Chapter 49 Chapter 49 Pig-Slaughtering Banquet (Part 2)
"Today, I'm here to wish everyone a Happy New Year in advance. May we all thrive in the coming year, have enough food and clothing, and enjoy good health for our families!" Zhu Dan raised his glass and smiled brightly. "I'll toast. Enjoy yourselves, everyone. Please enjoy."
When she was a student, she hated leaders’ long speeches the most. She would just give a brief talk at the beginning, but the actual speech would go on for two or three hours.
When she becomes a leader herself, she will no longer be this annoying adult.
Knowing that his presence would make everyone feel uncomfortable, Zhu Dan only said this one sentence, toasted with a glass of wine and left quickly.
This has nothing to do with the era. Even in the future, when the company's big boss arrives, the employees under him will be restrained when faced with delicacies.
Those who can eat whatever they want without caring about anything are either tactless or have a big heart of steel. They are indifferent to everything and give up. In fact, most of them are ordinary people.
The weather was nice today, and Zhu Dan had someone set up a tent in the yard. After all, there were quite a lot of guests, and it was a bit difficult to set up the banquet just in the house.
I didn’t expect that it didn’t snow this morning and the sun came out. The winter sun felt warm on people.
Zhu Dan thought the scenery was nice, but it was not convenient for her to go to the yard, so she asked someone to put her table in front of the window.
The windows were wide open, and sitting at the same table with her were naturally her old acquaintances, Xiang Lichun, Xiang Liyuan, Gongsun Liu, Su who was in charge of the papermaking project, Fang Jinyi from the farm, Liu Lekang who invented glass... and Yun Qiu who was specially called from Xianyang by Zhu Dan.
Zhu Dan’s positioning of her was correct: a versatile assistant and a housekeeper who coordinates everything behind the scenes.
Originally, Zhu Dan invited her to a pig-killing banquet, but she politely declined. However, Zhu Dan suddenly had an idea and decisively called her over on the pretext of preparing a gift for Brother Zheng and asking for her help.
The gift is naturally those big fat pigs. Yun Qiu is currently in charge of making sausages, and Zhu Dan is adjusting the taste together with the chef.
"Come on, don't be polite. The meat on our table has been prepared with divine power. It tastes at least five or six times better than those sold outside."
"As for this wine, it is the best one that Xueyao gave me. If you miss this meal today, you won't be able to eat such a good thing again in the future." She greeted everyone.
Zhu Dan does indeed do things herself and is always at the forefront of many things, but she never thinks that she has to be particular about everything and treat everyone equally.
She had worked hard for half a year and finally had a pig-killing feast. What's wrong with using her spiritual energy to improve the food and treat herself to a good meal?
Everyone present here has worked hard and made great contributions, so what if their treatment and benefits are better than those outside?
Anyway, Zhu Dan has done nothing wrong.
Although this castrated fat pig had not been domesticated for a long time, it was fed with grain in a proper manner and was purer than some so-called native pork in later generations.
Combining the two, it is absolutely perfect.
After being purified by spiritual power, it is no exaggeration to say that it is dragon meat in heaven and donkey meat on earth. In any case, Zhu Dan ate it with great relish.
Su and Yunqiu, who were originally sitting at the same table with Zhu Dan and were in a complicated mood, lost their usual caution and reserve, and their chopsticks flew so fast that they left afterimages.
No one spoke, and no one cared about being polite, because their mouths were already filled with meat.
A good banquet should have been filled with toasts and a lively atmosphere, but everyone only smiled politely at the beginning, and in the first and middle stages everyone was busy eating. In the later stages, it was even more outrageous. The atmosphere was lively, but everyone was clamoring for food.
One said, "You have already eaten a piece of pork elbow, this one is mine." The other said, "I grabbed it first, so of course it's mine."
This is the case with Zhu Dan, and the pig-killing banquet outside is no exception.
This pig-killing banquet also specially prepared children's tables for children to sit with.
In ancient times, the mortality rate of children was high, and children were considered to be able to stand up at the age of five, so generally speaking, people would not bring very young children to banquets.
The youngest ones who came today are five or six years old, so the mothers don’t have to hold and feed them. The older ones take care of the younger ones.
In fact, if Zhu Dan had not specifically instructed them to prepare a table for the children, they would not have planned to bring the child here, as their family conditions were like that.
Since we usually don’t eat much meat, it’s obvious that there will be a lot of meat and dishes at the pig-killing banquet. Children don’t know how to restrain themselves like adults.
Not wanting to embarrass themselves, many parents repeatedly teach their children to be reserved and polite the day before, and even whisper in their children's ears when they arrive in a carriage.
So after Zhu Dan toasted, he announced the start of the meal and served one hot dish after another. Dalin's son Damao still remembered what his parents had told him that as the eldest brother, he had to look after his younger brothers and sisters.
If anyone shows a greedy look with drooling eyes, he will be glared at or even pinched.
But Damao was also crying in his heart: What kind of meat is this? It smells so good, how can it be so fragrant and so overbearing?
It was clearly the grandparents who made the arrangements, and their family had no shortage of meat for the past six months, which was very nourishing for their bodies. But why was it not as delicious as the meat now?
He can hardly control himself!
Thinking of this, Damao couldn't help but look at the table where his father and mother were sitting, and was stunned for a moment.
I saw the fathers and mothers glaring fiercely and stretching out their long arms to grab the meat quickly. Often, as soon as a dish was put down, countless pairs of chopsticks rushed over.
Looking around, he found that only these children were the most reserved.
"Brother, I can't help it!" The younger brother next to him shouted and stood up, stretching his arms to reach the braised pork on the other side.
The appearance and aroma are really tempting.
If he didn't pick up some food, the dish would have been eaten by the child next to him.
Children's self-control is indeed not as good as that of adults. The reason they are so reserved is that they have been severely educated at home.
I was already extremely greedy, and now seeing my parents fail, how could I resist?
So the only quiet place, the children's table, was also occupied.
But no one pointed fingers at them.
Because today even the servants brought by the housekeeper were wearing ordinary people's clothes.
After the dishes were served, they went to eat their meal and no one was watching them.
Those who think they are reserved simply have not encountered real delicious food.
At the same time, Da Niu was also concentrating on eating the braised pork elbow.
Originally, his lover listened to him mumbling about his sad things for half the night, and wanted to take care of his mood and give him more vegetarian dishes.
I didn’t expect that he enjoyed eating more than me!
Even I, who didn't eat this morning and saved some space for the feast, couldn't snatch it from him.
After the dishes were served one after another, everyone at the table had a full stomach.
Because each dish was very generous and there were eighteen dishes on each table, even though they ate as much as they could, there was still some left.
It's not a vegetarian dish, vegetables are rare in winter.
Because glass was only invented not long ago, it could only be assembled into small pieces to make some glass windows, and large pieces could not be made. Zhu Dan did not have time to fully promote the greenhouse project.
So the only vegetarian dishes on the table were radishes and cabbages, but no one disliked them at all.
"It's really strange. I never thought that one day I would feel that I had eaten too much meat and needed to eat some radishes to cleanse my mouth."
"Who says it's not true? In fact, the chef at the young lady's house cooked the meat very deliciously, but there was just too much."
After eating their fill, the group of people who were originally a little unfamiliar with each other started chatting.
Without exception, everyone was very satisfied with today's dishes.
Da Niu's parents laughed at Da Niu for being pretentious without hesitation. Their family has been raising pigs for generations, and you say you are reluctant to eat the pigs after they grow up. Isn't this pretentious?
Although I have heard my son talk about the complicated process of raising pigs, I have not experienced it myself, so I still cannot understand the kind of feelings that are cultivated by spending years together, worrying about the pigs getting sick, and worrying about the pigs not growing meat.
Da Niu was silent for a moment, then he said loudly, "Next year I will raise big fat pigs, lots of fat pigs, so that our family can eat meat every day, just like during the Spring Festival."
"This big brother is so ambitious!"
"The pigs raised by the young lady are really unique. I can't put them down after eating this one. If you can raise more pigs next year, I think you can sell them outside. I must buy them, even if they are more expensive!"
"I want to buy some too. This pork tastes better than mutton!" Someone said.
Everyone else looked over and asked, "Seriously?"
The man smiled proudly: "Of course it's true, I bought mutton at home."
Seeing his clothes and appearance, everyone thought he was indeed not lying, and immediately raised their opinion of the pork again, noting that it was a pig raised by a young lady.
Some people couldn't help but ask the experts for advice.
Daniu didn't hesitate. He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a few booklets. "These were given to me by the young lady. She said she wanted everyone in Daqin to be able to afford pork, so she conducted experiments and summarized them. This is our experience in raising pigs over the past six months. You can take them home and take a look."
"If you don't understand something in the future, you can come to Liuyeli and ask for advice."
Upon hearing this, not only the people at this table, but also those at the next table came over and asked: "What's this method of teaching pig farming? Can you give me a copy?"
"Give it to me, I'm willing to pay for it."
"Don't worry, this booklet is not expensive. I can get the internal price, only one big dollar per book." Da Niu pointed with his fingers.
This manual is naturally given for free to relatives and friends, but for outsiders, you have to pay a lot of money.
One big dollar is really not much, just the price of a piece of tofu, so everyone paid for it readily.
Fortunately, we are here for a banquet today, and many people have thought about giving money as a contribution.
The young lady was different from the original villagers who could be given eggs, rice, flour or other things to eat, so they simply brought money.
It should be okay to give a large sum of money from the share money.
After paying and receiving the booklet, many people were confused: "What is this? It looks like cloth, but not really."
They had heard before that nobles would use cloth and bamboo slips to record things, but this booklet didn't seem to be like that. It was much lighter than cloth.
It's light yellow and looks pretty good, with pictures painted on it.
Daniel stood up and showed everyone how to use the booklet.
This booklet looked very rough to later generations. It was about the size of an A5 notebook, and the paper quality was not good. The ink printed on it was of varying depths, and the left side was sewn with hemp thread. When you turned the pages one by one, you would see pictures one after another, with only a very small number of words marked on them.
But in the eyes of the common people who had never seen the world, it was simply amazing.
That’s right, this is the result of Su’s half-year work.
After many improvements, she finally created a rough yellow paper that could be used for printing. Even though the thickness was out of control, the paper was uneven, the ink bleeds, and it was blurry... it was still a groundbreaking achievement.
Then Zhu Dan printed the first batch of pig farming manuals.
Su didn't say anything, but when Zhu Dan took her to report the results to Zheng Ge, Li Si and others who were present almost vomited blood in anger.
This is paper, a creative and subversive thing. How can you use it to print a pig farming guide?
Li Si strongly requested that he print the famous works of their Legalists.
Zhu Dan convinced them with just one sentence: "Currently, both papermaking and printing technologies are very crude and need improvement. And as you've seen, they're improving very quickly. I'm using the pig farming guide as a practice."
"Are you really sure you want to print those classics now? Don't worry, the technology will have been updated by the time they are just printed."
It really makes a lot of sense!
Zhu Dan kept her own pig farming guide, so naturally she would not say that her next batch of plans included printing a hygiene guide, a common sense encyclopedia, popular science knowledge, and a hundred thousand whys.
She admitted that Chinese classics were good, but at this stage these things were more practical.
Some people were more interested in pig farming and actively purchased and inquired about it. Some people were not interested and after eating and drinking, their attention turned to wine.
Wine is naturally very precious, and ordinary people can't afford it at all, but the meat today is so delicious that everyone raised their glasses with Zhu Dan at the beginning and took a sip, and then no one touched it.
At this moment, someone couldn't help but say, "This wine is so strong!"
"Yeah, I thought this wine was spicy before. I'm afraid it must be a rare good wine with a strong aftertaste."
They didn't know that this was a new batch of wine obtained after Li Xueyao improved the winemaking method. They thought that this was the kind of wine that nobles drank. Looking at the remaining wine on the table, they felt very sorry: "This wine must be very expensive, but I can't even drink a sip."
I ate too much and felt like the meat was stuck in my throat. If I drank any more, my stomach would burst.
But they soon received news that they could pack up the wine and take it away, using the bowls they were eating from, and return it later.
In an instant, everyone became happy again. They praised the young lady for her thoughtfulness and then divided the wine.
In fact, each person can only get half a bowl, but looking at the clear wine and smelling the aroma, the joy in my heart seems to be bubbling.
They were already very happy today, and this impromptu gift made them even happier.
The carriage took everyone back one by one. When they got on the carriage again, Liu Yu and Cao'er were not as nervous as when they came.
Liu Yun sighed to Cao'er, "Your great-grandmother lived for over fifty years. Her life was truly worth it. I wouldn't regret going down to see your great-grandfather right now."
Cao'er hugged her and said, "It's still early. Mother, you haven't seen me get married yet."
Her eyes seemed to be lit with fire. "Grandmother, I also want to work for the young lady. I saw that Erlin's family works for the young lady. Today, in addition to the feast, they also received many New Year gifts."
"They can live in a house that's warm all day and all night, and they won't be freezing. They say the sausages they give as a New Year gift are made with lots of precious spices, and there's a new kind of bacon smoked with fruit tree wood that's incredibly fragrant... With the New Year gift they received this year, they won't have to buy meat for the rest of the year."
Looking at his little granddaughter like this, Liu Yu felt even stronger about buying a house and settling down in Lantian County.
She smiled and said, "The young lady only wants outstanding talents. If you want to work for her, you must make yourself more capable and catch her eye."
"Just like the girl named Jin Huan, it is said that she first found the treasure that the young lady wanted, and later listened to the young lady's lessons in the willow leaves. She was so smart that she became a young master herself."
Cao'er nodded vigorously and took out a pig farming book from her bosom: "The words on it are commonly used by young ladies. I just asked Damao for advice. I want to learn it well."
Liu Yu was very pleased and said as a reward: "This year we will also raise pigs, big fat pigs, and we will raise them using the method taught by the young lady."
"Next year during the Spring Festival, we can also eat homemade bacon and sausages."
Cao'er couldn't help swallowing her saliva when she thought of the delicious pork she had eaten today.
Even though Chinese New Year hasn't arrived yet, she hopes it will be next year's New Year soon because she starts to miss those delicious foods.
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