Chapter 1009 It’s so hard to eat vegetables
Xiao Peng and his friends just went outside the village to deal with pig offal!
Although people here eat pigs, they don't eat pig offal. They're usually fed to dogs. Xiao Peng took all of it and washed it with well water outside the village.
It is nonsense to say that African people have no wisdom: the villages they live in are some distance away from farmland and water sources. Although this is not very convenient, it reduces the chance of mosquito infestation.
Locals don't eat offal, but in Xiao Peng's eyes, they're all treasures! He stir-fries pork kidneys, marinates pork belly with oyster sauce and light soy sauce and stir-fries it with some vegetables, makes pork intestines into nine-turn pork intestines, makes large intestines into spicy large intestines, and makes pork liver into braised liver tips...
Even if Xiao Peng is the second-in-command chef, he is more than capable of handling these offal!
This made everyone here look at Xiao Peng a little strangely: "There's delicious pork here, but you're staring at this garbage offal instead of eating it?" And what about Xiao Peng? He was humming a song as he unloaded a portable outdoor cooker from his car, laying out all sorts of seasonings, marinating, and chopping the ingredients. Could this stuff really be delicious?
The most disappointed were Buddy and Annie. They both thought it was food for them: they were both particularly fond of offal, especially Buddy. Caracals are known for their discerning tastes. They devour their prey from the inside out, from the organs to the flesh, leaving the fur untouched—except for guinea fowl, which they leave untouched. Biologists still haven't come up with a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon.
If you only cook these offal, it won’t taste good. It needs to be accompanied by vegetables, but there are not many vegetables here in Jibelin.
Senegal's main agricultural product is peanuts, which can be found everywhere here, but vegetables... haha.
Although Papa and his fellow Dioles can grow rice, they are not good at growing vegetables. This is also related to the environment here.
Senegal boasts strong sunshine, a thriving livestock industry, and fertile soil. However, due to its extremely hot climate, which consists of only dry and rainy seasons, pests and diseases are common. Their so-called "traditional" farming methods, which essentially involve sowing seeds, waiting, and relying on the weather, often yield no harvest, so they've given up on growing vegetables.
Moreover, even the basic common sense that Chinese farmers know is considered "unbelievable" here. This is not an exaggeration. Crops like cucumbers, tomatoes, and cowpeas need to be grown on trellises, which can increase the yield by at least eight times compared to natural growth! And they don't even know this!
For a long time, Senegal had no more than five common vegetables! These were mostly root vegetables, like carrots. Senegal had considered solving this problem, so they sought out the world's most skilled farmers to guide their agricultural development.
So, in the town of Sangalekham, on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, a Chinese vegetable planting demonstration garden has been established. Chinese agricultural experts are teaching Senegalese farmers about agricultural techniques, such as trellising, greenhouse farming, and the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
They also brought 38 vegetable varieties from China for trial cultivation. However, some of these varieties were either impossible for even the Chinese to grow here or too expensive to cultivate, so they further improved local vegetable varieties. So far, the vegetable demonstration garden has provided Senegal with approximately 25 stable varieties, including rice, the most popular crop among Senegalese. A rice cultivation training center is also located in the village of Guia in Bodor Province.
In fact, at first, the Senegalese people were quite dismissive of the Chinese rice cultivation techniques: "We've been growing rice for generations, what can you teach us?" So the two sides engaged in a "competition," using the same local rice seeds and planting them on the same land. The results showed that the Chinese experts harvested six tons per hectare from broadcast planting, nine tons per hectare from transplanting, while the locals only managed two tons per hectare. Even the most skilled local "agricultural experts" could only harvest three tons.
This is still using local rice varieties. If you use Chinese rice varieties, you will harvest more!
So Senegal began to popularize the Chinese rice planting technology throughout the country. When Xiao Peng first arrived, Papa and his family used the rice transplanting method to plant rice.
Sadly, Senegal consumes 900,000 tons of rice annually, but imports 700,000 tons of it! The reason for this is that agricultural technology is so backward. Now things are finally improving. While they still rely on the weather after planting, their yields have roughly doubled, and they're very content.
Unlike the rapid expansion of rice cultivation, however, vegetable cultivation has been more challenging. The government distributes vegetable seeds to local farmers, but they're essentially left alone after planting. How can vegetables grow well? They don't care, as their ancestors haven't had that many vegetables for generations.
Especially now that it is the rainy season, which is the worst season for growing vegetables in Senegal and is also the most expensive season for vegetables on the market. Where can I find vegetables in Ghibelline?
Xiao Peng brought it with him!
How did he know about the vegetable demonstration garden in Sangalakham? He'd traveled all the way south to Jibelin, while Sangalakham was in the north. He'd passed by there before and had a nice drink with the local agricultural experts. Before leaving, the experts from the demonstration garden presented Xiao Peng with two large boxes of vegetables. Xiao Peng initially thought it was a bit unnecessary, but then realized it was a truly generous gift!
"Xiao, what are you doing?" The speaker was Aruba, a member of the Sheler tribe who was good at fishing at sea. He had just returned to the village, carrying a fishing net and a large woven bag.
Xiao Peng said: "Of course it's cooking!"
Influenced by his parents, he prepared the side dishes first, washing and plating all the vegetables before starting to cook. Aruba looked at the dishes on the table and frowned. "Is this edible?"
Xiao Peng smiled and said, "You'll know in a minute. We've got a good harvest today! A big bag full!"
Aruba said, "When people come to the village, of course we have to catch more fish to treat them. But today I was unlucky. My fishing net was torn, so I had to come back early. I will catch more fish when I have time."
"How did it get scratched?" Xiao Peng asked curiously.
Aruba pulled out a fish from the woven bag behind him and placed it in front of Xiao Peng. "Here, this is what caused the trouble. It dragged the fishing net into the cave. As a result, it caused a big hole in my fishing net. I'm so angry! Fishing nets are so troublesome!"
"Oh, it's the Atlantic wobbegong!" Xiao Peng said after seeing it.
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