Small food big talent

  Small food big talent

  Yang Hui was already drunk and full, Su You had also fallen down, the crowd left a mess on the ground, after slowly packing up the curtains, soft couches, grass mats and other things, they set off again.

  The soldiers' cheers and laughter grew louder, in ancient times ordinary commoners usually only had breakfast and lunch, but these people basked in Yang's glory, not only did they get to eat lunch, but also delicious food, that kind of superior satisfaction and pride swelled rapidly with the sound of conversation, the carriage was light and the horse was fast, every step raised no dust.

  Su You was indeed exhausted, mainly due to the experience of last night that left him frightened and bewildered. The bumpy ride in the carriage and cooking over an open flame for half a day had taken a toll on his physical strength. Although the carriage continued to bounce along, Su You fell fast asleep amidst the chirping of Zi Su and Qing Wei. By now, Su You had changed carriages, and it seemed that Zi Su and Qing Wei would become his sous chefs; apparently, he had already received the treatment of a "master chef".

  "Get off, get off." The calls by his ear woke Su You up. He habitually looked at his watch and it was almost four o'clock. This was the time to find a place to stay. Su You knew without thinking that they had arrived in Lintong. ——This was the last stop on the way to Chang'an, and also the first stop when leaving Chang'an from the east.

  The streets here are still prosperous, with people coming and going, the main colors are still yellow and gray. It has a bit of the atmosphere before China's reform and opening up, yellow is the military uniform, from the emperor to officials and soldiers, all wearing yellow as the main color, the difference lies in that the emperor's clothes have an additional thirteen-ring buckle, some with gold, some with iron.

  Su You lazily followed the crowd to get off the car and entered a secluded two-story courtyard. After settling Yang Ye and his family in the backyard, he and the soldiers cleaned up the front yard for half a day. After wiping away the stinky sweat, just as he was about to take a break, he saw Shang De arriving.

  Su You tidied up his clothes, thinking that Yang Ye wanted to see him, but was instead directly led into the kitchen.

  Thinking of his own one-sided wish, Su You couldn't help but laugh, and then he calmed down from his anger. Thinking that he was just a refugee, the gap between them was like that between the president and a janitor - would the president be interested in knowing the name of a janitor? Besides, Qian Lao had such enlightenment, "When eating delicious eggs, one doesn't need to know the hen that laid them". So, he might as well be content with being the silent egg-laying hen.

  "Since you're here, make yourself at home." Su You didn't have any plans for the time being, so he might as well take a break under Yang Ye's big tree. Being his chef for a few days wouldn't be a bad idea either. At least in this place, no one would suspect him of being a murderer, and no one would come to investigate his "appearance".

  Su You finally made up his mind and had the awakening of becoming a formal chef. He was seasoning the steamed carp when he heard a commotion outside the yard, which turned out to be someone visiting.

  Su You looked from the kitchen and saw a tall, fat young man leading several guards into the small courtyard, saying, "Ahai, I didn't expect it, you've gone ahead of your brother again."

  "Haha, Brother Wang arrived so quickly! I was just waiting by the river for half a day and didn't expect to meet you here. I've just found a great chef, big brother must stay and have dinner with me together." Yang Ye held onto his older brother Yang Zhao's arm, their appearance could be described as intimately close.

  Su You looked at the two big fat men who entered the courtyard with a seemingly smiling but not quite smiling expression, thinking to herself that these were Yang Guang's two sons. She couldn't help but think of what the great man from White Camel Mountain had said: "In our country, people are wealthy and prosperous, healthy and happy, with a happiness index ranking second in the world."

  If the great man's family can represent the whole country, then the fact is just as he said. Suddenly, Su You's mind was filled with a series of chubby faces: Jin Dabao, Jin Erbao, Jin Sanbao... Of course, not to be missed is the glittering main ideology.

  Two people just entered the house, and Shang De also came to the kitchen later, naturally instructing Su You to cook well. At that time, a two-meal system was adopted per day to adapt to the agricultural life habit of "getting up with the sun and resting with the sunset". Breakfast was around 7 o'clock, eating more because they had to cope with heavy agricultural production labor, called "big food"; in the afternoon at three or four o'clock, eat another meal, because it's about to get dark and can't go to work again, so eat less, called "small food".

  The three meals a day system was only popular among the upper class and scholars at that time, and even the princes had only one meal a day, except for the imperial family who had four meals. In the Western Han Dynasty, the imperial edict given to the rebellious and exiled King of Huainan specifically pointed out, "Reduce three meals a day to two meals." It wasn't until after the Song Dynasty that ordinary people started eating three meals a day, thanks to the prosperity of the economy during the Song Dynasty. Except for wine shops being no longer restricted to the city streets as in the Tang Dynasty, night markets were not subject to curfews at night, and nightlife was rich, so an additional dinner was added. As for marriage, before the Three Kingdoms and the Two Jin Dynasties, women who remarried after their husbands' death were rare, but after experiencing decades of turmoil during the Three Kingdoms period, China's total population dropped from 40 million to over 20 million, and the tradition of women remarrying also became more relaxed.

  In terms of cultural attributes, traditional culture often loses out to political culture and economic culture.

  The sun was near the western mountain, all the old people in the city were eating their second "small meal", Yang Er's soldiers were having their last meal, and the two brothers were planning to eat their third meal when Su You could only starve his stomach to prepare food for them.

  It's embarrassing to say that a clever woman can't cook without rice. In this era, there was no chili pepper or soy sauce, and the kitchen used firewood for cooking. During the hot summer season, in the sauna-like weather of the Kansai region, before even one dish was cooked, Su You had already broken out in a big sweat. Fortunately, Su You had many people he could call upon, or rather, these people were also there to keep an eye on him.

  Yang Er and his elder brother each brought their wives, and the four tables were set up in pairs in the large hall. This means that Su You had to prepare four portions of each dish. Fortunately, the steamed fish he was originally going to make was already four tails, which was intended for Yang Er and his wife to have two tails each. Now they could still have one tail each.

  Su You finally realized at this moment that he should focus on "refined" and "less" when cooking, as overeating even the most delicious food would turn it into garbage. Lost in thought, Su You momentarily forgot himself again - two monks could carry water to drink, but three monks could also do it, of course, provided they understood the principle of leverage.

  What a wonderful mechanics principle, the island nation found a theoretical basis for explaining "judo" with "mechanics", so "judo" became "judo", and Chinese martial arts without a theoretical basis had to become "dance".

  Su You was smiling foolishly as he thought about "mechanics", mechanically chopping the vegetables, the white and green threads piling up like a work of art under his knife. Shang De looked on eagerly, yet afraid to cut himself, and only said to Su You, "The appearance of the dish, the aroma of the dish, are all excellent, the taste must be good too." Unfortunately, he wasn't of a high enough status, and at this time didn't even have the luck to taste the dish, saying so with some sighs.

  "That's right, cooking must emphasize color, fragrance and taste. Just by looking and smelling, you can already imagine the delicious flavors, which will only increase your appetite." Su You explained this simple theory to the child, who nodded repeatedly in agreement after verifying it with his past experiences.

  "Master will cook some dishes, right?" Qing Wei also joined in on the excitement.

  "What do you think? --- Well, I'll say it, you listen. Steamed lamb... steamed bear paw... steamed deer tail... roasted flower duck roasted young chicken... roasted goose...". It's strange to say that in the past when Su You tried to recite this "Menu", he always got stuck after a few lines, but today he said sixty or seventy dishes in one breath. His voice started slow and then sped up, with Shaanxi accent mixed with Beijing dialect. Although his voice wasn't loud, it was like throwing a stone into a calm pond in the kitchen, all the young cooks and helpers looked at Su You as if they had seen a rare monster.

  But after all, these dishes also include animal offal and the like. In ancient times, when pigs were slaughtered and sheep were killed, animal entrails were not considered food ingredients, but almost all of them were skinned and eviscerated. After being cleaned up in this way, they were called "**". Later, many martial arts novels wrote "on the bed lay a nearly perfect **" (used to describe the girl on the bed) - is a girl who has been eviscerated and had her entrails removed beautiful?

  Su You thought of the legend about Li Shen of the Tang Dynasty, who wrote a famous poem called "Cutting Grain". Later he passed the imperial examination and became a jinshi, starting as an assistant teacher at the Imperial Academy and rising to become Prime Minister, being enfeoffed as Duke of Zhao.

  Li Sheng became rich and extravagant, he loved to eat chicken tongue, every meal consumed more than 300 live chickens, the slaughtered chickens piled up like a mountain in the backyard. Of course, this legend also dragged down Zhang Juzheng, the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty, regardless of whether it was shameless literati pouring dirty water on these "great and glorious" figures; at least Su You can find that the mouths of the ancients were extremely cunning, or in other words, moral gentlemen ultimately failed under the temptation of delicious food, truly fulfilling the phrase "food and sex are human nature".

  "What's wrong with you guys, one by one, I mean, what was said above, I won't do any of that. I'll just be a fish or a purple gourd." Shang De once again experienced Su You's "eating and spitting".

  "As for whether you believe it or not, I've already believed it." Su You muttered to himself, but in fact, he was also a bit skeptical of his own words. Who let him be impulsive and show off like this? Don't be too proud of yourself, a gentleman should be cautious with his words and actions, Su You warned himself, and couldn't help but laugh wryly.

  The dishes were quickly prepared, only three in total. - "Steamed Perch" and "Fish-flavored Eggplant", "Soup-filled Vegetable Heart".

  The first two dishes need not be mentioned in detail, this last dish "Shang Tang Cai Xin" takes the tenderest part of the vegetable heart, cooks it with superior broth, and serves it on a plate in a fan shape, topped with a thin sauce. This dish also has a beautiful name called "Qing Shu Shan Ying".

  Susu went to the main hall to present dishes, and couldn't help but secretly observe the etiquette of the palace, and later felt that the gap between herself and them was even farther.