect of the stone mill is incredible, and the resulting impact on the diet is even greater.
Once the stone grinding mill becomes popular, the diet of the primitive tribes that the Bameng can influence will undergo earth-shaking changes.
Moreover, this change will greatly change and improve the survival capabilities of infants, young children, the elderly and the weak in all tribes, and will greatly promote the growth of the population.
Therefore, Xu Chen naturally agreed to the requests from various tribes to purchase stone mills, saying that he would quickly arrange manpower to start building them in the coming time, and strive to build at least one stone mill for each tribe before the harvest in autumn.
A pair of stone mills is currently priced at 200 copper coins. If you are willing to exchange your wealth, you can place an order directly. However, you will only accept grain and linen or copper coins of equivalent value. After the stone is built, the Ba people will arrange for it to be delivered by carriage.
Help with installation.
Because the stone mill is slow to make and too heavy, Xu Chen said that each tribe can also arrange for people to come to learn the making method, but each tribe needs to pay two hundred coins per year, or the equivalent of grain or linen, for five consecutive years.
, called tax grinding.
Both methods have their own pros and cons.
It is easiest to buy directly, you only need to pay to use it.
But after arranging people to learn how to make them, their own tribe can make unlimited stone mills, and even trade and sell them to outsiders.
From the overall value point of view, the greater the tribe's demand and the stronger its strength, the more cost-effective it is to learn and grind. For small tribes, it is more convenient to purchase with less demand.
A pair of stone mills costs two hundred cents, which is worth two hundred catties of copper, equivalent to one thousand catties of grain.
Generally, a small tribe of about a hundred people may only need one or two stone mills, and there is no need to spend more money to learn. Besides, the tribe has a small working population, making mills takes a lot of time and energy, even if you learn it.
It's of little use.
But for those with more than 200 people, or even large tribes with five or six hundred people like the Wu Gonghuo Tribe, each family may need at least one set of stone mills, and one tribe will eventually need seven, eight or even more than ten sets.
Only stone mills can meet the dietary needs of all tribesmen, so paying taxes and studying is the most cost-effective solution to the problem once and for all.
Although five thousand kilograms of grain is a lot, almost equivalent to a year's harvest of more than 200 acres of farmland, but evenly spread over five years, the annual grain income is less than 30 acres. For people like the Gonghuo tribe or the Ba tribe who have already
For tribes that have cultivated thousands of acres of farmland, it is completely affordable.
Therefore, in the face of Xu Chen's proposal, after a discussion among the leaders of the tribes of the Bameng tribe, only the Wu tribe said that they would pay the grinding tax and learn to make mills. The other Hu tribe, Muya tribe, Ji tribe and even the Cang tribe with a population of more than 200
All clans expressed their willingness to directly exchange their wealth.
So before tribes such as the Gonghuo League and the Yugong League arrived, several core tribes of the Ba League had already discussed and finalized the plan to build a stone mill with the Ba tribe.
The wealthy Uu tribe decided to take a two-pronged approach, learning and buying at the same time. They ordered two pairs of stone mills to use back home first. There are also people in their tribe who have studied masonry techniques with the Ba tribe for a period of time, learning how to make the simplest stone mortars, stone troughs and other stone tools.
These masons know very well that it takes more than two or three months to learn how to create such an exquisite and complex stone mill. It is still unknown whether they can even create it in a year.
The Wu people think this way, and other tribes even more so. This is why the Cang people don't want to pay taxes and study.
It is better to learn now than to buy now.
Stone mills are heavy, strong and extremely durable. Once a pair of stone mills is built, it will last for several generations without breaking. Therefore, most tribes are very realistic when faced with the multiple-choice question of paying five thousand kilograms of food and learning such a crude skill.
Choose to buy.
Perhaps this was the earliest comprador capital, which believed that building was better than buying.
Of course, the biggest problem is poverty.
Because many tribes were reluctant to pay for this wealth that they considered huge and uneconomical.
But the Uzbek people don't care, because what they pay is only the output of one thousand kilograms of copper in five years. Now they can produce two to three thousand kilograms a year. After the expansion last year, the output was even higher, and this year it may exceed five thousand kilograms.
catty.
This is the confidence of the Uzbek people. Of course, it is also due to their huge population and strong internal demand, which is enough to support this transaction.