Chapter 47046. The Profligate Merchant Lei Li
Neither Lei Li nor Zhou Yi expected the arrival of the shopkeeper Haiwei.
"Last time I heard you say that your husband was a good cook, but I didn't quite believe you. Now I see that he is indeed better than the chef in my restaurant."
The shopkeeper Haiwei said with a smile.
He was wearing a half-worn brocade robe with frayed cuffs, and his embroidered boots were stained with a few mud spots. He must have stepped into a small mud puddle when he got off the bus without paying attention.
Not very clean or decent.
But compared to the coarse linen clothes that were washed white and embroidered with patches on them, the Lei family members were already very generous and noble, with obvious and stereotyped differences between city people and country people.
"I, Lei Li, never tell lies."
Lei Li remained calm and said, "My husband's cooking skills are unmatched in the entire county. Look at this. The color, aroma, and flavor... isn't each one of them amazing?"
"Those soup packets were something he came up with while eating, so he could make stewed meat and soup for my parents when we were not at home. Isn't that right, my husband?"
"……right."
Zhou Yi uttered a word.
Hearing that few of Lei Li's ten sentences were correct, he didn't even dare to look at the shopkeeper Haiwei, and silently added more rice to Lei Dashan and Liu Ye'er.
"well……"
Lei Dashan and Liu Ye'er were so nervous that they dared not move, fearing that they might do something or say something wrong and displease this noble man from the city, thus affecting their own children's affairs.
You can't blame them.
The two elders were used to living in the countryside and had only been to the city a few times in their lives, so they had a strong filter for people in the county town.
Especially when he heard that Haiwei was the owner of a restaurant and sold a meal for one or two taels of silver, which was equivalent to what his son Lei Li earned in a month, he felt that he was out of his reach.
My toes are about to dig into the ground.
There was also a Miao man digging the ground.
He provided the mushrooms, went into the mountains before dawn to pick the freshest ones, and delivered them to the Lei family before the dew had dissipated. He helped boil water, pluck the mushrooms, and pick the greens.
The four-year-old boy was very naive and only knew that he could eat something delicious at noon. He waited eagerly for the whole morning, but was taken home by his father before he could eat the chicken.
Mr. Miao is shy.
In modern terms, it is social anxiety. When he saw the shopkeeper Haiwei in brocade robe and flowery boots, his social anxiety attributes broke out. He squeaked, took his share of food, picked up his child, and ran home.
I was completely bewildered by the owner of Haiwei, thinking, I am not scary at all...
At least he’s not as scary as Zhou Yi.
Although he happened to run into a chicken feast, he didn't come for the meal. Without exchanging a few pleasantries, he got straight to the point and said, "I'm here for the soup packets."
"Soup packet?"
Lei Li understood what he meant, but deliberately didn't respond. Instead, he smiled and said, "Have you tried it, boss? This soup is delicious, right?"
“Delicious, delicious.”
The owner of Haiwei praised Zhou Yi several times and looked at him with a smile. "I just don't know how you came up with the idea of cooking herbs and other ingredients together. I also use some herbs in the stewed meat in my restaurant, but not as many as you do, and not as bold as you."
The local food ingredients and medicines of this dynasty were still in the exploratory stage, and were generally based on stereotypes that medicinal materials were used to cure diseases and save lives, while food ingredients were used to be eaten.
For many people, at least for ordinary people, using medicinal herbs to enhance flavor, remove fishy smell, and improve the taste of cooked ingredients is a very luxurious and wasteful behavior.
Waste natural resources.
But for Zhou Yi, eating meat dishes without herbal accompaniment is like eating grass.
If sugarcane and water chestnuts could not be found in Sanlihe Village and the county town, Zhou Yi could have made some thunder god herbal tea with the water bag he brought with him.
Don't drink bitter tea.
The bitter yet sweet herbal tea is just right.
If the owner of Haiwei heard this, he would definitely say that it was a pity that we met too late and we share the same ideals.
“Medicine has its own nature, and food ingredients also have their own nature.”
Zhou Yi said, "Some medicines are mild and can replenish qi and blood and strengthen the body. If stewed with other ingredients that can also replenish qi and blood, they can achieve twice the result with half the effort.
"Although medicine is three-quarters toxic, the amount of medicine in dietary supplements is not much, and it is not that bitter. As long as the ingredients or the disease do not conflict, the side effects can be ignored."
"Especially for elderly people at home who are ill, proper diet, exercise and keeping a good mood can also help alleviate some of the illness."
Lei Li raised his eyebrows when he heard this, and secretly reached out his hand from under the table, pinched Zhou Yi's thigh, looked at him with a smile and said,
"I didn't expect that you would come up with so many ways to eat for the sake of your parents' health. You are really thoughtful, my husband."
"Ha ha……"
Zhou Yi laughed dryly.
Although he just talked a lot, the main idea is - it tastes good, you want to eat it, you love to eat it, and you will eat it again after eating it.
Lei Dashan and Liu Ye'er didn't hear it.
They really thought that he taught them boxing and cooked so many dishes just to keep them healthy. Both of them were moved when they heard it.
The shopkeeper Haiwei was also in awe after hearing this.
"I have elderly people at home who were exhausted in their early years and have not been in good health. Some of our brothers were injured. Although they have been treated by doctors, they still have underlying illnesses."
The shopkeeper at Haiwei sighed, "I've heard doctors say before that when people worry too much, the depression in their hearts causes disease to enter, and then in their lungs, it manifests as symptoms. They always say to relax, get plenty of rest, and take medicine regularly, but I think... Brother Zhou's explanation is more comprehensive."
"Medicine, food, body, mind... all are indispensable. Listening to your words is worth ten years of reading."
Lei Li glanced at Zhou Yi with a half-smile.
Zhou Yi touched his nose and thought, he was just talking casually, how could he know that the shopkeeper would think so much?
Things of different natures should not be eaten too much together. For example, crabs and mung beans are both cold in nature, and eating them together will easily cause diarrhea. Eating crabs with Japanese knotweed and goldenrod together can easily affect the effects of medicines.
The owner of Haiwei sighed and returned to the topic, "How many soup packets can you make in a month?"
"It depends on how much the shopkeeper wants."
Lei Li smiled and said, "My husband and I are the ones making this soup base. My parents, along with Mr. Miao who just left, can only do some minor work, so the output is really not much... I'll see if I can keep up with what the shopkeeper wants."
"That's quite a bit..."
The shopkeeper at Haiwei frowned and thought for a while before saying, "If it's convenient...why don't you sell me the recipe and let me make the soup myself? What do you think?"
Zhou Yi thought it was okay.
It wasn't something he came up with himself, but rather the wisdom of the working people. Lei Li used it for bragging and marketing, but he couldn't really take it for himself, right?
"Sell?"
Lei Li seemed to be in a dilemma. "I wonder how much the shopkeeper wants? There are more than one kind of soup base. If you know the method, it will be difficult for my husband and I to sell it in the future..."
"Of course I won't treat you unfairly."
The shopkeeper at Haiwei smiled and said, "Each soup base pack has a different price, and I sell them individually. I only make the finished product and sell it in my own restaurant. I won't reveal the recipe to anyone, and I won't sell the soup base packs alone. You can still do this business."
"This... let me think about it."
Lei Li looked at Zhou Yi hesitantly, "What do you think, my husband? Do you think this is okay?"
“…”
Zhou Yi didn't say anything.
He looked at the shopkeeper Haiwei silently, with a look of deep thought on his face, but was thinking in his heart, does Lei Li want me to agree or not?
When can we have dinner?
His chicken and mushroom stew is almost cold. It won’t taste good when it’s cold. I’ll heat it up later...
Lei Li seemed to have received Zhou Yi's instructions, and asked in a somewhat brisk yet hesitant tone, "I wonder how much money you, Shopkeeper Haiwei, would offer? After all, this method is only available in my family, and it can be used to stew chickens, ducks, pigs, and snakes..."
"And snakes?"
The shopkeeper at Haiwei was a little surprised. "Could it be that the same soup dumplings can be made from any animal? Pork is warm and snakes are cold, right?"
“It can be adjusted appropriately.”
Zhou Yi said, "My husband means that I have all the recipes for stewing chicken, duck, goose, pig and snake here, but I don't know which ones you want. Different meats require different medicinal herbs, and some may not be available in the south."
For example, Cordyceps sinensis. Its flowers are delicious when stewed with chicken, which is nutritious and sweet, but it is not produced in the south, so it is useless even if you know how to cook it.
"It's okay, just write."
The shopkeeper Haiwei smiled and thought for a moment, "How about this, I'll pay three taels for each method?"
"So little?"
Zhou Yi subconsciously said, "I heard that a meal in your restaurant costs only one or two taels of silver. Doesn't that mean less than the cost of two meals?"
Is the buyout so cheap here?
"Brother Zhou, you can't say that."
The shopkeeper Haiwei smiled and said, "Not every meal in my restaurant costs one or two taels of silver. Besides, manpower and material resources also cost silver. I bought several hundred taels of silver just for the shop space."
That’s true.
If you calculate the net profit, it may not be much.
Zhou Yi nodded simply.
Only Lei Li rolled his eyes in his heart, thinking, what a fool, he believes everything people say, the labor cost is only a few cents, a bunch of wild vegetables is two cents, and a plate of stir-fried wild vegetables is sold for twenty cents, how many times has the price been increased?
When recruiting workers, they say people are worthless.
When collecting the money, he said the labor cost was expensive.
Don't believe him.
After a lot of bargaining, they finally agreed on a price of five taels per soup dumpling, which could not be disclosed. The Lei family could then make semi-finished or finished products and sell them.
The owner of Haiwei ordered soup dumplings for stewing chicken and cooking pork, with a total of fifteen methods, including but not limited to stewed pork bones with ginseng, yam and ginseng, and ginseng, barley and pork ribs soup, and two cold teas were also given.
He made seventy-five taels in one go.
Lei Li finally stopped being stingy and calculated the cost. He invited the owner of Haiwei to have dinner and asked Zhou Yi to show off his cooking skills to him. He specially bought a duck and pork belly for this purpose.
The ducks in the Lei family’s fields are not ready to be eaten yet, so they have to be sold.
Sour bamboo shoots, snails and duck feet stew, sour bamboo shoots and lemon duck, cold-mixed ground ear and purslane, stir-fried meat with wild onions and five-color peppers, braised pork, and cauliflower and egg drop soup.
The main attraction is the owner of the Mi Si Hai Wei shop.
When the shopkeeper Haiwei left, he contributed another 18 taels while wiping the oil from his mouth, and the cooking methods for several dishes totaled 16 taels.
The two jars of pickled sour bamboo shoots and five-color peppers account for two taels.
Lei·Profiteer·Li.
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