Great time travel

Chapter 61, The Middle Ages Totally Collapsed

Aside from the pinnacle of the whole lobster and crab stargazing pie (it felt more like live crab and lobster rolled in flour and baked straight into the oven) It also made Wang Qiu, a Chinese who pays attention to food and drink, frown.

Since it is the twelfth lunar month when everything is withering, with the technical conditions of food preservation in the Middle Ages, there are basically no fruits and vegetables except a small amount of onions.Moreover, the British aristocrats in the Middle Ages generally believed that vegetables were inferior food eaten by the pariah (they relied on fruits to supplement vitamins), and they couldn’t show their hands at the banquet, so the table was almost all fish and meat banquets—many hot grilled sausages Served on a wooden plate, it looks thick, oily, and slightly burnt, but it still feels very appetizing.

But the problem is, Wang Qiu cut it open with his own knife, and found that the sausage was not filled with minced meat and fat, but filled with pig blood: the official name of this thing is "blood sausage".If you take a bite, blood will splatter all over immediately, and the scene is very scary, but it is very popular among medieval European knights—the way Europeans grill sausages in the Middle Ages seems to be the same as grilling steaks, and they also pay attention to grilling from medium rare to medium rare. Cooked, charred on the outside and tender on the inside, so the sausage looks burnt on the outside, but the inside is still raw, and the pig blood poured in has basically not coagulated yet!

Even Chinese food markets also sell pig blood. Wang Qiu had eaten pig blood tofu soup and Hokkien pig blood cake in restaurants in the past, and thought the taste was passable, but they were still overcooked anyway.For this kind of half-baked blood sausage, he still can only stay away and thank him for his insensitivity.

In addition, if the bread is not soaked in the disgusting pig offal soup (not cleaned), then the black bread needs a pair of iron teeth to chew, and the white bread is as hard as The hard biscuits of later generations are similar, and the top is still stained with mold, so you have to pick and choose again and again at the bottom.There is also the pickled herring commonly eaten by Europeans in the Middle Ages. If it is fried in oil, it may taste good, just like Chinese fried stinky tofu, but these medieval England cooks did not do any cooking. Raw pickled herring was served on a plate with sliced ​​raw onions, said to be eaten in bread - God, didn't that amount to testing one's nose as well as one's teeth?

Therefore, all the pickled herrings on Wang Qiu's dinner plate ended up being cheaper than the fat cats meowing around under the table.

Then there was a dish of swan meat boiled with saffron and peaches, which tasted so weird that Wang Qiu felt that it was a waste of good ingredients.

Although Wang Qiu, who was sitting on the high platform, ate deliciously and was half-starved, the Hogwarts students below ate very happily and cheerfully, full of the "simple country humor" unique to medieval Europeans ——Look, there are unbelievably dirty fingers poking into half-baked barbecue or stew, tearing off strips of meat and stuffing them into your mouth; listen, there are constant burps and farts exploding in the hall, celebrating the stomach overload of diners , flatulence, and absolutely no one will think that this is impolite, but it is generally regarded as a performance of praising the owner's rich meal, similar to applauding to celebrate; there are also groups of cats and dogs grinning happily, around the dining tables Swimming non-stop, nimbly snatching away the bones and viscera that fell from the sky, like flowing slop buckets that elude ghosts and ghosts, making the servants who are also lying on the ground looking for minced meat feel ashamed...

What, why no knife and fork?Hey, except for some of the most particular Italians, Christians all over Europe basically eat with their hands. Even in the upper-class circles of the aristocracy, the promotion of knives and forks will have to wait until the next century. Not to mention ordinary people... However, the students of Hogwarts are now in the fifth class. Those high-ranking nobles and cultural people who can come to study magic have already graduated from their studies. The students sitting here are all small businessmen People with lower status, such as young priests, knights, etc., are naturally not so refined and elegant.

No way, the vast majority of Europeans in the Middle Ages were just such a bunch of informal and vulgar guys.And even in the 21st century, British drunks are notoriously violent, rude, and troublemakers... even more violent than vodka-drunk Russians!

In the face of such a noisy and disgusting crowd, like a gang of beggars having dinner at the end of the year, in order not to destroy his little appetite, Wang Qiu had no choice but to keep his head down and enjoy the food on the table while drinking a few sips of wine. The only oatmeal porridge that can still be eaten, from time to time, add a few spoonfuls of honey to it for flavoring - these honeys are original ecological, pure, natural and pollution-free green products, definitely not the kind of fakes mixed with syrup in later generations: the sucrose that modern people are accustomed to , which was unheard of in medieval Europe.Cane sugar, which originated in South Asia and Southeast Asia, gradually became the main source of sweeteners on European tables after the 16th century with the opening of global trade in the Age of Discovery.Before that, a small amount of sucrose sold from the east along the Silk Road was not used as a condiment by the Europeans, but as a ginseng-like tonic, which was sold at high prices in pharmacies!

Although Venetian merchants brought back a lot of sugar in addition to spices and cotton cloth when they were collecting untouchables and Sudras from India before—they bought whatever they saw was cheap, but out of habitual thinking, the Venetians still put These sugars are sold as medicines, and they are absolutely reluctant to mix them with honey for counterfeiting: In terms of actual prices, the price of sucrose in the European market these days is even more expensive than honey!

But by the same token, those exquisite desserts in Britain in later generations are various and colorful enough to make little girls stare (maybe because the British like to drink afternoon tea, their tea cakes are really good, compared to Their dark cuisine is simply different), and it does not exist in this era, which makes Wang Qiu's meal even more unappetizing, and it feels like there is not even a bright spot.

At this moment, it seemed that "Lord Angel" was not satisfied with the dishes of the dinner, Joan.Plantagenet, the loli queen of England, came over mysteriously and told Wang Qiu, Ma Tong, Li Wei and others who were not hungry: the English chefs who prepared this feast, according to the advice of several Italian court jesters, Suggestion, put together a very ingenious entertainment program, hoping to make all the angels happy...

Immediately afterwards, under the expectant eyes of everyone, the wooden door of the Hogwarts banquet hall opened suddenly, and the band that received the signal blew the cheerful flute, while the children of the church choir, who were temporarily pulled over to add to the fun, sang happily There is a popular medieval nursery rhyme:
"... sing a sixpence song,

A whole bag of rye, 24 pigeons baked into a pie,

When the pies are opened and the birds sing together,

What an exquisite dish, dedicated to the king..."

Amidst the singing, six beaming chefs carried a huge pie on a wooden stand and slowly entered the long hall. All the students stood up, shouted and cheered, and clinked wine glasses with each other.The diameter of this giant pie is nearly one meter. It looks golden-brown in color and has a crispy skin...but that's not the point. And slapstick sounds!
- This is another famous royal dish of medieval England: pigeon pie!Specifically, it is to hide a group of live pigeons in the empty crust of baked pies, just to win the smiles of the court nobles... By the way, this pie is baked with crushed pigeon meat!

For the "creative" creativity of medieval British chefs, Wang Qiu has already rolled his eyes and is unable to complain...

"...God! I don't want to eat something so absolutely unhygienic! God knows if those pigeons shit in the cake..."

Looking at this huge pigeon pie, "Paladin" Levi took a big gulp of wine and muttered drunkenly, "...well, I think it must be shit. I have raised birds before I know that creatures like birds have very poor self-control ability, and they will shit when they are a little nervous. If you seal so many live birds in a pie, these birds will definitely shit together and keep shitting when they get scared. Is the pie still edible? Not to mention bird droppings, even if a few bird feathers fall into the pie, I feel very uncomfortable... If it is for entertainment, why not just stuff a naked beauty How about going in? Don't think I don't know, Hogwarts student dormitory has been filled with unruly women every day these days..."

"... Hey, are you talking about live barbecue or female body cake, brother Li Wei! You don't want to be a cannibal, do you?"

Wang Qiu, who was also a little drunk, rolled his eyes and replied with a sigh, "...the taste of the former is too strong, forgive me, I am not some legendary Tokyo ghoul, and I have never had the pleasure of eating human flesh; as for the latter Or, I seem to have seen this thing in a certain [-] forbidden game. I don’t know if it exists in reality... But it’s okay, brother Levi, you can find a woman to make it yourself! Cream, jam, chocolate Both the stick and the canned cherries are provided by me, you just need to take a photo and send it to me to see and see after you finish the female body cake..."

"...that would require bathing her ten times, shaving her hair from head to toe, washing her intestines and fasting at the end - European women in the Middle Ages had a lot of body odor, and it was very troublesome just to get rid of the smell Unless it is an underage loli or a young girl, the body odor will be lighter."

Recently, while his wife was away, Comrade Li Wei, who hunted flowers wantonly and flirtatiously, introduced this to Wang Qiu with great experience.

"...Then, you might as well make a loli cake! Anyway, with your title of 'Paladin', you can easily abduct a group of beautiful loli from their fanatic mothers. And you You don’t have the bad habit of pushing loli while eating—Ju Chuan Shizuka warned me in bed that you must not eat while doing this kind of intense exercise, otherwise you will easily suffer from indigestion and stomach problems..."

While the two were chatting about something unhealthy and unseemly, the entertainment in the ballroom continued—the chefs vacated a table, put giant pigeon pies on it, and made A "please cut" gesture.The head of Slytherin, Boccaccio, and the head of Gryffindor, Jorlick, gave in to each other. In the end, Jorlick, who had a strong back and a waist, appeared on the stage. I saw the Pope's physician raised a two-handed giant sword that he didn't know where to find. He leaned in front of Pigeon Pie, made a gesture, and then swung down suddenly, drawing a silver arc.

——At the same time that the pie crust was broken, 24 pigeons rushed out immediately, flying in all directions, and finally stood on the windows and beams with flapping wings, flying feathers in the air.There was thunderous cheers in the hall, and the musicians played brisk movements with harps and flutes.

Jorick, head of Gryffindor, held up his sword, which was stained with grease, bird feathers and guano, and showed it triumphantly to everyone.Meanwhile, the servants in the dining room were busy cutting the pigeon pie into small pieces, topping it with seasoned cheese, and then distributing it to the students who couldn’t wait to enjoy it at the table... Just as Wang Qiu was thinking about how to make his own pigeon pie When giving rewards to the servants or feeding the cats, another even more horrifying scene appeared:
The door of the banquet hall was pushed open from the outside again, and eighteen chefs came in carrying three pigeon pies of the same size, but this time even if the dean of Gryffindor did not swing the sword to chop the pies, it would still be possible. You can see the stuffing of pigeons inside—these poor pigeons rushed out of the pie with their upper body, but their lower body was submerged in the hard crust. staring at the ceiling...

Looking at these "Angry Birds" poking at the pie in a daze, Wang Qiu, Li Wei and Ma Tong all had their brains froze in an instant.

Oh, God!What is this?An extra-large Stargazing Pie stuffed with a whole pigeon? ! !This is really "creative"! ! !

How much do you like the idea of ​​"Looking at the Stars"! ! !Why not just poke a living loli up there?
After a while, Wang Qiu came back to his senses and got up to ask Joan.Queen of Plantagenet, what the hell is going on with those pigeon-stuffed Stargazers in the back.Then, a middle-aged aristocratic attendant who stood behind the queen and served on behalf of Her Majesty who was a little bit tongue-tied explained that it was the first time for the chefs to try and work with the difficult handicraft of hiding live pigeons in pies. Fumbling, so there is no guarantee of success.The three cakes brought up from the back are actually the failed experiments of the clumsy chefs... However, although these live birds were roasted into dead birds, both the bird meat and the pastry crust are still acceptable. food.Now is the year of catastrophe, in order not to waste precious food (the price of pigeons was still quite expensive in the Middle Ages), the chefs still sent up these pigeon versions of "Looking up at the Star Pie" and distributed them to the inferior people edible.

——Well, judging from the terrible cooking skills of the British and their internationally renowned dark cooking traditions, imaginative dishes such as live bird pie can be prepared by novice English chefs for a quarter The success rate is already considered very good...

However, looking at these "angry birds" poked on the dough cakes, Wang Qiu still felt his mind collapsed and his appetite disappeared, so he had to push away the cups and plates, suspend eating, and prepared to go outside for a walk in the courtyard. Take a stroll, take a breath of fresh air, and change your mood before talking.