Chapter 104 Diet
October 3, 1867.
Ininaya village, Mbeya.
Ayiguli Yahefu is preparing breakfast for her husband and herself.
Ayiguli Yahef was an Armenian who was bought from Ottoman nobles by Arab slave traders and sold to the East African colonies.
She was awarded as a "prize" to Zhao Yizhan, a model worker recognized by the colonial government.
Zhao Yizhan was a Chinese immigrant and one of the first people to arrive in Mbeya, that is, the first Chinese immigrant army organized in the colony.
Of the 100 people in Zhao Yizhan's group, only 97 arrived at Mbeya alive, and three of his comrades died during the harsh march.
Later, Mbeya became the capital of the Upper Lake Malawi region, and the East African colonial government established villages and developed land throughout the East African colonial territory.
There was Ininaya Village near Mbeya, and Zhao Yizhan, as an old team member, was assigned to Ininaya Village and became a member of the Ininaya Village Security Team.
Zhao Yizhan was originally from Shandong. He was not short, reaching 1.78 meters (at the beginning of the 20th century, the average height of many European and American countries was less than 1.7 meters). When he was in the Far East, he had no food to eat and was a bit skinny, so he looked like a large hemp straw.
Although Zhao Yizhan was still malnourished when he first arrived at the East African colony, he worked vigorously after having enough food and drink.
He was in excellent spirits and was selected as one of the first Chinese soldiers in the First Town, and finally embarked on the journey to conquer Mbeya.
During the year he served in the Mbeya Army, Zhao Yizhan's obedience and resilience were noticed by his superiors, and he was appointed as a key member of the newly established Ininaya Village (after all, the village security team only had a few people, and there was only a German village chief and a Hexingen student leading the team, so he was also a high-ranking official in the village.)
Later, during the "purge" movement, Mbeya was located on the main transportation route for the indigenous people to the southwest (towards Zimbabwe and Zambia).
The local government of Mbeya not only has to maintain the smooth passage and ensure that the indigenous tribes do not stay, but is also responsible for the task of expelling the local indigenous tribes. Therefore, Mbeya has a heavy responsibility and workload.
In this way, Mbeya was able to gain more achievements, and later on, he had some advantages when applying for the female quota. Zhao Yizhan also had an advantage in organizing the militia (temporary expansion) during this purge, and performed well among many of his colleagues.
She became one of the first people to be assigned a wife, and it was at that time that Ayiguli Yahefu married Zhao Yizhan.
The East African colony, Mbeya government, personally issued the marriage certificate to the two.
As an Armenian woman, Ayiguli Yahef is actually not very good at cooking East African ingredients.
The place where Armenians live is located in the Transcaucasus region of West Asia. Historically, it has been influenced by Greek and Persian cultures, so the eating style is a mix of Greek, Persian, Turkish and Arabic cuisines.
The Armenians live in the mountains, river valleys, and plateaus. Not only is the environment harsh, but transportation is also not very convenient.
Compared with East Africa and West Asia, both seem to be somewhat like "a land of fish and rice".
East Africa is rich in resources. Various tropical fruits and vegetables are suitable for growing here. The fertile, flat and large land provides sufficient food production. There are also many rivers and lakes, and there are all kinds of food ingredients, including flying animals, running animals and swimming animals.
Many of them were things that Ayiguli Yahefu had never seen before. Fortunately, Mbeya mainly grows wheat, and as an Armenian woman, Ayiguli Yahefu can make an Armenian version of baked bread as her staple food.
East Africa is currently promoting the use of fish instead of wild animals as a supplement to meat, and Armenians also do a good job in processing fish.
However, Aiguli Yahefu had no experience in handling many ingredients from East Africa.
This is where Zhao Yizhan's advantage comes into play. As a native of the Far East, Zhao Yizhan certainly knows how to cook, but he can only cook, not cook deliciously.
Even so, he still taught Aiguli Yahefu how to fry, stir-fry, cook, and make pancakes, noodles and other oriental cooking skills.
Although these ingredients look simple, they can handle most foods.
Although the food at Zhao Yizhan's house is relatively simple, it embodies a combination of Chinese and Western cuisines. Anyway, being able to eat enough is good enough these days, and no one cares too much about how the food tastes.
As an agricultural planting area, East Africa has considerable food production capacity, and each person can get about one kilogram of food rations a day.
As a model soldier and member of the security team, Zhao Yizhan was allocated 1.5 kilograms of food a day, and as a woman, Ayiguli Yahefu was allocated nearly 7 taels of food. The total amount of the two of them was just over 2.2 kilograms.
In addition to the irregular supply of meat, home-grown vegetables, and wild vegetables, melons and fruits from the fields.
In this era, the living conditions of Zhao Yizhan's family were far above the world average, that is, in terms of clothing, housing and transportation, the East African colonies were slightly worse, but otherwise they were no different from Europe.
Today, Zhao Yizhan's family had two pieces of toast, a fish soup, and a portion of stir-fried vegetables for breakfast.
Ayiguli Yahefu was responsible for preparing the food, while Zhao Yizhan was responsible for making the fire.
In addition to an oriental stove, the house also has a West Asian-style oven.
In the past, most of the pots, pans, and utensils in the East African colonies were imported in bulk from the Far East and Europe.
Since taking over the mainland part of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the brick kilns and handicraft workshops there were also taken over and expanded by the East African colony, providing the entire East Africa with bricks and stones, pottery jars, iron pots and other industrial products needed for stoves.
Of course, in addition to families like Zhao Yizhan who cook their own meals, East Africa also has a large number of canteens. After all, there are still a lot of bachelors in East Africa who have not started a family (they cannot eat in the canteen after they start a family). Their food problems are solved by the big pot meals.
However, as more and more people settle their marriages and family migration increases, the proportion of people eating in restaurants has begun to decrease gradually.
Before long, the village canteen is likely to go bankrupt. Under instructions from above, family immigrants will be given priority in being allocated to villages in the future.
Single male immigrants will be arranged to move into cities first. A number of traditional handicraft workshops are currently being established in the East African colonies to provide simple daily necessities for the development of the East African colonies.
Moreover, cities can be more convenient to manage, and immigrants with families are naturally easier to rule than single immigrants, so currently family immigrants are given priority in being allocated to farms.
Single immigrants will first be assigned to cities with stricter management. East African cities are not like conventional European cities, and citizens enjoy full freedom.
In fact, cities in East Africa are just slightly larger towns, or giant farms. They are called cities only for the convenience of management and naming in administration.
Its industry is still mainly agriculture, but the conditions and transportation of these cities are advantageous. Even if the East African colonial government interferes with their development, they will become regional centers in the future due to their own conditions.
(End of this chapter)
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