Chapter 648 Dahe Town Food Festival
Dahe Village has many unique delicacies.
The jade bamboo shoots from the 200-mu lotus pond produce hundreds of thousands of kilograms every year. A small portion is reserved for Dahe Banquet, and the rest is all processed into lotus root powder. Other merchants have no chance to participate in this business.
The newly sprouted chili peppers are currently only grown in Dahe Village and a few neighboring villages. However, the recipes for various sauces made from these chili peppers are only known to the people of Suigong. Although they have been introduced to the market, the quantity is extremely limited. Even merchants within Ping'an County cannot get enough, let alone merchants from other places.
There are also preserved eggs, which rely entirely on an old woman and a few children to produce, resulting in even lower output. Merchants can't even wholesale them in large quantities to sell elsewhere.
Take ice jelly for example. This stuff is actually very popular. Even if you only do business in the summer, you can make a lot of money. But they can't get the secret recipe, so they can only watch helplessly.
Furthermore, the tomatoes and potatoes she cultivated under the name of Laki Kingdom are now ripe and unique in this era, which will surely cause a huge sensation in the market.
Not to mention crayfish...
During this period, Cheng Wanwan has been busy with meetings, and she has to take care of every detail.
While she was busy, the entire town of Dahe was also incredibly busy.
Disaster victims from Nanyang are working tirelessly to dig canals every day. Newly settled craftsmen are cooperating with Ping'an County to build various tools needed for the canal. Villagers in Dahe Town who own land have to harvest rice and cotton. Businesses in the market are booming. Merchants who have just obtained operating rights are busy decorating their shops in preparation for opening.
Zhao Tiezhu and the village management team spread the word about the food festival.
This food festival is divided into two phases. The first phase will be at the end of the month, on July 28th, and the second phase will be on August 8th. The first phase is to build momentum for the second phase.
This time, instead of posting notices, they distributed flyers.
"The investment promotion conference just ended, and now there's a food festival?"
"See that? It says that each person can sample the newly launched food for free once. There are more than twenty kinds of new delicacies."
"And the first thing to say is that there is an entrance fee of twenty coins per person."
“I’m telling you, you’re a local from Dahe Town, and you only have twenty coins. Is that all you’re concerned about?”
"That's right, that's right. Paying twenty coins allows you to eat the delicious food that Sui Gongren has prepared for free. It's a sure-fire way to make money."
"I have to tell everyone this great news!"
"..."
The town of Dahe has a large flow of people, and these people spread the news of the food festival. In just three or four days, it spread throughout the entire Yunnan province.
As July 28th draws closer, Cheng Wanwan becomes increasingly busy.
The food festival was set up around the Big Locust Tree in Dahe Town. Craftsmen temporarily set up many stalls. Anyone from Dahe Town could become a host for the food festival and use the stalls to promote their own food, attract merchants to buy their secret recipes, or even form a long-term cooperation with a merchant. Whether the business was successful depended on their skills.
Regardless of the variety of food available at this food festival, its main purpose is to promote crayfish.
The night before, Cheng Wanwan's family hired over a hundred people to clean crayfish, making ample preparations for the food festival the following day.
Before dawn, her kitchen staff started working, pouring pot after pot of lobster into the pots and cooking them one dish at a time. First, they made the delicious braised lobster, which can be eaten even when it's cold. After making hundreds of kilograms of braised lobster, they started making spicy crayfish and braised prawns...
By this time, it was already daylight.
Merchants and ordinary people from all over the country who had been waiting for this news came to visit.
Zhao Tiezhu and Xu Kun stood at the town entrance to greet the guests: "Pay 20 wen per person on the left to receive an admission ticket. With your ticket, queue on the right to enter. After entering, walk straight and then turn right to reach the food festival venue. Please don't crowd, take your time..."
The copper coins clattered into the box, and Zhao Tiezhu beamed with joy.
He genuinely didn't expect that just by releasing the gimmick of a food festival, so many people would spontaneously come.
Twenty coins are nothing; the key is the flow of people. Once these people enter Dahe Town, they'll need to eat, right? Free food won't fill them up, so they'll naturally spend money on other food. They'll also need to rest when they're tired, so they'll sit in the teahouse for a while. Some people stay out too late and don't want to go back, so the inn's business will come again...
He increasingly believed in Aunt Zhao's words: "Traffic flow equals money; as long as there are people, there's no worry about not making money."
The crowd lined up and entered Dahe Town in an orderly fashion. The first thing they noticed upon entering was the aroma; the fragrance was so strong that it made their mouths water.
They couldn't wait to get to the food festival square.
This place was already filled with all sorts of stalls.
At the stalls of Donghua and Qiuhua, lotus flower drinks and other beverages made from recipes were on display. The two girls naturally wouldn't give them away for free. If Cheng Wanwan hadn't given them orders not to overcharge customers, they would have raised the prices. Now they could only obediently sell at the original price.
Old Mrs. Zhu took out two hundred preserved eggs and cut them into six pieces each, making a total of one thousand two hundred pieces. Each person with an admission ticket could enjoy one piece for free.
Cheng Yuanyuan, along with her two daughters, Daya and Erya, were tending to their ice jelly stall. They had stayed up all night making a lot of it, and to support Cheng Wanwan's food festival, they were giving away their ice jelly for free.
Besides selling food, some villagers also set up stalls by the roadside, selling whatever they have at home.
The biggest highlight was Cheng Wanwan's stall.
She prepared more than twenty kinds of food. All twenty-odd stalls along this street belonged to her family, and all of them were free to sample.
The first thing to come out of the oven was the delicious braised shrimp. It was placed in a huge bowl, its color was extremely bright, and it emitted a strong aroma. Although they looked strange, they still made people want to take a bite.
Zhao Ergou was in charge of the stall. He shouted, "One admission ticket gets you a free braised shrimp. Limited quantity, first come, first served... Hey, everyone, don't push! The kitchen is still cooking, there are still many more to come!"
The first person in line hurriedly took out his admission ticket, and Zhao Ergou wrote the character "卤" (lu, meaning braised) on it. Then he had someone pick up a braised shrimp and hand it to him... As for tableware, there was none, because they simply couldn't prepare enough.
The man didn't mind, caught the braised shrimp in his hand, and walked to the side to examine it.
I looked at it for a long time but still didn't know where to start.
Several acquaintances gathered together to study it.
"It is said that this thing is called a crayfish, and it was cultivated by Consort Sui at the Emperor's behest."
"It looks a little scary, but it smells so good. Um, is this stuff really edible?"
"We're the first to taste something that even the Emperor hasn't tried yet. We're so lucky! Let me try it and see what it tastes like."
A man tore a crayfish in half, glanced at it, and then stuffed the tail into his mouth. As the flavor exploded on his tongue, his pupils widened instantly.
The people nearby asked eagerly, "How is it? How does it taste?"
He had no time to answer those questions. He swallowed the shrimp tail in a few bites, then broke off the claws and sucked out the soft meat inside. He then peeled off the shell of the shrimp head, stuck out his tongue and licked the inside. After finishing the shrimp, he was still not satisfied and couldn't help but lick his fingers.
After licking his fingers clean, and realizing he really couldn't lick them anymore, he noticed that there were still many people around him waiting for his answers.
He coughed and said, "This meat is too tough and doesn't taste good at all. You guys shouldn't eat this and fill your stomachs. I'll help you finish it off."
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