After breakfast here, the servant woman removed the table, Zhang Zhaohua was still holding a bowl of cheese and eating happily, Gao Chi was actually puzzled, pointed at her and said to Princess Xu: "In Beijing, I also follow the rules, I don't eat much, when I come to Beiping, I really eat a girl." Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Princess Xu and Yongan were both amused, and at this moment, the big girl Ah Wei who was waiting next to the princess lifted the curtain - in fact, it can't be called a big girl, because Yan Wangfu is actually a palace, so the people who serve in the palace are also called palace maids.

Ah Wei and Ah Rui are the palace maids who can be used by the princess's side, and there are four palace maids who can also be regarded as having faces, namely weaving clouds, embellishing brocade, picking apples, and Zhanmei, because they all have a skill, so they are in charge of detailed affairs together with the deacons in the house. There is also an old grandmother beside the princess, it is said that she was originally serving Empress Xiaoci, surnamed Li, and Zhang Zhaohua was also called Mama Li.

Ah Wei came in with a smile and saluted: "Niangniang, the table has been moved from the dining house, you can take a look." ”

Zhang Zhaohua didn't know what a table was, stretched out his head to look, and saw that four servants worked together to carry a square table more than three feet long and about two feet wide came in, and the table was covered with long strips of dim sum layer by layer, with a total of seven layers, the whole was in a triangular prism, and the bottom layer was about 100 pieces of dim sum, snow-white, and steaming, and it seemed that the sound of "hissing" could be heard.

"It was just done," explained one of the servants, "and the seven cauldrons were steamed out at once, and they were sent to me in a single appearance." ”

"The princess hasn't seen this thing, has she?" the princess asked Zhang Zhaohua first.

Zhang Zhaohua shook his head and said, "I really haven't seen it, this pastry is not for us to eat, right?"

"It's not for you to eat," Gao Chi said: "This thing is called a table, offerings, gods, sacrifices, temples, feasts, and offerings before the Buddha, all use this, and it is also a custom left from the Jurchens of the Jin Dynasty, three, five, seven, the highest has twelve layers, the more it is spread, the higher it is placed, the more it is respected." ”

The county lord of Yong'an also smiled: "Beijing has only a kitchen shop, and it usually has nothing to do, and it specializes in weddings and funerals, so it is this kind of table." The cooks in our palace don't come to school very much, and on the four big days every year, we still have to invite the chef of the kitchen to come to the palace to do it. ”

The four big days are the New Year, the dragon raising its head, the birthday of King Yan and the birthday of the princess. These four days a few days in advance, just make this kind of table, the New Year is the most grand, with a twelve-layer table, such a table is called "diamond bracelet", after the sacrifice is done on the side of the sect, it will be scattered to the people of Beiping to eat. On two birthdays, the nine-story table was made, and the dragon raised his head to make the seven-story table.

When Zhang Zhaohua heard the three words of the Jurchens, he suddenly felt a little uncomfortable in his heart, but his face did not show it at all, and he followed the princess to look at the table that was sent over. "Sesame oil and noodles made of cake," Yongan said: "I don't know how much sugar is added to it, I can't eat a piece, and my teeth are dull, but the people love to eat it, because they usually can't eat such a sugary and oily thing." ”

The table is a thing, there is also a certain amount of exquisiteness, no matter how many layers, the top must be a single flower or fruit layer to be complete, and this flower and fruit, must be placed on the long, only to show formality.

Princess Xu gently pressed the fruit plate up, this table is fine, listen to Gao Chi said, this table is not to worship the sect, but to worship the Dragon King Temple in Beiping City, because today is the day when the dragon raises its head, and after the sacrifice is over, it will be divided among the people.

After the princess set the fruit plate, everyone cheered, and carried the table down, and the princess turned her head and asked with a smile: "I heard that your ancestral home is Shanxi, and there are also things like flower cakes in Shanxi, and I have also seen them, and they are also carried on the table, which is more festive than this table, and the color is much more gorgeous." ”

"I don't know, my mother is from Shanxi, although my father has been in Shanxi for many years, but the roots are still from Henan," Zhang Zhaohua said: "My mother made flower cakes during the New Year's Festival, but it didn't have to be so big, because it costs noodles, and it takes various shapes to make noodles, so a flower cake is steamed, and the noodles are easy to dry and crack, and there is no taste to eat." ”

"I just told her that the customs are similar in various places," Gao Chi said: "Shanxi's flower cake is also a competition and pomp, the higher the base, the more patterns, the more grand, this is the same as the table." ”

"Sacrifice to the ancestors, I'm afraid it won't be grand," Zhang Zhaohua said casually: "Besides, it's not a waste there, let the people eat it, and everyone will have fun, isn't it a good thing?"

Princess Xu nodded slightly, and when she saw that she had finished eating a bowl of cheese, she asked with a smile: "Look, you still love to eat this thing, it's an appetite." ”

Zhang Zhaohua was in good spirits and said excitedly: "It's delicious, it can also nourish the stomach, and it also strengthens the body!"

"You're right," the princess said with a smile: "The Mongolian people eat this thing every day, so they are strong, we here in Beiping, we have been the capital of Jinyuan for two or three hundred years, and we have also been affected, eating these ** and ** made of dim sum, and I am worried that you will not be used to eating these things when you first come, but I didn't expect you to adapt quickly." ”

"Before I came, I heard that the beef and mutton here in Beiping and the sour butter syrup water are specialty," Zhang Zhaohua said with a smile: "I was also worried that I wouldn't be able to eat it, because the mutton I used to eat was full of smell, so I thought it was the same in Beidi." I didn't expect the beef and mutton to have no smell, but I can't bite off the tip of my tongue!"

Everyone seemed to be amused by her strange description again, and the county lord of Yong'an covered his mouth and said: "Making this yogurt cheese is also tasteless, but it really has something that can't be removed, and it is said that it is still a treasure that ordinary people in Mongolia can't eat, called milk flowers." ”

Zhang Zhaohua's heart moved, and asked, "What is a milk flower?"

"It's just that the milked milk is put for a day, and a thick layer of milk flowers will appear on the surface of **," Gao Chi said: "It is said that it is not the same as the milk skin, nor is it the layer of foam that cooks milk tea, but a layer of oil soup-like things." The Mongolian people took out this thing and put it into a leather bag, hung it up and repeatedly patted, kneaded, and flowed out of the greasy and thick thing, like butter, but it was slightly yellow, and a large bucket of milk flowers could only flow out such a bowl of oil, which they regarded as a treasure, and when they sold it, it was packed in the belly of the cow and pulled it, and a belly of milk flowers had to be exchanged for twenty catties of tea and twenty pieces of cloth. ”

Zhang Zhaohua was already stunned when he heard it, isn't this the process of making cream!

After the raw milk has been left for a period of time, the milk has floated up, and the lower layer of milk is skimmed milk, and the less dense fat will float to the top layer of the milk, which is the most preliminary cream, more specifically the cream.

In the last life, the industry was developed, and the centrifuge was used to separate the cream from the skim milk, but the cream at this time was manually slapped and separated, and because there were no additives or anything like that, the cream tasted very strange in this way, how to say, it was the same as the first time outsiders drank Beijing soybean juice, the sour taste of the bean juice, people who couldn't drink it smelled and had to vomit, and the day when they drank it didn't drink a bowl of heart was uncomfortable.

According to Yong'an, the house also bought two stomachs of milky flowers, but no matter what they did, the taste was not right, and they didn't know what to do, and it was not good to waste such a large amount of money.

Zhang Zhaohua was overjoyed, she knew the value of these creams and how to make them delicious, but before that, she had a question to ask: "This Mongolian person, with us here in Beiping, can come and go freely?"

Didn't you say that you expelled the Tartars and drove the Mongols to the north of the Saibei - in the twenty-second year of Hongwu, Lan Yu led 150,000 troops to the north, broke the Yuan army in the fishing sea, and even captured the capital of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, Hala and Lin, where is Helin, in the territory of later generations, in the upper reaches of the Orkhon River in central Mongolia, it is so far apart, not just more than 1,500 kilometers.

"It's useless to just fight," Gao Chi said: "How many Han people have been captured by the Mongols to go back, these people have given them grazing, given them farmland, and there is also a field here in Ulanqab, and the Mongols will let the Han people they raise come to the field to buy and sell things, and they will communicate with the merchants of Shanxi and the people here in Beiping." ”

Sure enough, the national war is not clear, it is impossible to destroy a nation, and the relationship between the two races cannot always be hostile.

Why-the two sides are you can't destroy me, and I can't destroy you, this relationship is actually after Emperor Yuan Shun escaped from Beiping, the contradiction is not particularly acute, because it has completely become two countries, and the Ming army can't fight every year, the Yuan army also has wins and losses, and the two sides have been entangled for more than 20 years, and no one can afford to waste it.

What's more, the emperor is also willing to maintain such a boundary between the two sides of the Great Wall, after all, there are no generals in the court.