Unlimited Food Plan

Du Changqiu wants to try making sugar.

Thanks to the merchants, the Kansai Empire already had sugar and even jam, but except for honey, the sugar was transported by merchants from sugar-producing places such as India, Southeast Asia or ancient China. Kansai,? So in Kansai,? sugar is not so rare,? but still very expensive food.

A pound,? That's nine taels of sugar, with a little less impurities,? It costs a full three shillings, and fresh jam mixed with a lot of sugar is even more expensive.

This is not a small amount of money. Kansai people are extremely sweet. It is not news that the nobles eat a pound of sugar a day. Although the common people don't eat sugar very much, it's not that they don't want to eat it, but they can't afford it at all.

Just now Du Changqiu continued to investigate the sources of expensive things in the vast amount of information, and found out. In fact, among the materials of later generations, there has been raw materials for sugar production in the Middle Ages, and there is not even one kind of raw material. These two raw materials have not been discovered yet.

The merchants in Kansai walked through the long yellow sand,? To transport back the expensive cane sugar that can only be grown and extracted in the southern tropical regions,? Even because the journey was too difficult, sugar was so expensive that it became a luxury.

However, Du Changqiu saw in the documents that, according to the records, the most important raw material for sugar production in the European continent was growing wantonly in the fields at this time.

According to the data, there are at least two kinds of sugar-making raw materials in Cancedi, one of which is maltose made from malt, but rice or glutinous rice needs to be added to the production of maltose, and the process of heating and fermentation is required. For Du Changqiu, who does not have rice or glutinous rice in his territory, first of all, the purchase cost of raw materials made him hesitate.

Secondly, the fermentation time plus stirring time is too long, and there is not so much time for him to experiment and mass-produce in small batches.

In comparison, sugar beet, a sugar crop with a simple experimental method, and which will be shared with the old sugar-producing king sugarcane in later generations, accounting for 40.00% of the world, is obviously a better choice.

And it was autumn, the beet harvest season.

But Du Changqiu still needs to hurry up and make sure how lucky he is.

For example, are the sugar beets grown in Wiltland a sugar-producing variety?

Beets originated from the Mediterranean coast and the Canary Islands, and have been spread to the inland north of Cansai. They have always been vegetables. It was not until the eighteenth century that the German chemist Margrave discovered that beet contains sucrose for the first time. The root cause is here.

Beets are not a single variety. Rather than discovering that beets can produce sugar, Magrave is more like he discovered the original beet variety with high sucrose content. On this basis, Magrave and his disciples spent It took 39 years to cultivate sugar beets with high sugar content that are really suitable for boiling sugar, and finally there are sugar beets that can keep pace with sugar cane in later generations.

What Du Changqiu needs to determine is, what is the sugar content of those beets in his territory? If you can't boil it out or spend a lot of firewood and beets and can only boil a little bit of fingernails, it's better to eat it directly as a vegetable, at least it can fill your stomach.

George came back quickly. After a while, the servants came over with several bags of beets and wheat. Du Changqiu stood up and said to the bewildered men, "Take it to the kitchen."

"Sir, do you want to go to the kitchen?!" Butler George didn't know why Mr. was just recovering from his illness, and why he asked for beets and wheat after he came in this bunch. The next moment he heard his order, he was completely stunned and said repeatedly , "Dear sir, this, this kitchen is not a place where a gentleman should set foot, you..."

"I've already decided." Du Changqiu almost wanted to complain, what kind of gentleman is he? The white robe he was wearing looked yellow, and the hat was the same. His figure is the same as that of ancient Greek sculptures in rags, and it basically looks not much different from the modern beggars shown in various literary works of later generations.

If he is still called a gentleman in this way, then Du Changqiu decided not to be a gentleman, and it is more important to make some sugar and leave wheat to eat every day.

Under his insistence, although the butler was facing a formidable enemy, he couldn't refuse Du Changqiu's will, so Du Changqiu led the people directly to the kitchen.

After entering the kitchen, although Du Changqiu had read some information, he was already mentally prepared, but he still had a problem in his heart - this is a private and luxurious small kitchen that only the legendary manor lord has. There is a stove and a A large bread oven for baking bread, of course, is a good thing, but the villagers can only use one bread oven in the whole village, and only the manor owner can use this bread oven!

So it's not that Du Changqiu dislikes these things, he dislikes those strange green meat hanging on the wall!

"How long has this meat been hanging?!" Du Changqiu saw the meat on the wall, and he refused in his heart. Before he set off, he had studied the history of various countries and periods, so that he could quickly rely on his general memory when he fell into any era. Search for information and countermeasures.

Therefore, he actually knew that the popular method of storing meat in the Middle Ages during this period was air-dried without any fancy, until there was no trace of water, dry and hard as if it could be used as a weapon.

The reason for this storage method is mainly due to poverty.

There are also bacon at present, but bacon needs a lot of salt to keep fresh and can be stored. In Kansai, because of the high geographical location and the temperature is not particularly high all the year round, there is no way to dry salt in Kansai. Therefore, the salt is basically carried back by merchants from the south, and the price of salt is a bit unkind.

Therefore, it is impossible to store large quantities of cured meat for small manor owners like Wilt Manor. Therefore, most of them still use the old-fashioned air-drying method. The prey is basically air-dried, and then hung there slowly. Eat, keep eating and hanging, if it gets moldy, just scrape it off and continue eating...

But knowing is knowing, Du Changqiu saw the black, green and green air-dried meat that looked like indescribable strips of different shapes, and then thought about the strangely shaped stewed meat in Charlie's memory.

Du Changqiu's first reaction in his heart was to vomit, and his second reaction was to throw the meat out.

God knows that he is already a very strong person. Du Changqiu has never felt such resistance in the orc tribe's hairy gang rolling in the mud with a cow bone in his mouth, and he can still watch with a smile on his face!

However, Du Changqiu rejected the meat very much in his heart, but Aunt Mary, the cook, completely misunderstood her from another angle. Aunt Mary grabbed her skirt nervously and replied respectfully: "About forty days, dear sir, I can guarantee No one has touched the meat, I guarantee it with my life!"

Du Changqiu wanted to say that he didn't mean it at all, but fortunately he remembered that these meats are very precious in this era, if he really threw them away, it would be too inconsistent with Charlie's style.

Think of a way to get rid of the meat later, Du Changqiu thought, forcing himself not to pay attention to the strange black and green meat on the wall, and turned his attention to Aunt Mary, the cook.

This cook was probably the first human being with a normal figure that Du Changqiu saw after waking up. She was not fat, but compared to the bony villagers, she was definitely round and round.

Du Changqiu once saw a saying in the incomplete materials, it was said that during the prosperous period of the Middle Ages, the nobles did not hire women as cooks for a period of time, because the silverware and tableware used by the nobles were very expensive, and they would be afraid of cooks. Niang hid these small and delicate silverware in her body and stole them.

But Du Changqiu didn't find much evidence for this statement, maybe it's more like some kind of anecdote, or an attack with malicious intentions.

Because in Charlie's memory, the chefs hired by the nobles at this time did not look at their gender, but mainly at how many special dishes the chefs had. Add luster to yourself.

At least on Cansai's side, a fat cook would even become part of a nobleman's ostentatious assets, used to show off his extravagance, to show the abundance of his kitchen and the generosity he treated his servants.

Of course, a small manor like Wilt cannot be compared with the kitchen of a big nobleman, so Aunt Mary looks at most like a normal person who is not so malnourished.

Du Changqiu looked at Aunt Mary a few times, and Aunt Mary looked at him anxiously, her eyes slightly turned to the lower right, where Du Changqiu didn't even need to look carefully, he probably knew what the cook was hiding there.

It was probably either meat or bread, and it probably wasn't stolen by the cook from the kitchen. It probably was the part that was obtained from the leftover leftovers when cooking a little more.

This part is not allowed to be known to the master. It is a secret known to all the servants of the manor. In fact, the masters of the Daemon family all know it, but silently acquiesced to this behavior.

Du Changqiu went to do as the Romans did, of course he would not expose the cook - asking a family whose whole family is on the brink of starvation to guarantee absolute integrity in front of food is in itself a kind of over-demanding.

So he, like every Mr. Damon, thoughtfully pretended he hadn't noticed anything, and just let the cook fetch some water.

"Yes, dear sir." Cook Mary went out nervously, and came back with water after a while.

"I said, you do it." Of course Du Changqiu didn't intend to do it by himself. He didn't want to be recruited by the church at night and then blackmailed a lot of money. He maintained a gentleman's posture and said to the cook Mary, " Don't be nervous, just follow my orders. You wash your hands first, use scissors to cut your nails to the same level as your fingers, and then wash even the black mud in the crevices of your nails."

This is a temporary request from Du Changqiu. It took about the whole day today. Since I woke up, I found that the congratulatory gift for the baron’s tax deduction is gone, so I have been in a state of high tension, so apart from leaving the manor, I saw some mosaics on the road. Apart from the traces of urinating and defecating everywhere, Du Changqiu never cared to pay attention to the health conditions of those around him, including himself.

It wasn't until the cook almost let the cooks take the helpers to wash the vegetables just now that Du Changqiu noticed that the hygienic conditions of the cooks and helpers working in the kitchen were very worrying!

Not to mention the black hands, the nails were filled with old mud.

Well, it's very medieval.

The Black Death has not yet occurred, and it is in the middle and late Middle Ages. If you don’t take a bath, there are no rumors that taking a bath will open people’s pores and let bacteria in. This cognition is mainly religious belief.

First of all, the church feels that taking a bath is too comfortable, and it is a symbol of desire, so it is not good to take a bath, and it is very unclear and ascetic.

Therefore, people believe that not taking a bath is a symbol of purity, and believe that a body that does not take a bath is more likely to approach God.

It is said that there was a famous fierce man in the Middle Ages, His Excellency St. Bogue, who insisted on not taking a bath, washing his hair, feet, or face for 50 years. With his persistence for 50 years, he finally succeeded in being canonized.

Du Changqiu was incredulous when he saw this place. He even asked the professor of ancient western history who gave him an outline, is this really all right?

The professor responded that, generally speaking, this is a minority, but when emperors of the level of Charlemagne and Queen Victoria insisted on not taking a bath, this would become a fashion for nobles to follow.

Therefore, in order to please His Majesty, the nobles generally refused to take a bath. From top to bottom, it gradually became a habit.

But civilians in remote places like Wilt apparently don't have such concerns. Everyone doesn't take a shower because it's cold in winter. If it's summer, they'll still take a shower, after all, it's comfortable.

But rinsing is still far from being clean, so when Du Changqiu saw their hands, he immediately stopped himself and told everyone to wash their hands first.

Not only do you have to wash your hands, but you also have to scrub the chopping board with the black lumps of powder and grease and the bright yellow suspicious mold spots on the side with the ashes from the hearth, even the pot.

It wasn't until the hands of the cook and the helpers were clean, and the pots and pans looked clean, that Du Changqiu heaved a sigh of relief, and asked Aunt Mary to lead the helpers to wash the beets.

After washing a pot of beets, Du Changqiu said to Aunt Mary: "Cut these beets into shreds, and remember to cut them into the thinnest strips you can do."

Aunt Mary finally breathed a sigh of relief when she arrived. She began to think that the master had heard some gossip and came to check the kitchen, for example, to check if someone had embezzled or something like that.

While washing her hands, she was still anxious, worried that Mr. Charlie would be angry and would interrupt the hands they used to make a living - it is said that many nobles would punish their servants when they caught them stealing things, and there was no lack of breaking their hands and feet of.

Now that Mr. Charlie asked her to chop beets, although she didn't know why, Aunt Mary was overjoyed, quickly picked up the kitchen knife, and immediately got busy.

There are five people in the kitchen, apart from Aunt Mary, there are four helpers, all of whom are women.

Unlike the great nobles who would choose to hire specialized cooks, the cooks and helpers in the kitchen of Daemon's kitchen were all serfs of Damon's family, probably because they did not need to be paid wages, but only needed to be paid for food.

It is also because of this that there are not enough people in the kitchen. Of course, a small aristocrat at the end of the crane will not be like a big aristocrat. Every position in the kitchen is clearly defined, and there are even special positions such as sauce maker and baker. There is only Aunt Mary as the chef in the Meng family kitchen, and four assistant cooks. They are responsible for everything, so they are very busy every day.

But despite being hard and busy, working in the kitchen is still one of the most enviable good jobs in the whole manor. The reason why Aunt Mary was able to grab this good job was because her grandmother once served a lady in the Damon family. of grace.

The kitchen was busy at a fast pace. Mary shredded quickly with a pointed long knife, and cut a small pot in a short time. Du Changqiu saw that it was almost enough, and quickly shouted: "Enough! Now turn on the fire, put a little water to cook these beets through."

The most primitive extraction method of beets is to heat them to destroy the stability of sucrose in them. Cook these beets directly until they soften and change color. Just remove the beet pulp from the pot. Of course, in order to extract the sugar to the greatest extent, the beets must also be Wrap the dregs in a cloth and squeeze until all the water in the beets is squeezed out.

After finishing all this, Aunt Mary continued to follow the master's instructions mechanically, removed the fire, and then stirred the beet water in the pot little by little. Paste taste, taste bitter and smelly.

After failing several times, Aunt Mary didn't know what the master was going to do, and when she felt like she was about to fall asleep, she suddenly smelled a faint sweet fragrance from the burnt smell all over the room.

This is the smell that she usually smells when she makes sweet bread for gentlemen and ladies. Aunt Mary was surprised by this smell, and then followed the smell subconsciously, and was stunned—she saw the inside of the pot. The boiled beet water has become viscous, and there are many sticky lumps in the dark reddish-brown viscous juice.

Aunt Mary didn't understand what it was, but Du Changqiu was already excited - great, God still favored him, the sugar content of this beet is good, it can produce sugar, and the sugar yield is not low!

Although he just checked the beet just now, but without data comparison, Du Changqiu couldn't judge whether such a sugar content is an advantage. Now that he clearly saw the syrup, he was completely relieved.

The wheat in that warehouse was saved!

"Continue to stir." Du Changqiu watched the juice getting more and more viscous, until there were large lumps in the end, and he couldn't sit still at all. He sat up on the stool specially brought by George, and walked closer to observe. A few times, when I saw that the heat was up, I immediately said, "Okay, stop, find a clean crock pot and put all these things in, remember to take those clean crock pots!"

Aunt Mary over there was already trembling with fear from the sweet smell, and she began to realize what the sweet smell might be. When pouring the juice into the earthen pot with shaking hands, Aunt Mary felt that she was putting gold, and she couldn't even breathe. Hold your breath.

"Okay, flush the pot, and each of you can drink a little." Du Changqiu immediately added this sentence when he saw that several young women who were servants were drooling.

"Thank you for your generosity, dear sir!" Before the others could respond, Aunt Mary was overjoyed, saluted immediately, picked up the water ladle, poured a big glass into her own cup, and then gave the remaining sugar water to the others. Each of the helpers shared half a cup.

Aunt Mary couldn't wait to take a sip of the water boiled from the beets, and the steaming sugar water entered her mouth. Her body, which had been short of food and malnourished all year round, reacted greedily and frantically absorbed the heat. Mary swore that it was the first time in her life. Drinking such delicious water for the first time was [-] times sweeter than the half glass of goodnight apple cider left by the third lady once she drank!

If Du Changqiu could hear Aunt Mary's heartfelt thoughts, he would definitely say, of course, this endless syrup mixed with water is almost [-]:[-], can it taste good, especially for people who have been suffering from malnutrition all year round? , sweetness is the best supplement, more attractive than meat.

Mary drank most of it in a few sips, and she didn't have a drop left. She was working in the manor, and she was not allowed to take anything back. It doesn't matter if you take a little in private, but there is still food left in front of the master. What's on your mind? It was obvious at a glance that this was the behavior of an idiot.

Besides, Mary couldn't stop drinking hot sugar water crazily, because the sweet taste was more intoxicating than any kind of wine in the world. Aunt Mary thought to herself, at this time, even if Mr. Damon asked her to work for the devil, she would rush to the gate of hell immediately without saying a word.

Mary's heart was full of pride, and at this moment, her mind was full of how to tell her family during the day of rest, how rich and sweet the sugar water she drank, what she never expected was that Master Charlie was sitting there, and had no intention of leaving at all. , he said directly: "Okay, it was the first method just now, now let's try to extract it with the second method."

There is actually another way? !

Aunt Mary was almost choked, and the eyes of the cooks around her lit up. After drinking the last sip of the rich sugar water, they rushed over and began to wash the beets.

Cutting the beets directly into shreds and filtering them is a method. The next thing Du Changqiu experimented with was to cook the beets directly, then take them out and cut them into shreds, squeeze out the juice and filter it, and then boil the filtered water.

Du Changqiu tried several methods and the amount of water, trying to find the method that saves the most firewood and produces sugar the fastest.

After almost using up a whole large basket of beets, he finally came to an important conclusion—the beets in Wilt Manor can't reach one or two tenths of the astonishing sugar yield of later generations, but can only Maintained at the level of one-twentieth to one-fifth.

The conversion is simpler, ten catties of beets can only produce about four or two to half a catty of sugar.

This is also normal. After all, Margrave found the beet with the highest sucrose content at that time, and it still took 39 years to cultivate it before the high-quality sugar beet of later generations appeared.

Du Changqiu is currently using the original species, coupled with the extensive degree of extraction methods, Du Changqiu is very suspicious that he can have such a sugar output. The beets in the Wilt Manor may just happen to be Margrave The original species of beets found at that time!

In any case, Du Changqiu is very satisfied with the amount of sugar produced—at present, shrewd businessmen sell cane sugar for about three shillings and five pence a catty, while urban residents with a good life, even the capital of Kansai, buy a quart, That is, about 25 catties of beets cost only 0.75 pennies.

In years with occasional bumper harvests, it will be cheaper.

There is no way, the nobles don't eat vegetables, they think vegetables are cheap, such things as beets, only country lords like them eat a little occasionally.

This cheap food now contains terrifying profits.

"Is it cold?" After trying all the extraction methods and finding the most suitable method, Du Changqiu began to check the quality of the extracted sugar.

When Du Changqiu asked, Aunt Mary immediately stepped forward and knocked away the cooks standing beside the crock, not allowing them to seize the opportunity to show courteousness in front of the master. Aunt Mary was very shrewd, and she felt that this Mr. Charlie was better than the one before the Damon family. The male protagonists are all great.

He makes no noise, yet boils gold out of beets!

Aunt Mary inherited her grandmother's good vision, and she decided to perform well in front of Mr. Charlie, and it would be best to become his most trusted cook!

Holding two earthen pots in each hand, Aunt Mary came to Du Changqiu excitedly.

Du Changqiu had washed his hands a long time ago and didn't touch anything else. He just reached in and touched a piece of solidified sugar on the top. It was different from the golden yellow sugar extracted from sugar cane. The sugar extracted from beets was dark reddish brown and very sticky. , if it is thick enough, it will become a hard piece after drying out, and if it is thinner, it will become a semi-solidified syrup.

Aunt Mary winked very much, she was a little distressed at Du Changqiu's glance, and immediately stepped forward to knock off a piece of candy with a sharp awl.

Du Changqiu nodded happily, picked up the thin candy, put the candy aside with a "snap", distributed some to the butler George who was standing beside him, and said, "Try it too, George."

When a piece of sugar enters the mouth, the just right sweetness melts quickly, making people completely relaxed physically and mentally.

Du Changqiu squinted his eyes, but didn't see that not far away, Fan Xing, who had been drunk all day and night, was waking up dizzy, and just struggling to walk to the door of the kitchen.

Fan Xing saw a completely strange man with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing only a simple white double-breasted jacket and trousers, and a pair of long boots wrapped around his feet. His attire was very rough and unfamiliar.

But the shape of the pair of Ruifeng eyes on the signboard is still exactly the same. It looks like Youqiu's half-dozen shadows, and Fanxing recognizes people not just by appearance. The moment he saw Du Changqiu, his eyes lit up with joy, and it turned out just right I saw Du Changqiu handing out the sugar in his hand to the butler beside him.

Fan Xing froze for a moment, felt aggrieved and angry, it was fine if this person didn't come to him, he was still here to feed others!

This scumbag!

The author has something to say: Thank you for the little angels who irrigate the nutrient solution: Renjianke? 30 bottles; Yaoyao? 20 bottles; rgmau? 1 bottle;

This chapter is two in one!

Some of the sayings about sugar come from Mr. Ji Xianlin's "Sugar History" and [Japan] Kitagawa Minoru's "World History in a Grain of Sugar".

There are methods of making sugar in the modern and modern countryside of our country. It is estimated that some people have eaten syrup boiled from beets, right?

If you are interested, you can search for the teaching of beet stew syrup, it is actually quite simple!

And Magrave is a transliteration, and different translations will have some differences.

Finally, thank you all genuine little angels for subscribing!Give you refills!