Chapter 200: Eating Tomatoes Raw
He wouldn’t cause any trouble now, would he?! Classmate Xiang Chuan looked nervously at Manager Hill ahead of the group.
Fortunately, after Manager Hill said that somewhat off-topic remark, she turned back and focused on introducing the layout of the Vegetable Production Department to them.
This made Classmate Xiang Chuan breathe a sigh of relief.
The scale of the Vegetable Production Department was comparable to that of the Staple Food Production Department.
If the Staple Food Production Department of the Fourth Production Escort Ship offered visitors waves of golden wheat this autumn, then the fields style displayed by the Vegetable Production Department was a box of colorful gems.
The students stood on the floating platform, gazing from mid-air at the seemingly endless vegetable fields, their mouths continuously emitting exclamations of amazement.
Because there were no interferences from natural factors like pests, the vegetables here naturally didn’t need pesticides. After obtaining Manager Hill’s permission, the students couldn’t help but touch the vegetables hanging on the branches.
Classmate Xiang Chuan was now stopped in front of a large tomato.
The Vegetable Production Department had watered once at six in the morning. Now, as the sun rose, the moisture on the vegetables gradually evaporated, and the vapor carrying the fresh fragrance of ripe vegetables wafted into the students’ noses, making them greatly enjoy it and causing Classmate Xiang Chuan to swallow saliva wildly.
“This is really a good tomato.”
Classmate Xiang Chuan swallowed saliva wildly while tremblingly stroking the skin of the tomato.
It wasn’t that she was afraid of breaking the tomato—joking aside, her hometown had grown tomatoes before, and unless it was a fully ripened tomato, ordinary tomatoes were actually somewhat sturdy when picked.
Her hand was trembling because she was now fully mobilizing her willpower to stop the food desire that was making a comeback, attempting to tempt her to commit the original sin of gluttony—
In plain words: Classmate Xiang Chuan was craving this tomato.
“Haha, Classmate Xiang Chuan, how about it? Our department’s new variety of tomatoes looks pretty good, right?”
Manager Hill, who had been paying attention to the situation here, immediately walked over briskly upon seeing this.
Seeing Classmate Xiang Chuan so reluctant to let go of the tomato, she felt even more excited inside.
“How about it, Classmate Xiang Chuan? If you’re hungry, why not pick these tomatoes, and we’ll go to the kitchen for a good meal?”
“Ah?”
These words instantly snapped Classmate Xiang Chuan out of her dazed, saliva-drooling, hunger-stricken state. She looked at Manager Hill, her face full of disbelief.
“What’s wrong? Missing something? No problem, I can use my authority to apply to the Escort Ship’s agricultural products equipment department—”
“No no no, you misunderstood! That’s not what I meant!”
Classmate Xiang Chuan quickly stopped Manager Hill, who had already opened her personal terminal and was about to press the call button.
“If I may ask boldly… Do you think tomatoes are a main dish?” Classmate Xiang Chuan asked somewhat nervously.
“Hm? What’s wrong with that?” Manager Hill looked at her in disbelief.
This question was a big one!
Classmate Xiang Chuan quickly ran through in her mind the dishes that used tomatoes, but no matter how she recalled, whether during school days or after graduation as a corporate slave, in her eyes, tomatoes were almost always just side dishes or seasonings.
The only exception might be sugar tomatoes, but that was more like some magical way to eat fruit than a dish.
Classmate Xiang Chuan organized her thoughts and explained the matter to Manager Hill.
“So, in ancient food culture, tomatoes actually didn’t exist as a main dish vegetable?”
Manager Hill looked at the tomato hanging on the branch beside her with a face full of shock. She had anticipated that once the visit activity started, Classmate Xiang Chuan was very likely to bring her some big news, but she didn’t expect the first shot to be this heavyweight.
It almost overturned all the Vegetable Production Department of the Production Escort Ship’s cognition of tomatoes.
“Yes, ancient people added tomatoes to dishes mainly to incorporate the unique sour-sweet taste of tomatoes into the dishes, making them more flavorful. At the same time, the red appearance of tomatoes could stimulate appetite, so for ancient people, tomatoes could promote their meals from visual and taste angles. Therefore, as long as natural conditions allowed, they mostly used tomatoes as an excellent natural seasoning.”
How excellent? The fact that this foreign species could conquer the tongues of Huaxia people was proof enough of its value. Classmate Xiang Chuan added in her heart.
At the same time, she silently shed a nonexistent tear in her heart for various Western-style seasonings headed by salad oil. It wasn’t that in the 21st century’s era of globalized market economy, people wouldn’t contact foreign diets, but just looking at how salad oil hadn’t massively entered people’s kitchens, suitable imported seasonings for the people’s tongues were still rare.
Classmate Xiang Chuan’s words made Manager Hill, who had been very talkative when facing her earlier, fall silent. Even when Classmate Xiang Chuan asked, “Can I pick one to taste?” she mechanically replied with a “Mm.”
Manager Hill’s silence naturally didn’t escape Classmate Xiang Chuan’s eyes, but right now her stomach was clamoring for the big tomato in front of her. So she followed her desire, “taking advantage of the chaos” to solicit Manager Hill’s opinion, and quickly picked a big tomato.
After simply wiping the skin, Classmate Xiang Chuan directly bit through the skin and flesh of the tomato. At that moment, the tomato’s plump juice surged out from both sides. If not for her agile reflexes, even if her body wasn’t splattered, her shoes probably wouldn’t escape unscathed.
The big tomato’s plump juice and thick flesh let Classmate Xiang Chuan fully satisfy her mouth’s craving.
When she had eaten more than half of the big tomato, Manager Hill seemed to just wake up, blinking her eyes.
When Manager Hill rallied her spirits and looked closely at Classmate Xiang Chuan again, she was once again greatly shocked by her appearance of eating the tomato raw.
“X-Xiang Chuan… Classmate? You eat tomatoes directly, is that okay?”
Manager Hill looked at Classmate Xiang Chuan with a face full of unease. Classmate Xiang Chuan was now the hot favorite across all Production Escort Ships. If today Classmate Xiang Chuan collapsed and was sent to the hospital because of eating a tomato, then she, as the person in charge, would probably be ruthlessly mocked by peers from other production departments for the next ten years.
No matter how colorful Manager Hill’s inner world was, Classmate Xiang Chuan’s mind right now only had this delicious tomato left. Hearing Manager Hill’s words, she showed a puzzled expression on her face and said:
“Tomatoes can be eaten raw to begin with.”
With that, she took another bite of the tomato flesh, the thick flesh paired with sour-sweet juice greatly satisfying her taste buds that had been overloaded with greasy food lately.
Classmate Xiang Chuan’s words instantly attracted the attention of the surrounding students.
The surrounding students, especially the students from Class Eight Grade One, knew upon seeing Classmate Xiang Chuan staring at the crops again uncontrollably that she was about to do something big next.
So when they saw Manager Hill walk over, everyone from Class Eight Grade One showed expressions of “as expected.”
But when Classmate Xiang Chuan bit into the tomato in her mouth, this group of gluttons couldn’t stay calm.
The unique fresh fragrance of tomatoes wafted in the air, and the sour-sweet taste made the students whose stomachs were still full from the recent meal involuntarily secrete saliva wildly.
How is Classmate Xiang Chuan just chomping it directly—
Can tomatoes be chomped directly—
Is this the smell of tomatoes—
These were the inner thoughts of students from other classes.
So fragrant! So craving! Want to eat it so bad!
These were the inner thoughts from Class Eight Grade One’s all gluttony members.
But Classmate Xiang Chuan had just taken advantage of Manager Hill being distracted to pick one tomato. Now that Manager Hill had recovered from her contemplation, they definitely had no chance.
After Manager Hill heard Classmate Xiang Chuan’s words, she looked thoughtfully at the tomato hanging on the branch.
In practical work, she always spent more time clarifying her thoughts in the early stage. When her feet stepped into the fields, she immediately became decisive and swift in action.
So her hesitation didn’t last long. Less than a few seconds later, Manager Hill reached out to pick a tomato hanging on the nearby branch. After picking it, she imitated Classmate Xiang Chuan by wiping the water droplets off the tomato, somewhat nervously put it to her mouth, and took a gentle bite.
The other students all held their breath watching her.
They watched Manager Hill eat one bite, two bites, three bites… The further back, the faster Manager Hill chewed. In no time, she even finished this tomato earlier than Classmate Xiang Chuan.
Swallowing the last bite of tomato flesh, Manager Hill’s eyes lit up as she looked at the tomato plants beside her and said excitedly:
“It’s so delicious!”
