Chapter 242

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Protagonist:

Song Miao

While Lin Yiwen was busy weeping bitterly before the masters, Song Miao was busy cooking.

Today, Song Ji was exceptionally busy.

Because she had previously promised Cao Fuzi to make some meat and vegetable buns to send to the Director of Studies and Registrar Deng, as well as to the other masters and Xuezheng, for them to sample.

According to the other party's words, if everyone agreed, it would mean opening the "Steamed Bun brick" of the Taixue Canteen in the future; if they did not agree, she would only make them for his personal entertaining, letting others have a fresh taste.

But in Song Miao's view, other precious things could be set aside; for a food like meat and vegetable buns, the cost was not high, the quantity made was not large, and moreover, if this matter succeeded, the result would be entirely beneficial to herself — it would be helping Song Ji bring in business.

Where in the world is there the logic of someone kindly recommending you, yet the person being helped has to pay out of pocket?

She had originally planned to make a batch of buns first, give a portion to the Xunpu and the Capital Prefecture Office, and send another portion to the Taixue as samples; but yesterday Dabing had a family matter and took a day's leave, and on top of that the stall's output had increased, so there was truly no way to free up hands to make buns, and she had to push the time back.

Thus today, besides normal stall operations, she had to increase the quantity of ingredients purchased and prepped for the next day's normal stall operations and the making of various buns, prepare the masters' midday meal, and also prepare for the evening reception of He Lao Furen who was coming with her granddaughter; even Song Miao was considerably busier than usual.

Fortunately, the masters' small dining tables were mostly home-style dishes; Cheng Erniang and Dabing were both hard workers, and she was well-practiced; watching the hour, she washed, chopped, stir-fried, and braised, and everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.

Before long, it was noon.

Not seen for many days; the noon hour had not long passed when a group of masters arrived by carriage; though there were shades and curtains, each and every one of them had a head and face full of sweat.

As soon as they entered, Song Miao had people bring up basin after basin of water.

The masters soaked their handkerchiefs in the copper basins; the basins held well water just drawn up, cool and refreshing; wrung half-dry, they wiped it across their faces — the half-wet, half-cool handkerchiefs wiped foreheads and necks all over, taking away the sweat and leaving only coolness.

By the time they had dried their heads and faces, the tea was also poured.

Not the Perilla Drink common in summer, but Hawthorn Leaf Tea brought back from Hua Prefecture, set out to cool for half a day early on; at this moment it was cool but not cold, sweet, moist, and refreshing; drinking it only quenched thirst, without chilling the stomach.

The second gate was wide open, the curtains were rolled up, even the doors and windows of the miscellaneous room were opened; the round table sat in the very center; the crowd sat around it, having washed their faces and drunk tea, and blown by the through-draft from the hall and windows, the group of old men recovered considerably from their listless state of a moment ago.

Men who had been masters all their lives mostly could not keep their mouths idle; now that they had recovered, and seeing Song Miao, they practically had a bellyful of things to say.

Everyone first grabbed her to ask after her well-being; first they asked in a babble about her situation in Hua Prefecture, then asked if the journey back was hard, then asked when the food shop planned to open and how preparations were going — by now they could see the room had been repainted, and they praised again how much brighter it looked; learning it was Cheng Erniang who did it herself, they could not help but praise her again, and urged Song Miao to "hire a few more helpers like this."

Song Miao answered each in turn, then called Dabing over to make introductions, simply saying he was a new helper added to the food shop.

She mentioned the Hua Prefecture matter, but only in a few passing sentences, only saying she helped make some big-pot rice.

This, however, made Dabing, who was just then carrying basins and pouring water, unhappy to hear.

He could not hold back a word, and even more could not bear for Song Miao to be shortchanged by half a sentence of praise; he hurriedly added: "The Young Lady alone managed meals for three or four thousand people! How formidable! The kitchen had one or two hundred people, all obeying her assignments!"

"The river was opened, the laborers and workers of Weizhou and Hua Prefecture still refused to leave; first, they couldn't bear to part with the subsidies, second, they couldn't bear to part with the kitchen's many foods — they all said that at home, the same ingredients, cooked, tasted completely different!"

"When we were about to return to the Capital, the constables of the Hua Prefecture Government Office cried and shouted begging her to take over the Gong Chu! Some even secretly stuffed me with snack fruits, all saying that as long as I persuaded the Young Lady to stay, there would be great benefits in the future, and a position in the Gong Chu could be reserved for me!"

The more Dabing spoke, the prouder he became, truly dancing with hands and feet, wishing he could reenact every single word he had heard that day.

Song Miao laughed: "Good Dabing, you just spout nonsense, not caring if others want face or not — though I did a few parts of the work, and deserve a few parts of credit, it's not yet to the point of being exaggerated as you say!"

Yet a roomful of people believed only Dabing; no one paid her any mind; they grabbed the young man and asked and asked again.

Dabing had been surrounded by dozens of aunties and young ladies in Hua Prefecture; compared to that number, the ten-odd masters here were a case of the lesser wizard seeing the greater wizard; at this moment he was not the least bit stage-frightened, and with vivid detail he told how Song Miao had dealt with those filthy kitchen servants, and about the barren beans and so on.

Song Miao listened and found it only amusing; she tried to stop him several times, but was driven back by the masters, who said outright that they not only wanted to eat Song Xiaoniangzi's cooking, but also wanted to hear Song Xiaoniangzi's deeds.

Only after much difficulty did they finish listening; everyone sighed, and someone asked: "Song Xiaoniangzi did so many things; Old Min's son-in-law, is that the one surnamed Cen? Will he know how to conduct himself and handle affairs? How does he plan to request merit for her?"

"Had we known Hua Prefecture would be such a mess, you shouldn't have gone! Exhausting and troublesome, and it delayed our meals!"

"Exactly, two months' time, how come you look even thinner!"

Another, quite dissatisfied, turned and pressed Chen Fuzi to redress the grievance for Song Miao, saying: "Brother Chen, your disciple abducted our person, and doesn't know how to treat her well; how little remuneration he gave, yet he uses her like an ox or a horse?? You must manage him properly!"

For a moment, responders gathered like clouds.

Two months without Song rice to eat, the masters had long pent up a bellyful of anger; with nowhere to vent it on Han Li, now that the person had returned, they could only borrow a joking tone to demand Chen Fuzi take charge.

And Chen Fuzi, who used to have "Zheng Yan" long and "Zheng Yan" short hanging on his lips, at this moment suddenly changed his face.

He shouted: "What do you mean 'I must manage him properly'? That surnamed Korean studies in the Shangshe; didn't you teach him? Aren't you his masters?? I never gave him a class; truly speaking, I am not his master, you are! Just who is neglecting their duties, occupying a post without doing the work??"

Chen Fuzi was older in years and higher in status; once he started acting shamelessly, the others had no way to deal with him, and could only turn to crusade against Han Li.

Just as they were talking, various dishes were brought up to the table one after another.

With food present, no one had a mouth left to scold; everyone attended to lifting bowls and picking up chopsticks.

Knowing that in summer everyone has no appetite, and the masters are mostly of an age with poor teeth, today's dishes were all simple, appetite-stimulating, and not hard to bite and chew.

The staple food was divided into two kinds: there were noodles and there was porridge.

The noodles were fine noodles, pulled hair-thin; they did not excel in chewiness, but were absolutely not limp and soft; they had a slight bite, and the wheat fragrance was very full.

The porridge was white porridge, cooked very thick; the rice grains had blossomed, ladled into bowls they could even rise up into a little porridge mountain peak; chopsticks stuck vertically into it fell down very slowly, with almost no porridge water.

To accompany these two, both as a topping for noodles and to go into porridge, Song Miao used the most seasonal cowpeas to make a dish of Olive Vegetable cowpea minced pork.

The Olive Vegetable was homemade; fresh olives washed clean and boiled through, divided in two, together with sour mustard greens fragments and salt, simmered in oil for a whole day, simmered into a black color, not good-looking, but smelling wondrously fragrant; before leaving the wok, sesame oil and garlic oil were added, fragrance upon fragrance.

Olive Vegetable made this way, entering the mouth is salty and fresh, carrying the olive's unique clear fragrance; even if only used to accompany white porridge, without other meat dishes, it can directly send down a large bowl.

Olive Vegetable stir-fried together with cowpeas; because it was for the masters to eat, fragrance was secondary, being able to chew was most important; Song Miao did not use the most fragrant oil-stir-fry method, but cut the beans into dice, blanched them first, boiled them soft, then fished them out and drained the water, and stir-fried them with the fragrant minced pork and Olive Vegetable, frying until the three flavors leaned on each other, you in me, me in you, indistinguishable, only then leaving the wok.

The noodles, once fished out, were immediately passed through cold water; at this moment they were also soaking in cold water, cool and cool; the Olive Vegetable minced pork cowpeas, however, were just out of the wok, hot and steaming.

Using long chopsticks to pick the noodles into the bowl, ladling on several large spoonfuls of Olive Vegetable minced pork cowpeas, giving a slight stir to mix — the topping hot, the noodles cold, the two neutralizing each other, became just the right temperature for the mouth.

Whether noodles are suitable for mixed noodles, lifted noodles, or soup noodles depends on many factors: the wheat variety, the coarseness of the flour milling, the force and degree of kneading, what seasonings were added inside — salt, sugar, oil — and how much; also the noodle-pulling technique, and so on and so forth.

The fine noodles Song Miao made this time were precisely the kind that especially absorb topping well; especially since the topping also contained Olive Vegetable, the Olive Vegetable was extremely fine, practically strand by strand, and since it was originally soaked in oil, almost the moment it touched the noodles, it stuck on.

Thus a mouthful of slurped noodles, one fundamentally need not worry about lack of flavor; it is simply as if the noodles reincarnated, reborn as fragrant and rich Olive Vegetable noodles, as if they had been together since birth; wheat fragrance, olive fragrance mixed with salty freshness, an incomparably mellow mouthful, within which were also carried cowpeas and minced pork.

Cowpeas are exactly in season, very tender; blanched through and then stir-fried to death together with minced pork and Olive Vegetable; biting down, wheat fragrance, olive vegetable flavor, minced pork burnt fragrance mixed with cowpea juice rolled in the mouth; it is the most most home-style, the flavor the human mouth most most adapts to.

This dish is also excellent with porridge; ladle a spoonful into the cold porridge, the Olive Vegetable oil and the oil and vegetable juice fried out from the minced pork and cowpeas dye the circle of porridge they touch a dark brown — this circle has the best flavor.

If you shove the vegetables and porridge together into your mouth, the thick porridge blends everything into chaos—one bite of freshness, then another bite of freshness, and another bite of the tender sweetness of green bean juice; the base is porridge simmered until rice oil rises, and with a gentle press of the lips, the rice grains that have already burst open are instantly flattened, squeezing out the rice soup within, cool yet refreshing.

The vegetable is cauliflower.

The cauliflower is chopped fine, blanched with a little oil, then stir-fried with chopped cornel and mustard seed, coming out as a plate of tender green; scooped into a bowl with a spoon, a forkful finds the vegetable bits already soft but still holding their original shape, the vegetable juice clear and sweet, faintly spicy, spicy yet fragrant, slick with oil—eat a hundred times and never tire of it.

Two dishes and two staples were served first; once on the table, the gentlemen, old hands at this, each took what they liked without needing to be told, and without Cheng Erniang and the big flatbread having to attend to them.

The one eating noodles had only meant to taste the flavor, but after one taste, he almost swallowed a small bowl in the blink of an eye—a bowl is just two bites—and was now scraping the bottom for the last bits.

As for those drinking porridge, they were no less eager: one spoonful of thick porridge into the bowl, mixed with olive vegetable, minced meat, and green beans, one bite and they knew it was not good enough, so they hastily swallowed what was in the bowl and hurriedly went to add two more servings.

Seeing everyone eating in a hurry, Song Miao had to urge: "There are still main dishes, everyone take it slow, leave some room in your bellies!"

In a moment the main dishes also came out of the pot, but it was a steamed dish called One Night Dried Steamed Pork Belly.

The fish paste is washed clean and wiped dry, pan-fried in a white pot to bring out its aroma, then chopped into chunks a bit wider than a finger—this fish paste is not really one-night dried, after all it must be transported a thousand li to the Capital, and one-night dried would spoil halfway, but it is lightly salted and shallow-dried, with plenty of fish flavor.

Choose fresh pork belly with a proper balance of fat and lean, cut into slices; lay a layer of leaner meat at the bottom, place a piece of fish paste in the middle, then cover with a layer of fattier meat on top, add some ginger shreds, bring plenty of water to a boil with steam rising, and put this plate-pot in to steam.

Once steamed through, take the top layer of fatty meat and pan-fry it to render oil; scatter shredded ginger, scallion, and small scallion flowers, then pour the meat and oil over while hot with a sizzle.

A dish like this: when steaming, the fish paste in the middle layer absorbs the meat aroma and fat dripping down from the top layer of fatty meat—slick with oil, rich and fatty, not like ordinary salted fish paste that is dry and salty to the point of bitterness; eaten, the fish meat still retains plenty of springiness, yet separates slightly layer by layer, even the bones in the middle become easy to remove; eaten in the mouth, the flavor is abundant, and meat juice overflows between layer upon layer of meat.

That meat juice is the meat juice steamed from the top layer of fatty meat mingled with the fish's own juices, making people close their eyes and sigh, with no breath left to speak words of praise.

The bottom layer of lean pork belly is yet another kind of eating; it has absorbed the salty fragrance and sea flavor of the fish paste in the middle, but is itself red meat, and being pork belly with a proper balance of fat and lean, it has a slight crispness when bitten, yet is not hard, nor greasy, bursting with a juice that is like fish yet richer, like pork yet more fresh and fragrant—extremely delicious.

The fish paste dried just right, the fire timed just right for steaming, relying on fish and meat combining just so—a very simple dish, yet one no one at the table could resist.

Everyone raised their chopsticks again and again; clearly a large plate, simply gone clean in the blink of an eye.

The meal ended, the noodles eaten up, the thick porridge drunk dry, all the dishes eaten cleanly, even the ginger and scallion garnish on top of the steamed fish paste pork belly was picked out and eaten.

Still not satisfied, Song Miao had someone bring up a steamed egg in a small bowl for each person.

A very tender steamed egg, smooth and fine, without a single air hole, full of egg fragrance, with only a very thin layer of soy sauce poured over; dig the spoon in, and there is practically no resistance at all; in the mouth, rather than saying it is smooth and tender, it is better to say it is delicate and tender—it breaks at a touch, sliding down the throat into the belly, making all the gentlemen, whose few teeth were not very reliable, feel their teeth were superfluous, so tender it makes one want to weep.

While others were scraping the bottom of their bowls, I don't know who ate fastest; an old gentleman who had nothing left to scrape let out a sigh and said: "Young Lady, a place like Hua Prefecture—go once and that's enough; don't go to Yingzhou again in the future—I'm this old, one less meal each time I eat!"

These words spoken, practically everyone echoed in agreement, even the youngest Xue Zheng You Xuelu, little Yu, wanting to join the excitement, said: "Exactly, Young Lady Song Xiaoniangzi, I too am one less meal each time I eat!"

All being men of letters, this group praised this reunion meal again and again; finally the hour was not early, so they had to call a carriage driver and prepare to return to Taixue.

Everyone had gotten onto the carriages, and they bade farewell to Song Miao and the others with great reluctance, one sentence after another; then another said: "Young Lady, rest assured, my menu is already being written; tomorrow I will bring the draft for you to choose a calligraphy style!"

Another said: "I also have ideas for the menu itself; I already made a framework, and tomorrow I will bring it for you to see!"

Just as they were speaking, seeing the carriage about to leave, suddenly someone called out: "Wait a moment, wait a moment, I need to make a trip to Xuefang!"

—It was that Chen Fuzi.

He got down from the carriage, made a meaningful glance at Song Miao, went to the Back Courtyard, but stuffed a scroll over to her, saying softly: "You take a look first at whether I am of any use or not!"

Saying this, the man did not go to any Xuefang, but with a thieving smile went out the door, climbed onto the carriage, and urged the driver to leave.