Chapter 204: The Marvelous Uses Of Lettuce
“You guys really like eating tomatoes.”
Xiang Chuan muttered while accepting Nancy’s feeding.
These tomatoes were temporarily added to the canteen menu.
The morning vegetable field visit activity still gave Manager Heer some gains. When hearing from Xiang Chuan that vegetables like cucumber, tomatoes, and lettuce could be washed and eaten raw, Manager Heer immediately contacted the First Canteen without stopping and added these three washed and sliced vegetables to the recipe as after-meal digestive food.
The Class Eight Grade One gluttons who followed Xiang Chuan to taste tomatoes naturally chose tomatoes first. It wasn’t that they weren’t curious about cucumber and lettuce, but Xiang Chuan’s expression of speechless reluctance when seeing the raw-cut cucumber and lettuce while lining up for food, and then unhesitatingly choosing tomatoes, left a deep impression on them.
Some with strong desire to challenge took a bit of all three kinds. Most students, who trusted Xiang Chuan’s taste ninety percent (with the remaining ten percent questioning her evaluation of pork), followed her and chose tomatoes.
The result was not surprising at all. Tomatoes received unanimous praise from first-year high school students and Second Escort Ship employees. Cucumbers were controversial—some loved them, some were used to the taste. Lettuce was generally rated poorly; most people felt this tasteless vegetable was pointless.
Ainuo, who had been curious about lettuce before, now faced the lettuce in his bowl with a speechless expression. After frowning and finishing one-third, he couldn’t help but speak to Xiang Chuan:
“Can this lettuce really be eaten raw? I really can’t feel where it’s good.”
Class President Lu Daiqing and others around who also chose lettuce nodded in agreement. They really couldn’t understand why ancient people included lettuce in the category of raw-eatable vegetables. Could it be that they were short on vegetables back then, so they had to eat lettuce?
“In ancient times, few people ate lettuce directly raw.” Xiang Chuan glanced at the lettuce in the small bowl in Ainuo’s hand. “In ancient times, lettuce was used to make salad, to wrap meat for eating.”
——
Salad?
Wrap meat to eat?
New terms and eating methods popped up, and the students around all perked up their ears. Those painfully battling lettuce immediately put down their chopsticks, planning to listen carefully to the correct way to eat lettuce.
“Salad is a kind of food made by mixing cut fruits and sliced vegetables, then drizzling with fruit vinegar or salad dressing. As for what fruits to use, it’s all personal preference, but lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber are basically essential vegetables. Because it’s low in calories, many people use it for weight loss. But because it lacks carbohydrates and protein, it’s easy to feel hungry, so later people added grains, boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, steak, fish fillet, and other ingredients.”
“As for wrapping meat to eat, actually the more common way is to use it to wrap meat during barbecue. Lettuce has a lot of water and no odd smell. Ancient people thought it was a good vegetable for cutting greasiness, so when grilling meat with fat, they would put the grilled meat into lettuce leaves to eat. This neutralizes the greasiness from fatty meat and heavy barbecue seasonings, enriches the texture. It’s quite common to wrap pork belly. Some places put various foods into lettuce leaves to wrap, and in ancient times in some areas, this eating method was called vegetable wrap.”
Having talked until a bit thirsty, Xiang Chuan sat up straight, picked up her water bottle, and took a big gulp of juice to moisten her throat.
Roasted meat!
Thinking of the roaster by the A Bite of China Club building and the wonderful taste of that previous barbecue, the Class Eight Grade One crowd couldn’t help swallowing saliva, their gazes toward lettuce gradually heating up.
They didn’t expect this vegetable they just disliked to have such great uses! But speaking of which, what is pork belly? A new ancient meat processing product?
Salad!
Manager Heer, who had been paying attention to the dynamics at Xiang Chuan’s table, almost sat up in shock from a dying illness.
After she notified the canteen to add tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce to the menu that morning, the popularity of tomatoes made her happy, but the successive poor reviews of the latter two, especially lettuce, made her anxious. She was wondering if there was a taste difference between ancient and modern people regarding raw vegetables, and was planning whether to ask Xiang Chuan about other cooking methods in the afternoon.
As a result, the salad Xiang Chuan just mentioned instantly energized her completely.
The fruit mass production plan had been approved by the Agriculture Bureau. After fruits officially hit the market next year, their Vegetable Production Department would soon be renamed Vegetable and Fruit Production Department.
So, rounding up, fruits were also under their management.
A food mainly based on vegetables and fruits like salad—wasn’t it a recipe tailor-made for their Vegetable Production Department!
Thinking of their department overpowering the other two major departments in the future to become the brightest kid on the Production Escort Ship, Manager Heer couldn’t sit still. She suddenly stood up and rushed over shouting:
“Classmate Xiang Chuan! That salad you just mentioned! Let’s talk!”
A blur flashed by, and Manager Heer appeared at Xiang Chuan’s dining table, startling Ainuo—who was sitting opposite Xiang Chuan battling wits and courage with lettuce—so much that his mouth forgot to close.
That speed just now—could go participate in the Military Escort Ship’s walking short-distance race, right?
Is the Production Escort Ship this competitive now?
At this moment, Manager Heer couldn’t care about so much. To prevent Xiang Chuan from escaping, she directly grabbed Xiang Chuan’s shoulders with both hands, stared at her with burning eyes, and said excitedly:
“Classmate Xiang Chuan, no need to be polite with me! Whatever you’re short of, our Vegetable Production Department can solve it. If we’re really short of things, we can secretly rob the Staple Food Crop Production Department or the Animal Husbandry Department…”
Manager Heer got more excited as she spoke, even starting to shake Xiang Chuan’s shoulders.
“Manager Heer, calm down, it’s not that serious, not that serious. Also, I just finished eating, don’t shake…”
At this moment, Xiang Chuan felt like she was a boneless Chinese cabbage. She thought it was good that modern people didn’t need to till fields; otherwise, Manager Heer would definitely be the type who grew up rolling in fields with farm tools from childhood—that grip strength was amazing.
Don’t ask how she knew; being carried on mom’s shoulder as a child force-fed stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork wasn’t a good memory…
In the end, Ouyang Yating and Nancy helped persuade Manager Heer, avoiding Xiang Chuan being shaken until nauseous and causing a vomiting incident in the First Canteen.
——
Salad dressing? Back and forth, isn’t it just those few kinds?
Mayonnaise, vinegar dressing, Thousand Island Dressing, and sesame paste.
When Xiang Chuan was still a corporate slave, her female colleagues would order salad takeaway from light food stores or buy salad cups directly from the chain convenience store downstairs when they had no appetite at noon. As for what dressing to pair, it was all kinds.
At first, the most eaten around her was mayonnaise and Thousand Island Dressing. Later, hearing that mayonnaise had high fat content and sesame had a lot of oil, body-anxious colleagues all turned to vinegar dressing.
But based on Xiang Chuan’s observations in the tea room and at workstations, quite a few colleagues said publicly they liked drizzling vinegar dressing, but secretly still mixed the other three dressings.
When eating, choosing the tasty one is human nature.
After all, food is heaven to the people.
Xiang Chuan muttered in her heart while numbly accepting cleaning and sterilization at the canteen kitchen entrance.
Yes, she came again.
Seeing this kitchen she had come to four times in two days, Xiang Chuan even felt like she followed the troop to the Production Escort Ship not for visiting, but for cooking.
If Manager Heer, who was doing cleaning and sterilization with her, and Manager Wu, who was stretching her neck to watch outside the kitchen, heard this, they would surely nod in unison and say: Who says not!
——
Before dinner time, in the kitchen.
Class Eight Grade One crowd and Manager Heer all blinked their eyes watching Xiang Chuan. Xiang Chuan looked at this dense crowd and couldn’t help twitching her mouth, hesitantly opening her mouth to ask:
“I say, Class President, I find that our class students lately really like following me into the kitchen? Is this appropriate?”
“Hm? What’s inappropriate?” Class President Lu Daiqing was stunned by Xiang Chuan’s sudden question. “Didn’t we often come to watch when you were cooking in the small restaurant kitchen?”
Xiang Chuan watched the Class Eight Grade One crowd skillfully tying on aprons and fell silent.
You call this state of being ready anytime to chop up the served ingredients “watching”? Do modern people understand “watch” this way? Then wouldn’t “onlookers” become “crowd rushing up to get to work”?
Are you neighborhood busybodies?
Thinking is thinking, Xiang Chuan didn’t say more, after all, she didn’t mind people coming to help.
The classic seasonings for salad are actually not hard to make. The ingredients for any one dressing, placed in the 21st century, could be bought from any vegetable market near a residential area for twenty yuan.
However, there are inevitably ingredients modern people still can’t handle, and Xiang Chuan only remembered mayonnaise anyway. Now if asked to make vinegar dressing, she couldn’t either~!
Thinking of the mayonnaise water-oil separation in short videos she scrolled while slacking off during corporate slave days, Xiang Chuan felt that in the coming period, weight loss-related services in modern medical beauty would definitely be very popular.
