After leaving the 'Lake Shield', it was already afternoon. Lorraine Hill looked at the high sun and decided to find a nearby restaurant to have lunch and sit for a while.
This time, Lorraine Hill did not find those luxuriously decorated restaurants, but found an ordinary restaurant, wanting to see what ordinary people in this country eat.
A slightly noisy sound came from the open door of the store. Customers were sitting in the store in twos and threes. Occasionally, the sound of cooking food in the kitchen could be heard, and the aroma of wheat filled the store.
The dock porters and factory workers at the bottom will not come to the restaurant to eat. It is still too luxurious for them. They usually set up a big pot near the work place to cook some soup, vegetables and the like. They sit there.
Most of the people eating here are travelers to and from Hopeland, sailors and some small businessmen, who can be regarded as ordinary people with a medium income in this city.
Lorraine Hill sat down for a while, and a boy walked over quickly in small steps. He was a little fat, and his nostrils were a little big. He couldn't be said to be good-looking. He held a wooden menu in his hand, which said what the store could currently offer.
thing.
"Excuse me, what would your guests like to eat for lunch?" The boy, who was about 14-15 years old, had a strange accent and did not sound like a local from Hopeland. He asked a little excitedly.
The girl looked at the description on the wooden menu in his hand.
The staple food is simple bread, including coarse brown bread with bran, white bread made of refined flour, and freshly baked bread with dried fruits.
The non-staple food or dishes are some vegetable soup, sausages, bacon, dried fish, grilled fish, as well as two kinds of fruits, oranges and apples, and the only drink is ale.
A few simple and common categories are written on the wooden board, and the writing is a little faded. It seems that the food categories of this store have not changed much.
"A piece of white bread and two oranges, thank you." If the meat of this era is not freshly cooked, she will generally not try it.
In a world that lacks refrigeration and preservation technology, long-term preservation of meat is usually heavily salted, and it is difficult to eat it directly without boiling it in noodle soup.
"Okay, please wait a moment." After the little boy wrote it down, he ran away quickly. After a while, he brought out a food tray from the back of the kitchen with the things the girl ordered on it.
Lorraine Hill looked at it and found that it was relatively clean. The dinner plates were all made of simple earthenware. The golden bread had a faint sheen of oil and was a little warm to the touch. Although it was not freshly baked, it was still noon today.
It didn't take long to make.
While eating the bread in small bites, she also took a look at the recipes of the people around her. Most of them were relatively cheap black bread, with a few dried fish and the like. On the seaside, fish is very abundant and very cheap.
It is the source of meat protein in most people’s diets.
If you want to eat meat in the inland, it is not so convenient. Some small businessmen will also transport salted dried fish to the inland as a product with dual attributes of salt and food, but there are still many inland people who cannot afford it.
There was a table next to the table where people had a relatively rich meal. In the middle was a large pot of noodle soup with vegetables and sliced sausages, which were being cooked on a small stove. There were 5 adults, 3 children, 1 old man, and a few people around them.
The adult male also had a large glass of ale on hand.
As the girl finished the bread and started peeling the oranges, the family was already preparing to pay the bill.
"Waiter, come and pay." A brown-haired man in the lead shouted.
"Okay, I'll come right away."
Then there was the sound of the boy writing and drawing on the back of the board, and after a while he quoted the price.
"A large porridge soup, 10 white breads, 3 vegetables, 4 cups of ale, 2 sausages, 3 dried fish, a total of 2 silver coins and 18 copper coins."
The brown-haired man was stunned for a while, and then said: "Did you make a mistake! Just one table is worth more than 2 silver coins?"
The boy was frightened by his suddenly loud tone, and he checked it carefully again before speaking slowly.
"I'm sorry, guest, I made a mistake in my calculation. There are 2 silver coins and 10 copper coins in total. Each cup of ale is 2 more copper coins because the price has been adjusted recently."
"Are you still fucking reasonable!?" The man slapped the table, shaking the dishes, and became even more energetic. The fat boy's body trembled in fright.
"It's so fucking shameless to do this kind of thing at such a young age. I've seen this kind of gutter extortion tactics all too often."
"What? You're crying like a little girl. Why are you so funny?" The man said, turning to other people in the store with a sneer on his face, and bursts of laughter could be heard from all around.
"I...I, I'm sorry...I made a mistake in my calculations. Can I give you some deductions?" The fat boy stood alone in front of the table, tears streaming down his face, but no other colleagues came forward.
Rescue.
"Are you kidding me about your feelings?" The brown-haired man grinned, leaned back in his chair, and tapped the table with his fingers.
"In the beginning it was you who said I wanted to charge more, and now it's you who said I wanted to charge less. You are treating me like a gray monkey in the mountains."
"I...I'm not...I'm sorry." His voice was choked and his body was shaking slightly.
"Oh, just say I'm sorry now. Why did you go there earlier? You are a very interesting person."
Everyone else in the store looked at the table, and from time to time there were pointing sounds, and the boy became more and more frightened.
"Don't lower your head. Did your mother teach you to say this to others?"
"Yes, raise your head." Following the brown-haired man's voice, the boy slowly raised his head, his nose mixed with tears, making his already big nostrils even bigger.
"The way you look reminds me of a...good pet I had in my hometown."
"It eats and sleeps every day. It also likes to roll in the mud and make noises when eating."
"Can you learn its sound?"
The boy looked at the people present with tearful eyes. Everyone was staring at him without making any sound, as if they were expecting a good show. Sadness, grievance and fear surged in his heart.
.......
...
"Humph...Humph..." After a while, intermittent choking sounds were heard, and he imitated the sound of a pig.
"Hahaha, he really learned it."
"interesting."
"Hahaha, what is this called, a pig-headed boy?" People laughed loudly around him, as if they were seeing a living joke.
"That's enough!" Lorraine Hill slapped the table, and the scene suddenly became quiet, and then she stood up.
The brown-haired man looked the girl up and down. "I said...Miss, this has nothing to do with you. I just taught this clerk out of good intentions. If he speculates and plays tricks like this, he will suffer a lot in the future."
."
"You're just taking the opportunity to insult someone." The girl responded coldly, then walked over and took out three silver coins and put them on the table.
"Let's leave as soon as we finish eating."
"you......"
The brown-haired man originally wanted to say something, but he watched the girl forcefully press a silver coin deeply into the solid wooden table with her fingers, a horrified expression on her face, and then stood up in a panic, pulling her family with her.
Go out quickly and leave.
"Tch, it's boring."
The audience watching the show slowly dispersed, and only then did the boy dare to cry loudly. His tears of grievance blurred his already unsightly face, making it look even more ugly and distorted.