Chapter 20: Yam’s Path To Transformation
“Yam recipes? There are many.”
Xiang Weiguo’s meeting ran directly until after work hours. On the way home, he was busy replying to other directors who wanted to visit but actually intended to come over for a free meal. Only when he got home did he have time to send a message to his eldest daughter asking about the yam matter, and the result was that she directly replied with this one sentence.
Then that evening’s dinner was temporarily changed to dough drops, but they were made by coating chopped yam with flour and boiling it.
After steaming the yam, chopping it, and cooking it in the same way, Xiang Weiguo felt it was even stickier and more flavorful. Lin Yu next to him even asked for another bowl.
“It’s tasty, but with dough drops, yam doesn’t have irreplaceability. Just this alone isn’t enough.”
Xiang Qi wiped his mouth and evaluated. If the empty bowl in front of him that had been cleaned out wasn’t there, his words would have some persuasiveness.
This still isn’t enough?
Xiang Chuan thought for a moment and then went back into the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, she brought out two plates.
“I only looked at these two recipes when I came back this afternoon.”
On the plates she brought out was stir-fried yam and carrot. The only difference was that one plate had some chili powder on it, and the other smelled slightly sweet and fragrant.
Xiang Weiguo picked up a piece of yam with chili powder and put it in his mouth. His eyes lit up, then he picked up another piece of the sweet-smelling yam and nodded while eating.
Tasty!
The choking flavor of the chili powder was neutralized by the yam’s bland texture and the sweetness from the carrot. It had an inexplicably refreshing taste. The sweet yam surprisingly had a sweet-and-sour flavor, and after a few bites, it was somewhat appetizing.
“Not bad, but this spicy one is a bit choking.”
Xiang Xue evaluated. She didn’t like spicy food very much.
“If there were green chilies and wood ear mushroom, there wouldn’t be a need for chili powder. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any in the warehouse.”
Xiang Chuan added a piece to her mouth. Fortunately, modern chili powder wasn’t too spicy, but the texture still wasn’t as good as green chilies.
“Wood ear mushroom?” Xiang Weiguo and Lin Yu looked at each other in bewilderment. “What is that?”
“I think I’ve heard of it. Wait.” Xiang Qi took out his terminal and searched, finally finding the plant museum page and sending it to the three elders. “This is it, the black fungus.”
“Fungus?!”
The three elders’ faces changed.
“So there is wood ear mushroom. Where can it be bought?”
Xiang Chuan’s eyes lit up, and she trotted over to look at Xiang Qi’s terminal screen.
“Xiao Chuan, you… don’t tell me you want to put it in the yam?”
Xiang Weiguo asked hesitantly.
“Yeah.” Xiang Chuan looked up and saw that the three of them didn’t look great. She wondered if in modern common knowledge, wood ear mushroom was something inedible. So she added, “The recipe says wood ear mushroom is an edible fungus.”
Hearing that it was content recorded in information from the information turbulence that Xiang Chuan obtained, the three of them looked better, but they also had doubts: Why could ancient people eat something like fungus, a collection of bacteria?
“Fungus is probably not… Moreover, fungus doesn’t circulate on the market. They only grow in the main ship’s nature reserve.” Xiang Weiguo said, “And this dish… spicy yam and carrot? It’s already tasty enough. There’s no need to add unnecessary things to it.”
Upon hearing this, Xiang Chuan opened her mouth to retort, but then thought that she in this era couldn’t possibly know the taste of wood ear mushroom that hadn’t circulated, so she could only obediently shut her mouth. Then she secretly added the large category of edible fungi to the ingredient list in her mind.
Even if she could tolerate no wood ear mushroom, she couldn’t tolerate no shiitake mushroom and enoki mushroom!
Xiang Chuan, who loved spicy hot pot, roared inwardly.
After having the three recipes of yam cake, yam gnocchi soup, and stir-fried yam, Xiang Weiguo gained confidence.
On the fourth day, just as Xiang Chuan was directing the servants and kitchen AI to add new water and flour to feed the yeast starter, Xiang Weiguo was already holding the three recipes authorized by Xiang Chuan and convening the second board meeting of the month.
After seeing the new yam recipes and the photos of the dishes Xiang Weiguo took last night, everyone on the board couldn’t help but swallow their saliva.
“How about having the company canteen’s AI make them for us to try?”
A young director proposed.
Rare to see, the entire board reached a consensus.
So on Monday afternoon, employees of the Yue Xiang Group headquarters building saw a magical sight: company directors walking into the canteen chatting and laughing.
Directors? Entering the canteen?
The employees watching the directors pass by looked at each other in bewilderment.
These big shots usually have their own customized luxurious lunches and afternoon tea, so why would they come to the employee canteen to eat?
About fifteen minutes later, fragrant yam gnocchi soup, sweet-and-sour yam, and spicy stir-fried yam were placed in front of the directors.
The dough drops soup itself had an appetizing sweet-and-sour flavor. The spicy stir-fried yam and sweet-and-sour yam went perfectly with rice. Many people asked for a second bowl. Xiang Weiguo, who had enjoyed a delicious lunch, couldn’t resist the temptation and ate a large bowl.
“Indeed delicious.”
After eating and drinking their fill, everyone patted their bellies very satisfied. This was an unprecedented sense of satisfaction!
A deliciousness that liquid food and solid food couldn’t bring!
Why was it only discovered now?
“It’s tasty, but with just these few foods, can we convince the agriculture bureau and health bureau?”
One director said worriedly.
“No need to worry about that.” The old shareholder who proposed reclassifying yam yesterday wiped the soup juice from his beard. “What we need to prove isn’t how many kinds of food yam can make, but yam’s edibility. According to the recipe information provided by Director Xiang, these four foods use three different processing methods: one is direct boiling in water, one is heating with oil, and one is steaming. After three different processes, yam is still edible, which proves its edibility. As long as none of us gets poisoned and hospitalized next, we can submit the classification change application for yam along with these recipes. Probably next month, our escort ship can start a new ingredient plantation business.”
Everyone suddenly understood. Right, what they needed to prove wasn’t yam’s utilization rate as an ingredient, but its suitability for daily consumption.
After a full meal, everyone returned to the meeting room and began formally discussing the application process and the process of preparing materials.
In the Xiang Family’s entertainment room.
Xiang Xue watched the comment section in the live stream room and started chatting about the plot with her companions. She had gotten the footage for episodes three and four from Xiang Chuan last night, but her three parents got interested from the live stream clips they saw from colleagues during the day, so they requisitioned the entertainment room to rewatch from the beginning. Thus, she could only wait until the next afternoon to watch.
However, last night Xiang Chuan also gave her many suggestions for the live stream room: set up a nickname system to increase entertainment and freedom; have viewers’ comments scroll on the big screen to increase fun while ensuring the footage isn’t stolen for profit by illegal elements; watch the footage together with viewers in real time, letting them hear the streamer’s immediate thoughts to increase interactivity and authenticity, etc. There were also some page UI adjustment suggestions. When Xiang Xue mentioned these in the class group chat, her friends responsible for platform construction lit up: This sounds extremely fun.
So the next morning before breakfast, Xiang Xue received the notice from her friends that the platform adjustments were complete. She was startled: They wouldn’t have stayed up all night, would they?
In the afternoon when she started debugging the live stream room, Xiang Xue also went to the entertainment room to check. Seeing the adjusted live stream room much livelier, she nodded inwardly: It has the flavor of 21st-century live stream rooms.
Actually, she originally wanted to suggest adding a tipping function to the live stream room, but considering that those responsible for building and managing the live stream room were Xiang Xue and middle school students around her age, and there were people in the family in politics, based on her past life’s cognition of politicians’ families, it was better to avoid profiting from this emerging cultural entertainment business. Moreover, the family didn’t lack money now.
Since the server for the live stream room was a free supplier, the audience capacity was limited to within 2000 people. Xiang Xue and her classmates originally planned to just play internally. Who knew that after it spread person-to-person yesterday, students’ relatives and friends curiously asked for invitation links to join. The viewership suddenly grew from sixty or seventy yesterday to nearly two hundred, and as the film started playing, the numbers kept rising. Until now, playing the episode four ending song, the audience number had reached nearly five hundred!
This delighted the kids in the class: Their casually made little platform was actually this popular!
However, everyone knew that the adults were actually focused on the footage Xiang Xue was playing. But they didn’t know that when episode four started playing, some live stream room screenshots from episode three had already begun circulating in some online communities of the third fleet. The never-before-seen clothing styles and architecture styles sparked widespread discussion, and many people asked about the source of these images and the girl in the lower left corner of the screen.
Just as a revival led by gourmet food was about to officially begin, the real driving force was currently kneading dough.
Xiang Chuan thought about being able to harvest the first batch of yeast tomorrow and was so excited she couldn’t stay idle.
With yeast, she could make many things! Bread, cake, steamed buns, meat buns, and all sorts of flatbread…
Right! Flatbread!
Xiang Chuan suddenly jumped up from the bed.
How could she have forgotten this? Flatbread doesn’t need yeast!
Thinking of this, she immediately ran out of the room and rushed into the kitchen, asking the kitchen AI for flour, oil, and salt, and began preparing ahead for dinner.
