Chapter 72 Osmanthus Persimmon Cake [First Update]
Two hundred catties...
Not only was Grandma He taken aback, but Han Lulu also let out a strange cry.
"Wen Xiaofan, are you crazy?!"
Two hundred pounds, are you going to eat it as food?
He Yuzhen even secretly tugged at Wen Fan's sleeve: "Wen Fan, do you know how much two hundred jin is?"
Those persimmons weren't very big; there were about seven or eight persimmons per pound. Two hundred pounds, more than a thousand persimmons—Wen Fan's family is just a small restaurant; could they possibly consume that much?
Wen Fan: "I know, two hundred catties. Let's try it out first. We definitely can't bring in too much at the beginning."
He Yuzhen: ...
So you think you're pretty safe?
Grandma He: "...Child, you should buy less. So many persimmons, it doesn't cost much, but the problem is you can't eat them all, isn't that a waste of money?"
Besides, many people don't eat persimmons, especially the elderly. They always feel that persimmons are too strong and can harm the spleen and stomach. They worry that if they bring home so many, people might get sick from eating them.
Grandma He tried to persuade her for a while, but seeing that Wen Fan was polite but very insistent, she could only let her talk to her family first.
"Ask your family. If they also say it's okay, then buy it."
Seeing how worried the old lady was about him, Wen Fan picked up his phone and started sending messages to his mother.
"Mom, I want to buy some persimmons to take home."
With a ding, Mother Wen's reply arrived.
[Buy it, but don't have enough money?]
[Transfer of 1000 yuan, please confirm.]
Is that enough?
Wen Fan replied to a lot of messages, then sent two emojis of kissing his mother, and presented the message to Grandma He.
Grandma He said helplessly, "Alright, I'll take you to see that family's persimmon grove."
Han Lulu raised her hand frantically: "I'm going too!"
He Yuzhen naturally wanted to go along too.
The other students wanted to join in, but they were all thinking about the food and barbecue that hadn't been finished yet. The boys, in particular, felt that while it was great to eat and drink to their hearts' content, they hadn't caught a single fish yet... "Successless" is such a hurtful word!
"Wen Fan, you guys go ahead. We'll clean this place up later and then go downstairs to help you carry the persimmons!"
So in the end, only Wen Fan, Han Lulu, and He Yuzhen remained.
Another surprise is Fang Weiyue.
Fang Weiyue, wearing an ill-fitting dress, clutched the hem and whispered, "I want to go see too."
"Take a look if you want, Wen Fan has no objection."
Han Lulu, however, was very wary and whispered in Wen Fan's ear, "I think Fang Weiyue is really strange."
Wen Fan: "...Don't talk into my ear, it's making me itchy."
Han Lulu snorted and grabbed Wen Fan's arm. Wen Fan felt uncomfortable, but he couldn't shake her off no matter how hard he tried. In the end, he could only resign himself to letting Han Lulu hold him tightly.
Upon seeing this, He Yuzhen scratched her head and went to help her grandmother.
The class monitor also suggested that he follow along.
"There are only a few girls in your group, I'm worried about you."
The main group of more than twenty people is not a big deal, but if these few students go down the mountain and can't be found again, the class monitor will be terrified.
Wen Fan looked at the class monitor's small frame: "...Thank you."
After walking a mile or two along Phoenix Pool, Grandma He led them from the main road in the village to a side road. After turning a corner, there were only two or three scattered houses. However, the other two houses either had half of their walls collapsed or had large padlocks hanging on their doors, indicating that they had not been living there recently.
Grandma He: "This family's surname is Lou. The two houses next door belong to their brothers. They don't live here anymore; they've moved to the city."
"He was the eldest son, and he was allocated this old house and that persimmon grove back then."
Grandma He knocked on the rusty iron gate: "Lou Da! Are you home?"
"Huijuan! Are you home?"
After calling out several times, I heard the sound of the door latch being turned inside.
A little girl came out, with two braids, looking timid like a primary school student.
"Third Grandma, my parents aren't home."
Grandma He's deceased husband was the third son in his family, so the younger generation in the village called him Third Grandma.
As soon as Grandma He saw the door open, she patted her head and asked, "Where's your brother?"
The child was a little scared and picked at his fingers, saying, "My brother is in the woods."
Grandma He frowned: "He went to pick persimmons again? Your dad didn't beat him enough last time! He dared to climb such a tall tree without anyone watching. What if he fell? Yueyue, didn't you stop him?"
Lou Yue lowered her head: "He didn't want me to come with him, and he even told me to lock the door."
"This child..." Grandma He said helplessly to Wen Fan, "The couple hasn't come back yet, they'll probably be back by evening. If you don't mind, I'll take you to the woods to pick one."
Anyway, the two kids are on holiday at home, so it's fine to give the money to the children.
Wen Fan thought it was a good idea: "Sure, I'll go take a look. By the way, are any of the persimmons hatched yet?"
Before Grandma He could speak, the little girl seemed to finally realize what was happening.
I'm here to buy persimmons!
She quickly replied, "Sister, do you want persimmons? We have some that have already hatched! They're all over there in the woods, I'll take you there!"
As she spoke, she closed the door, reached into the small hole to bolt the back door, and hurriedly pulled Wen Fan's hand.
"Come on, sister, I'll take you to see! Our persimmons are amazing! My brother always picks the biggest and reddest ones. There's even a special house over there for incubating persimmons!"
The little girl dragged someone away, which made Han Lulu and the other girls feel uneasy.
Han Lulu said to He Yuzhen sullenly, "With conditions like yours, don't you give them any subsidies or anything?"
The pressure is immense; two children, and the adults are in poor health, all they rely on for a living from this forest.
He Yuzhen: ...
How would I know if you didn't ask me?
The group walked a few hundred meters and soon arrived at the edge of the persimmon grove. The Lou family had built a fence around it, and Lou Yue called out to her brother from outside the fence.
"Brother—someone wants to buy persimmons!"
A figure slid down from the tree, and before Wen Fan could see it clearly, he heard the sound of it landing.
A short while later, the dark-skinned face of the boy appeared behind the fence.
"You want to buy persimmons?"
He was a little incredulous at first. The village was remote, and the winding path from Qingtang Mountain to here was at least four or five kilometers long. The other person didn't look very old; could he really be a tourist who had come all this way?
At the crucial moment, Grandma He spoke up. She had been standing at the back, blocked by several young people, but she quickly pushed through the crowd and stepped forward.
"Lou Heng, he's here to buy persimmons, open the door quickly!"
Upon seeing Grandma He, Lou Heng's suspicions subsided, and he pointed to the large iron fence on the other side: "It's not locked. You can come in if you unlatch the bolt!"
The group finally entered the persimmon grove. Standing under the trees, Wen Fan sighed inwardly at how beautiful the trees were.
The persimmon trees here are tall and large, and they look like they've been there for decades. No wonder the fruit they bear is so sweet.
It's the peak season for persimmons right now. The persimmon trees, now bare of leaves, are laden with fruit. Of course, a lot of fruit has also fallen to the ground, the broken pieces sticking to the earth, a heartbreaking sight.
Lou Heng led people to two brick houses for hatching persimmons. Inside, there were several shelves, all filled with hatched persimmons.
Lou Heng, with a slightly nasal voice typical of puberty, said, "These are already incubated. Don't worry, I didn't put anything else in them. I just dipped the persimmon stems in white wine and then covered them with plastic wrap."
The clusters of bright red persimmons, laid out together, actually looked quite spectacular.
Lou Heng pointed to the hatched persimmons: "How many do you want? Pack them in bags yourselves, and weigh them after you've packed them."
Lou Heng tensed up slightly as he spoke: "Under ten jin, it's two yuan per jin; over ten jin... one yuan and fifty cents."
After saying that, as if afraid the other party would think it was too expensive, he added a few more words: "We spent several hundred yuan on plastic film, and we used high-proof liquor to hatch the persimmons. You can't find persimmons this sweet around here. Try them if you don't believe me."
Wen Fan didn't even need to taste it; the room was filled with the aroma of persimmons, and she could tell at a glance that it was something good.
Tsk tsk, it's only because people don't lack food nowadays. In the past, such good persimmons would have been a rare commodity even if they were sent to the palace.
Lou Yue had already stood to the side with her brother. One of the two children was extremely nervous, while the other was looking longingly at the group of older brothers and sisters.
Grandma He: "You two don't need to stay here watching. Go, didn't your dad make some baskets before? Bring a few over."
Lou Heng: "...The basket costs five yuan."
Grandma He laughed angrily, "You, my sister, want two hundred catties of ripe persimmons."
Lou Heng seemed a little confused, but Lou Yue reacted the fastest and ran out to get a basket.
"You bought so many persimmons, how are you planning to eat them when you get back?" Lou Heng asked instinctively, completely bewildered.
Han Lulu and the others also looked at Wen Fan, very curious about the answer to the question.
Two hundred pounds of persimmons, are you going to take them home and force yourself to eat them?
As for cooking, I've never heard of any dishes that can be made with persimmons.
Wen Fan: "I'm planning to... I'm planning to make osmanthus persimmon cakes."
Of course, this isn't just a simple persimmon cake. It's made with a filling of brown sugar, sesame seeds, dried osmanthus, crushed peanuts, and a little white sugar. The persimmons are crushed and the juice is strained out. The dough is made with eight parts wheat flour and two parts glutinous rice flour, kneaded into a ball of red dough, and then divided into portions. Each portion is filled with the sugar filling, and the palm-sized persimmon cakes are fried on a griddle until golden brown on both sides. They're eaten hot, and each bite is bursting with honey-like flavor. The aroma of persimmon and osmanthus is equally rich and fragrant.
The two children listened in a daze, unable to help but wonder what the persimmon cakes looked like. Because they had never seen them before, their imaginations were limited, and they only thought they sounded very sweet.
Wen Fan thought, "Isn't it just sweet?"
The nobles in the palace loved to hold banquets at this time of year, perhaps because the high-flying wild geese in autumn particularly inspired poetic sentiment. To compose poetry, one needs a theme to express. In autumn, persimmons and osmanthus blossoms are the most abundant fruits.
The osmanthus and persimmon cake that Wen Fan made was later given a name by the emperor, called Qiuxiang Cake. Over time, many poems were actually written about this cake, and once the poems spread, Qiuxiang Cake became an essential item on the tables of literati, as if not eating Qiuxiang Cake when the autumn wind blew was a serious crime.
Unfortunately, sugar prices were high at the time, so not only ordinary people, but even minor officials in the court could not afford to eat sugar as they pleased.
If you've never eaten it, it's difficult to compose a poem. As a result, there were all sorts of people who ate counterfeit Qiuxiang cakes and made a fool of themselves at poetry gatherings.
Nowadays, sugar is incredibly affordable. Wen Fan sometimes accompanies his parents to the supermarket and is always amazed by the price of sugar.
Since sugar prices were not high, Wen Fan decided to bring out the Qiuxiang cakes that were once only available to high-ranking officials and nobles.
Instead of calling it Qiuxiang cake, Wen Fan decided to call it Osmanthus Persimmon Cake!
After Wen Fan finished speaking, Han Lulu stopped saying that two hundred jin was too much. She kept picking through the pile of persimmons, putting the big, red ones into her basket.
"Kid, do you have 200 jin of ripe persimmons at home?"
Lou Heng immediately became nervous; he never imagined that there would be a day when his family's persimmons wouldn't be enough to sell!
"That's enough...."
What a blunder! He should have picked more and put them here to incubate.
He Yuzhen, Fang Weiyue, and the class monitor also helped with the selection. Everyone had a basket, and they quickly picked out almost everything, weighing each item.
The good news is that it weighs 200 jin (100 kg).
The bad news is that these persimmons vary in size.
After looking around, the larger ones weren't heavy enough, so I ended up putting in quite a few smaller ones.
Wen Fan: "The big ones and the small ones are the same."
Anyway, you're going to crush it and mix it with flour.
The baskets were quite large, each capable of holding twenty pounds, and in the end, ten baskets were collected.
Wen Fan didn't take advantage of anyone, giving a basket a discount of five yuan. Lou Heng didn't say anything fancy either, just one yuan per pound of persimmons.
Wen Fan transferred 250 yuan to Lou Heng.
The children didn't mind the number; they excitedly escorted them to the village entrance.
"Sister, if you want more persimmons, remember to come find me."
Wen Fan nodded: "After your parents come back, have them add this number. They'll contact you if needed."
For these persimmon cakes, I'm afraid Mom will have to go to a secondhand dealer to buy a large griddle. Since she's already bought it, shouldn't she sell these persimmon cakes for a few more days?
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A note from the author: My darlings, the Mid-Autumn Festival Poetry Contest requires writing poems! Remember to write "Mid-Autumn Festival Poetry Contest" on the first line, and then start your poem on a new line. Love you all!
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