Chapter 9: The Difficulty Of The Current Situation
“Ah—I’m exhausted.”
After taking a shower and changing into pajamas, Xiang Chuan directly pounced on the bed.
The mattress is really soft; having money is great. This is the first impression.
Today was indeed very tiring. On the first day of transmigration, she had to bustle about for her “picky” tongue: simple breakfast, tense lunch, dinner completely replicating the lunch content…
If I remember correctly, my plan last night was to just cook some snail noodles today and be done, right? Xiang Chuan thought wearily.
Seeing her brother and sister eating the same kind of dough drops from morning to night without getting tired of it and even wanting to lick the bowl clean, one can only say that 21st-century gourmet food is truly nectar to modern people. For Xiang Chuan, who had just eaten sweet and sour ribs and Lanzhou beef noodles yesterday, it was still a bit overwhelming.
“Ah… I want to eat pineapple buns tomorrow.”
Xiang Chuan looked at the terminal on the bedside table; the golden terminal somehow looked just like the small pineapple buns sold at street-side bakeries, stirring up her cravings again.
Of course, in this era, they can’t be bought.
Can’t buy them? Can’t I make them myself?
Having conquered modern people’s tongues today, Xiang Chuan confidently picked up the terminal, opened Geegle, and began searching for the method to make Hong Kong style pineapple buns.
Recipes are easy to find; Hong Kong style pineapple buns have been popular in China longer than her age, and there are even some stuffed versions that are even more mouthwatering, but the problem is…
It actually requires both high-gluten flour and low-gluten flour at the same time?
Butter? But the current seasonings are only regular edible peanut oil?
Yeast and oven???
Xiang Chuan suddenly felt that her culinary skills weren’t so omnipotent after all. Unwilling to give up, she opened this world’s search page and looked up food raw materials. Five minutes later, she sat directly on the edge of the bed contemplating life.
High-gluten flour and low-gluten flour have extremely low production due to poor texture (Xiang Chuan: I think even eating raw flour tastes the same), but fortunately, she is now in the Third Fleet “Demeter,” which exports a large amount of agricultural products; a careful search might find them.
While searching for flour-related information, there was an unexpected gain: in the modern era, rice is still one of the staple foods, but the problem is that only rice-ground flour circulates in the market.
That’s fine too; worst case, make more rice cakes or rice noodles and such. Xiang Chuan, whose hometown in her previous life was in Rice Noodle Province, said this is no problem at all.
Butter isn’t a problem either; it just takes some effort to make cream.
The problem lies with yeast and oven, especially the oven.
After just searching around, Xiang Chuan understood why the food in this world is so unpalatable—because people in this era have no concept of heating food.
Modern people are committed to turning all raw materials into immediately edible liquid foods and zero-moisture solid foods to supply 200 million people in each fleet. Although there is a wide variety of ingredients, the scarcity of seasonings and lack of cooking techniques have led to overproduction of agricultural products in all fleets. Although some technicians convert ingredients into fleet energy (Xiang Chuan: Too wasteful!), the conversion rate is far inferior to metal substances, so production escort ships in each fleet are gradually seen as burdens.
There are discussions online that in the next fleet exchange year, the First Fleet will formally pass the production escort ship to military escort ship reorganization bill, adjusting each fleet’s escort ships from the current 6 military and 6 production to formations of 8 military and 4 production.
The heating plates in kitchens now are only used to process ingredients nearing their usable expiration date, and not even for boiling water, because modern drinking water can already be directly supplied through water pipes from the water circulation center, with options for mineral water and purified water.
In theory, getting an oven isn’t hard; with her parents’ current status, they can just have an acquaintance privately customize one. As long as she makes one for the kitchen AI to reference well, the family can have freshly baked pineapple buns anytime.
But…
Looking at the escort ship reorganization bill and the current situation of modern people’s diet, Xiang Chuan felt very unsettled.
What can be confirmed now is that there’s no hope of eating pineapple buns tomorrow.
Forget bread; even steamed buns are out of reach. Xiang Chuan thought despairingly as she burrowed under the covers.
Lin Yu declined the invitation to stay over from Mr. and Mrs. Xiang Weiguo and returned to the hotel prepared by the Third Fleet government for the First Fleet diplomatic mission to rest. As he reviewed today’s experiences at the Xiang family, the terminal’s long-distance communication rang.
[Buzz… Dad, good evening, have you had dinner?]
A spirited boy appeared on the screen, and Lin Yu couldn’t help but smile; this was his second child. After the cold war separation with his wife, the daughter and son took turns living with each of them, rotating every three months, and also serving as messengers between him and his wife.
“I ate, and it was a grand feast. You missed out big time by not coming this time.”
Lin Yu savored the memory of the dinner dough drops, not forgetting to tease his son who refused to go out the door for games.
[Isn’t it just the Third Fleet’s freshly made noodle soup and solid food? I can eat that on our First Fleet’s production ship too.]
The boy said disdainfully.
“This time it’s different.”
As he spoke, Lin Yu pulled up the footage of tonight’s dinner from his terminal; of course, he had gotten permission from Mr. and Mrs. Xiang Weiguo and Xiang Chuan before taking the photos.
[This isn’t still soup… Huh, why is it red? What are those yellow and white things inside? And what is that flat and soft thing?]
The boy stared at the image, eyes wide; in the image, his father scooped up red-and-yellow soup with a spoon, put it in his mouth to chew, eating with relish, and occasionally popped yellow round flat items from the nearby plate into his mouth. More importantly, these things were steaming, meaning they were hot!
In his impression, hot noodle soup doesn’t taste great, and hot solid food smells good but is dry and sticky in the mouth when eaten, so they usually don’t eat hot things.
But his father’s manner of shoving one bite after another into his mouth clearly said: These things are delicious!
This left the boy baffled.
[Is this a new restaurant opened in the Third Fleet?]
The boy’s curiosity was piqued; he inquired, thinking that if he had a chance to travel to the Third Fleet, he’d go try it.
“No, this is a family banquet at Yue Xiang Group Director Xiang Weiguo’s home; I was just fortunate to happen to catch it.” Lin Yu stroked his chin, “They did prepare a hotel banquet for me, but my mind was full of these dough drops, so I didn’t go.”
[If it were me, I wouldn’t go either. Dad, bring back some of what you mentioned… dough drops? I want to try it too.]
The boy saw in the image his father even drinking the soup clean, and swallowed hard.
“That little chef said dough drops are best eaten freshly made; this might be difficult, but after a while, you might get to try another delicacy.”
Lin Yu recalled that when leaving the Xiang family, Mr. and Mrs. Xiang Weiguo no longer had that seeking, fawning attitude from the spaceport, only the respect due to a guest, and he couldn’t help sighing how unpredictable life is.
[Little chef? Could these have been made by a kid?]
The boy’s eyes widened.
“For you, she’d be sister generation; she’s a little girl who really knows how to eat.” Lin Yu smiled, “These are recipes she accidentally got from information turbulence; I have a feeling she’ll definitely make other things.”
[Dad, you’re not thinking of going to other people’s homes to freeload meals for these two weeks in the First Fleet, right…]
The boy looked at his father’s pensive expression and said sweatily. In others’ eyes, his father is shrewd and capable, but only family and his direct subordinates know he’s actually whimsical; he once took a full month off to go to the Ninth Fleet on an undeveloped route for a new variety of wheat, pestering them relentlessly to get a small bag of seeds.
“That’s not impossible; I’ll talk to Director Xiang tomorrow. If it goes smoothly, you might get to eat these new foods even sooner?”
Lin Yu was actually persuaded, stroking his chin as he began thinking about the possibility of freeloading meals. The boy wanted to complain a bit, but lost to his curiosity about gourmet food and decided to wait and see.
