Chapter 67: Unintentionally Discovering New Food

  It's better to have more people to handle things, after Wang Kuang fixed the date, Sun Mingqian and Sun Zhanggui went their separate ways to make arrangements. Sun Mingqian was in charge of decorating the new house and buying furniture, while Sun Zhanggui took care of organizing the banquet.

  If this were an ordinary family, arranging a wedding in less than a month would be very rushed. Even with the help of neighbors, they also have their own things to do and can't always come to help, only spare time to lend a hand. But for Wang Kuang and Sun Mingqian's Rich Guest House, these are just trivial matters. With an order, everyone will do their best. As for Wang Kuang, in others' eyes, he has become a absentee boss again, and no one knows where he has been wandering off to these days, only appearing at mealtimes.

  Wang is doing something.

  He had been used to sleeping on a soft bed since he was young, but in recent years, sleeping on a hard board bed always made him feel uncomfortable, and his whole body would ache when he got up in the morning. That day, after leaving his sister's house, he happened to see that someone had planted several palm trees outside their house, so he thought of making a rattan bed.

  What is called a rattan bed, is made of hardwood first making a frame, then on the frame densely weaving eyes, and then using well-woven fine rattan cord to weave it tightly, similar to the way a badminton racket is made, but much denser. There are skilled rattan craftsmen who can weave a rattan bed so tightly that even if you pour water on it, not a drop will leak through. Such a rattan bed is just right in terms of softness and hardness when sleeping.

  But Wang Kuang had only seen others do it from afar before, and he himself had never done it, so he only knew the general method. As for how to specifically do it, he still needed to study. Because he was worried that if he succeeded, Wang Kuang kept it a secret from everyone and went to find craftsmen to study on his own.

  Wang Kuang still underestimated the ability of the craftsmen. At this time, no matter what they did, they basically relied on their hands, unlike later generations who had all sorts of mechanical tools. As a result, except for the first rattan bed which took ten days to make and was not very satisfactory to Wang Kuang, the following ones were made very smoothly and precisely because the craftsmen had mastered the method and their hands were familiar with it. In this way, five rattan beds were made before Wang Ling's wedding. Those craftsmen, because Wang Kuang had taught them this skill, firmly refused to accept his money and promised to help replace all the beds in the guest rooms of Fuli Inn for free.

  Wang Juan had thought about making a fortune by manufacturing and selling rattan beds, but once he saw the craftsmanship of the artisans, he knew that this technique couldn't be kept secret. Rattan bed-making was purely a skilled labor with no technical content to speak of; others only needed to buy one back and study it, and there were many skilled craftsmen in the world who could easily imitate it. Therefore, the only things that can be truly kept secret are those that require technology or formulas.

  Five beds were left, one for myself and one for Wang Xian each. One was sent to the new house of Wang Ling, one was given to Sun Mingqian, and one was reserved for Auntie's mother-in-law because she had not yet married, so it was impossible to bring Chen Lao Tai Tai to live in the new house now. The room could only be arranged and left, waiting for Wang Ling to return home after marriage before bringing the old lady over. But Wang Kuang didn't have to worry about the old lady either, Sun Mingqian had already sent two maidservants to serve her.

  Huang Liang found out about Wang Ling's wedding date and gave him a month off, which added up to half a month of public holidays during the Spring Festival. As a result, Wang Ling had a whole month and a half to idle around. Since he couldn't go see his fiancée before the wedding, this period of time made Wang Ling feel suffocated. He couldn't help with the wedding preparations either, so he decided to ride his horse to Wang Village, saying that he wanted to train those young men for a bit. It turned out that in Wang Village, he was being forced to drink every day by those young men, who said they were helping him practice his drinking capacity before the wedding, so he wouldn't get drunk and fall down at the wedding banquet. Fortunately, those young men were thinking about Wang Ling's wedding and had nothing to do during the winter in Wang Village. The chili seeds had already been collected early by Wang Kuang, and even the chili trees had been cleared according to Wang Kuang's instructions. Therefore, they all rushed back to Wang Ling a few days before the wedding, leaving only the invited neighbors from nearby villages to watch over the village.

  As soon as everyone entered the inn, Chen Da, the youngest among them, shouted: "Hurry up and bring out all the delicious dishes. We were almost starved to death in Wang Village."

  Deng Eleven was wheeled in, and upon hearing Chen Da yelling, he became displeased: "You rabbit's bastard, is the food I made really that unpalatable? You're suffocating!" Over a year ago, Deng Eleven had been helping with cooking in Wang Village, and had become close friends with these straightforward and simple-minded soldiers. When they were happy, they would call him "Old Deng" like Wang Kuang did; when they weren't, they'd call him "Deng the old man". They treated him as one of their own, not at all like a disabled person. Compared to his previous life in Yangzhou's Deng Sen Mansion where he had to be constantly cautious, although now he was inconvenienced by his legs, Deng Eleven felt that life was quite comfortable.

  "Oh, come on! Old Deng's cooking is also delicious, but compared to Erlang's, it's still a little worse, right?" Chen Da and his gang all followed Wang Ling in calling Wang Kuang "Erlang". In their eyes, the brother of their own boss was just like their own brother.

  Chen Da lifted out Wang Kuang, and Deng Eleven fell silent. He could only mutter: "Wait, I'll let you see when we get back to Wang Village. Don't think about opening a small stove for you anymore." Wang Kuang's cooking skills were not unfamiliar to him, and over the past year or so, Wang Kuang had often gone to Wang Village to teach him some techniques, such as stir-frying, deep-frying, and other methods that he had never seen before. Chen Da was about the same age as Wang Kuang, and it was a time when his body was growing rapidly and he got hungry easily. Therefore, Deng Eleven had often opened small stoves for him in Wang Village. So Deng Eleven brought out this killer move, and sure enough, as soon as he heard that there would be no more small stoves, Chen Da immediately shut up and helped Deng Eleven massage his shoulders with a flattering expression.

  News came early that Chen Da and the others would be arriving, and the inn had already prepared food for them. These people were all heroes of the chili sauce, so they should be treated well. Although Deng Eleven was cooking in Wang Village, it was mostly home-cooked meals, which couldn't compare to the food at the inn. Not to mention anything else, just the ingredients alone - because of the need for secrecy in Wang Village, many ingredients could only be secretly transported from the inn, so whatever the inn sent, they would eat. Therefore, except for their own homegrown vegetables, their meat dishes couldn't compare to the freshness of those at the inn.

  As the crowd gathered, Sun Er led them to the third floor. Without needing to be told, two assistants had already carried Deng Shiyi up. As they reached the top of the stairs, a wave of fragrant aromas wafted up, and two large tables were filled to the brim with dishes, many of which they had never seen before. For a moment, everyone was excitedly rubbing their fists and looking around in awe. After sitting down, each person changed their usual habit of first drinking three cups of wine, and instead quickly picked up their chopsticks and began busily serving themselves from the dishes.

  "Here's the braised dish with duck tongue, pig ear, large intestine, lamb stomach, tofu and five-flower meat; this is the stir-fried liver tip; this is the winter bamboo shoots stir-fry with cured meat; this is the longevity sprout stir-fry with goose liver; this is the sugar vinegar spare ribs; this is the steamed eel; this is the chopped pepper fish head."

  Chen Da's mouth was stuffed with food, and he mumbled to Sun Er: "Heng lao, heng lao, bao lao wai men chu (Alright, alright, don't disturb us while we're eating)." Sun Er glared at him: "Am I that old? I haven't even married a wife yet!" Deng Xiao San couldn't hold back his laughter and spat out the food in his mouth, splattering Chen Da's face. Chen Da quickly protected his bowl and rubbed his face against Deng Xiao San's body. Seeing that his own bowl was now full of the food Deng Xiao San had spat out, he grabbed Deng Xiao San's bowl and put it in front of himself, pushing his own bowl over to Deng Xiao San. Without even bothering to make a fuss, he continued eating. Just this brief moment later, some of the dishes were already empty. It was too late to settle accounts with Deng Xiao San after they finished eating.

  The guest house had already received Wang's instructions and was well-prepared, fearing that there would not be enough food. Each dish had been prepared in four portions, with two portions per table, waiting for them to finish the first round before serving the second round.

  Before long, the table was a mess, with only the pot of white vegetables and tofu in the middle still intact because it was too hot to eat. Deng Xiaosan, not disappointing his father's culinary skills, saw that the table had been cleared and after eating a few mouthfuls of the white vegetables and tofu, he sneaked downstairs and ran into the kitchen to grab a few pieces of duck blood, broke them into small pieces and threw them into the pot with the white vegetables and tofu. He stirred it for a couple of rounds before scooping it up and secretly sharing it with Deng Shiyi. Just as they were eating in secret, a big flower face suddenly appeared in front of them, startling them both. When they looked closely, they saw that it was Chen Da, who had just been sprayed with something on his face. By now, the stuff on his face had dried, so he ended up looking like a big flower face.

  "What's this to eat? It's all covered up."

  "Pig's blood!" Deng Xiaosan bullied Chen Da, thinking he wouldn't know the difference between duck and pig's blood, so he straightforwardly showed him the duck's blood.

  "Cut, a bit of pig's blood is secretly being snuck away, this would have been put away years ago, someone would still fight with you for it, nowadays no one eats it." Chen Da looked down on the two men, nowadays everyone lives well, in the past they used to fight over eating pig's blood but now there are not many people who eat it, only occasionally when their mouth is craving something, they will drink some blood sausage to eat, also to get rid of the dust inside the body and detoxify (I don't know if other places have this saying, in the Minyue area there is a saying that eating pig's blood can drive out lung dust and detoxify, in the past there were street vendors who bought pig's blood to eat, saying it was good for them because they often cut hair and the hair dander would be absorbed into the lungs, eating pig's blood could detoxify). After looking down on the two men, he turned his head back and continued fighting, but after not eating two mouthfuls, he came to his senses: "No way, if it's pig's blood, why do you need to hide it away to eat? Give me two pieces to try!"

  At this time, the second round of dishes had arrived, and everyone's appetite was almost satisfied. They started to drink wine, pushing each other to take a sip. Wang Kuang also came up, just in time to see Deng Jia and Chen Da fighting over a plate of duck blood. He couldn't help but feel moved, thinking that others were indeed professionals, able to think of adding duck blood to a simple dish like white vegetables and tofu, something he hadn't thought of himself.

  "Don't fight over it, it's just a few pieces of duck blood. Wait for the kitchen to serve it and you can eat it yourself. Who says pig blood isn't delicious? Alright, Wang Erlang won't show off his skills and you'll think that good food must be made with good ingredients. Today, let me show you that even unwanted pig blood can be made into a delicious dish."

  Arriving at the kitchen, I wanted to find pig's blood but there was none. It turned out that the Fuli Inn didn't have many people eating this stuff anyway. When the butcher sold meat, he would just put a basin of boiled blood there, and whoever wanted it could scoop some up for free, not even charging one cent. Generally, only those who needed to get rid of dust would come to scoop up one or two pieces and leave.

  It just so happened that during this time, they were busy with Wang Ling's wedding. Gao San was sent back by Wang Wu to help out and saw Wang Kuang looking around for something. After asking, he found out that he was looking for pig blood. His eyes lit up: "Wang Kuang's family is going to make a big deal again." He volunteered to run to the butcher shop to get it. The butcher shop owner saw that it was Gao San and called his assistant to help carry the basin over. In his heart, he was delighted: "Ah, from now on, this pig blood will probably sell for two more cents."

  Although it was winter, the leeks were cold-resistant and there were still some fresh ones. In addition, there were quite a few red peppers in the cellar of the inn. Wang Kuang cut off the outside of the pig's blood that had been cooked too old and too hard, only taking the part inside that was just cooked. Seeing that the butcher's apprentice hadn't left yet, he instructed him: "From now on, we'll take all the pig's blood. Remember not to cook it too long, don't let the water boil, just cover it until it's just cooked, if the water boils, there will be air bubbles in the blood and it will be too hard and not good to eat." The apprentice had been waiting for this sentence and responded with a happy tone, walking away happily.

  Cut the blood into thumb-sized cubes, heat the pot until it's dark red, add oil, garlic, ginger and chili peppers and stir-fry for a while, then add the blood cubes and stir-fry again, add some wine, half a ladle of bone broth, and salt. When the soup is boiling, pour in the well-mixed cornstarch to thicken, and quickly stir-fry the blood cubes until they're done.

  The senior three who was waiting on the side saw that the new dish was ready and rushed to take it away. On the way, he secretly ate some of it, not even caring about burning his mouth. His colleagues passing by him saw him stealing food and knew he was taking it to the third floor, so they also snatched two pieces and threw them into their mouths. By the time they arrived at the third floor, half of the blood clams were already gone.

  Next to Wang Kuang, seeing him suddenly come up with a new dish, it's already nothing out of the ordinary. When Wang Kuang put down the wok, he took over and started learning how to do it too. Stir-frying blood clams is actually quite simple, you just need to have a strong fire and be quick, otherwise the blood will get old and won't taste good.

  Just in time, the chef grasped it and made a few more dishes to rush up to the third floor. Otherwise, this would have caused trouble upstairs. It was all because only half of the blood clams that were sent up had been eaten, and Chen Da and others immediately became unhappy, insisting on getting Gao San drunk before letting him go. Fortunately, the next few dishes arrived in time, and Gao San finally got away with a red face. However, by the time he came downstairs, he was already stumbling along, and almost fell down at the stairs entrance, but fortunately, one of the kitchen staff behind him supported him. Otherwise, he would have rolled all the way from the third floor to the first floor.

  From the third floor secretly eating all the way to the back, making a loud noise on the third floor, was seen by several diners who were drinking wine on the first floor. They hurriedly called out to their companions and said that they wanted the kind of dish that the third floor had just brought up. At this time, the kitchen was extremely busy.

  Division

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