Chapter 274: A Bite Of China
Compared to bamboo shoots, the subsequent ham production didn’t make modern people so frustrated, after all, ham seems to only need salt and pig legs, and what they lack now is just edible castrated pork.
However, this was still their first time seeing well water used to make salt. In the modern era, salt is basically a seasoning produced in large quantities directly using material conversion technology. Besides that, it basically exists on the surface of some planets and in the oceans of the Fourth Fleet. Whether it’s current people or researchers from the History Research Institute, they all believe that ancient people extracted edible salt from the ocean. So when they saw people living in the mountains extracting saltwater from a well in the screen, everyone was stunned.
In comparison, the subsequent ham production process seemed a bit monotonous. After all, for modern people, knowing where ancient people got salt from is more attractive.
Even so, when they saw the blood sausage, the viewers in the live stream room couldn’t help but swallow their saliva.
During this time, Xiang Chuan glanced at the bullet comments, and sure enough, when they saw cattle, horses, and mules licking the salt in the soil layer, bullet comments like 【Want to eat】【Looks so delicious】【This soil seems pretty good too】 appeared on the screen one after another. Their desperate hunger resembled the vibe of 21st century people first watching the first episode of A Bite of China.
The asparagus stir-fried ham and hand-pinched ham fried rice that appeared right after looked oily and appetizing, making Xiang Chuan drool just looking at them.
“Hiss…” Ouyang Yating, sitting next to Xiang Chuan, was tempted and couldn’t help hugging the french fries bucket in her hands tightly. “Xiang Chuan, do you think we should try making ham next semester?”
Xiang Chuan turned to look at her, then at Ainuo and Liang Gong sitting next to them. They weren’t much better off either; their eyes were even starting to glow green. Look at how hungry these kids are.
However, she didn’t plan to object. After all, by the second half of the semester, the castrated pigs on each production escort ship should be ready for slaughter. Without heavier seasonings like soy sauce and oyster sauce, making processed foods would have to rely on things like ham and sausages.
They couldn’t make cured meat, but making some ham would work too; it just takes more time.
Thinking that the delicious ham in the video takes at least three years to make, Xiang Chuan couldn’t help but want to sigh.
“Xiang Chuan, you say, when people in the past made ham, they only used the pig’s four legs—what about the pig’s torso? Throw it away?”
Ainuo stared at the video screen and asked somewhat absentmindedly.
This magical question instantly pulled Xiang Chuan out of her worries about ham production. She looked at Ainuo with the eyes one would use for an idiot.
“Pigs used for making ham doesn’t mean their other parts can’t be stir-fried and eaten normally. We ate pork before— that’s how people in the past handled the parts not used for ham.”
Perhaps Xiang Chuan’s gaze was too sharp; the young and old in the live broadcast room who were distracted listening to her coughed unnaturally a couple of times.
Fair enough—ancient people didn’t waste pork bones, pig offal, or pig fat, so how could they waste such a large pig torso.
Ainuo also realized they had asked something stupid, hummed a couple times, then started silently stuffing french fries and potato wedges into their mouth, intending to cover up their recent blunder.
Xiang Chuan, who had been tormented by Ainuo’s math tutoring for several months, wanted to press the advantage and say a few more things, but at that moment, the video screen changed, drawing her attention away.
Fine, she’ll remember this. Next time this guy looks at her like an idiot, Xiang Chuan wouldn’t mind bringing it up properly when castrated pork hits the market.
——
The broadcast of A Bite of China wouldn’t stop due to these little episodes in the live broadcast room.
While Xiang Chuan and Ainuo were quietly discussing the ham, the ham-related content also reached the end. What entered the screen next were lakes and wooden boats.
Are they looking for some ingredients again this time?
Everyone in the live broadcast room and the live stream viewers stared closely at the screen.
At first, the narration and lens didn’t directly say what the worker brothers in the screen were looking for, and the BJ were all withered aquatic plants, which left the viewers and Xiang Xue and others very puzzled: Is there anything to pick here? Could it be… these withered leaves are edible?!
Xiang Chuan: Dried fresh lotus leaves can actually be used to brew tea…
Right after, the screen showed silt and withered lotus seedpods one after another, which was somewhat unacceptable to the viewers who had just been drooling over the fresh and tempting ham.
This this this… is it really edible? Eat what? Mud?
The answer was revealed soon. When the worker brothers dug out lotus roots covered in silt from the silt in the screen, the bullet comments exploded again.
【What is this thing?! Ah?!】
【No… this… this is edible?】
【Ancient people really weren’t picky!】
……
Not just the viewers in the bullet comments, but in the live broadcast room, Xiang Xue and others couldn’t help repeatedly looking toward Xiang Chuan, with a hesitant expression.
Xiang Chuan could easily guess what they were thinking. She twitched her mouth and didn’t continue explaining.
Because the next screen showed sliced lotus root pieces, causing exclamations of “Ah?!” to arise one after another inside and outside the live stream room.
The white lotus root slices and joints contrasted too strongly with the appetite-suppressing appearance wrapped in silt from the previous screen. Everyone in the live broadcast room even forgot to munch on the snacks and beverages in their hands.
Except for Xiang Chuan. Looking at the lotus root clips in the screen, she swallowed hard. Her hometown didn’t really like lotus root clips much; after she started working, she occasionally saw a few old ladies selling them sporadically in the vegetable market. The crisp texture of the lotus root, the freshness of the meat, plus the crispy deep-fried batter…
Xiang Chuan stuffed several french fries into her mouth forcefully.
“Xiang Chuan, this lotus root…”
Ouyang Yating couldn’t help speaking up to ask about the lotus root, but at that moment, the screen switched to the scene of the lotus root diggers gathering to eat dinner. The dim environment contrasted sharply with the lights above the workers’ heads. The white rice in the workers’ bowls was what her modern people had just eaten not long ago. The narration’s lines and the lotus root diggers’ own accounts revealed their hard labor, making everyone in the live stream room, including Ouyang Yating, feel a heaviness in their chests.
And when the screen changed to the workers holding lotus roots and smiling in the fields, it touched their hearts even more.
Liang Gong, sitting nearby, stared tightly at the screen, touched his chest. The emotions that had just surged up gave him a feeling of being deeply touched in his nerves. What kind of feeling was this?
Many viewers in the live stream room probably felt the same; they couldn’t express this emotion and could only watch silently onward. For a moment, the number of bullet comments in the live stream room decreased significantly.
However, no one mentioned the silt on the lotus root anymore.
Xiang Chuan looked at the lotus root soup in the screen and recalled the winters of her childhood. When she and her sister hurried home in the damp, cold drizzle, what they looked forward to most was being able to drink a bowl of lotus root ribs soup in the evening. What she and her sister liked to do most was poke holes in the lotus root chunks with chopsticks. Later, the family bought those big lotus roots that didn’t pull strings much. During New Year visits home, her nephews and nieces didn’t hold back from poking holes in the lotus root slices with chopsticks for fun. Whenever brother and sister scolded the kids, their mother never forgot to bring up the three siblings’ black history. The nephews and nieces, seeing the elders’ embarrassed looks, snickered secretly under the table.
“Xiang Chuan, can we still eat these lotus roots now?” Ouyang Yating took a deep breath, sorted out her emotions, and finally asked.
“There are still lotus roots; the ones under the lotus flowers in the park ponds can be dug up after they wither in autumn.” Xiang Chuan said, gently sipping her fruit milk.
It’s just that the lakes full of withered lotus leaves and lotus seedpods, the wooden boats crisscrossing between the lotus fields, and the figures shuttling in the lotus fields—we no longer see them.
