Jia Pingwa once said that when he was a teenager, he watched the pig ploughing master work and wanted to learn how to plow the pig. In addition to the violent factor of the surge of young people, I probably think that pig-cutting is actually a promising job! Its status at that time was probably similar to that enjoyed by "professional and technical personnel". In addition to being paid, you can also take away the "outer waist" of the castrated animal. Friends who love barbecue must know that the "outer waist" is a good thing!

Unfortunately, the noble profession of "animal sterilization surgeon" did not appear in the Song Dynasty. Fang Zhongyong decided to cultivate a talent who could make the livestock live a simple and happy life. The talent does not need a high degree of education, nor does it need a city hukou, there is only one condition, bold and careful. Why be bold? After all, it's a knife job, and people who faint can't do it. Why be careful? Make sure that what should be cut off is clean, and that what shouldn't be cut is not cut at all.

It is said that there is a butcher in this village, and Fang Zhongyong should be called "Fifth Brother" according to his generation (unfortunately not surnamed Long). On weekdays, what he does is the work of "white knives go in, red knives come out", and I don't know how many lives have been harmed, and he is really the most courageous person in this village. What's even more rare is that the fifth brother has excellent skills. If you want a pound of meat, you will definitely have to cut it with you for a pound and five taels. Never one or two more, not half a point less.

But he said that on this day, when the fifth brother was about to poison a certain gentle and lovely sheep, he saw the little prodigy Shi Shiran coming to him. I saw that the little prodigy was silent, and he was quietly looking at the fifth brother's outfit, uh no, he completed the inhumane whole process of killing pigs by killing, skinning, and dismembering the corpses. Under the powerful aura of Fang Xiao's prodigy, the fifth brother was almost about to "abandon evil and follow good".

After the fifth brother finished his work, Fang Zhongyong asked, "Will you cut pigs?" ”

"What?"

"It's to cut off the pig's eggs, but not to hurt its little JJ."

The fifth brother readily agreed, and immediately held a two-foot-long pig-killing knife and prepared to go to the appointment. Fang Zhongyong hurriedly stopped. Good guy, if this goes down with a knife, you have to eat roast suckling pig today. It was too late, it was fast, and only a loud sound was heard, and Fang Zhongyong showed his peerless divine weapon, a small knife.

I saw that the knife was about half a foot long, shaped like a willow leaf, with a sharp edge facing outward, and a hook at the front end, which opened inward. It was made by a blacksmith from a neighboring village and weighed about four taels and eight cents. It is the only weapon that hooks the soul and cuts off the children and grandchildren.

The fifth brother looked at the glowing "weapon" and swallowed, "How do you use this thing?" ”

Ploughing pigs is actually relatively simple. To sum up, there are three steps, one cut, one pick, and one pull. Catch the pig, wash the lower part of its body, cut it with an outward blade along the suture, and then use a hook to poke it in, and then pick out two ovoid objects, and finally use the small blade next to the hook to cut off the tube connected to the suffix. (In order to avoid river crabs, I will not describe them too much here.) If you are interested, you can experiment with colleagues who are willing to dedicate themselves to science. Friendly reminder: Science is risky, and experiments need to be cautious. Ha ha! ）

Little Pig doesn't know that he's no longer a complete man, uh no, a complete pig. After two days of sleep, he began to eat and drink happily again. If the pig had a mind of its own, it would have wondered: why is it sleepy when it eats it now? Why don't you get excited when you see the little flower next door like before? Forget it, I don't want to, eat and go to sleep!

After the fifth brother sent the ten innocent piglets to the other side of happiness one by one, the fifth brother's methods were relatively skilled. After Fang Zhongyong presented the "peerless divine soldier" to the fifth brother, the fifth brother was as excited as if he had found an organization, uh, not a teacher. When people met, it was said that Fang Zhongyong had taught him the secret skill of plowing pigs, so that later generations of pig slashers regarded Fang Zhongyong as their ancestor, which Fang Zhongyong never expected.

Later generations will dislike castrated pigs for having too little activity and no chewy meat. With the exception of a few, most people are very afraid of fat, whether it is from pigs or themselves. But in ancient times when there was a lack of oil (including modern China), big is good, and fat is beautiful. Otherwise, how could there be the word "fat"?

When Fang Zhongyong's ten little pigs lived a happy life of eating and sleeping and waking up to eat, their bodies gradually bulged up like balloons. Gaining more than a pound of weight every day is simply a visible rate to the naked eye. Seeing that his son had once again proved the god of a prodigy, Fang's father did the work of feeding piglets for his son. Feeding the pigs every day, cleaning the pigsty, and pouring pig manure into the big pit of manure is also very fulfilling. At least there is no time to complain about Fang Zhongyong's loser.

When the little pig grew to 100 catties, Fang Zhongyong couldn't wait to ask the fifth brother to come out and slaughter a head, and got a large piece of pork belly to prepare to make Su Dongpo's "return meat" (the original name of Dongpo meat).

According to the record of "Ancient and Modern Famous Dishes of Xuzhou", when Su Shi served as the governor of Xuzhou, the Yellow River broke, Su Shi took the lead, and the people of the city built embankments to protect the city. The people of Xuzhou slaughtered pigs and sheep, and the government comforted them, but Su Shi couldn't refuse, so he instructed his family to burn them into braised pork and give it back to the people. When Su Shi belittled Huangzhou, he wrote a boiled meat song: Huangzhou is a good pork, and the price is as cheap as dung. The rich refuse to eat, and the poor do not understand how to cook. Slow fire, less water, when the fire is enough, it is beautiful. People felt that the taste was delicious, coupled with the celebrity effect, and began to compete to imitate it, and jokingly called Dongpo meat. It can almost be considered the first advertising advertorial in Chinese history.

Dongpo meat also has a name that is well known to women and children - braised pork, and the practice is similar all over the country. Su Dongpo said very clearly in "Song of Stew": slow fire, less water, firewood can't smoke, don't urge it when it is ripe, and it is beautiful when the fire is enough. Don't look at it as simple as it says, but it still takes a lot of effort to make Dongpo meat that tastes great. According to the recipes of later generations, we can speculate that the raw materials of Dongpo meat are: a number of fatty and lean pork belly, appropriate spices (green onions, ginger, cinnamon, spices, etc.), an appropriate amount of sugar, and a little soy sauce. In this era when boiled meat with salt becomes delicious, Dongpo meat really cannot be said to be a civilian dish.

Fang Zhongyong deeply doubted whether Dongpo meat was really as delicious as the advertising slogan, after all, the pigs at that time were not castrated, and the meat tasted fishy. I'm afraid it's still the raw material. Not to mention meat, spices are hard to find, and sugar is a high-end luxury, almost equivalent to the hand-made global limited edition of donkey brand bags in later generations. I'm afraid that the people of the Song Dynasty did not eat meat, but money and status! Not to mention, Dongpo meat has to go through an hour of careful cooking.

In his previous life, whenever he came home from vacation, his grandmother would always make him a pot of braised pork. Every time, grandma would watch him eat two catties of braised pork with doting eyes. At that time, it was when he was happiest.

Don't think about it anymore, cook! Cut the pork with one skin, two lean and two fat (this is the standard pork belly) into inch cubes, blanch the water, put oil in the pot and stir-fry, add spices (cinnamon bark and big ingredients are available in pharmacies), add sugarcane juice instead of sugar, add water and reduce the juice over low heat. Half an hour later, with the help of the shepherd boy and husband Niuniu, the simple civilian version of Dongpo meat was out of the pot.

At the dinner table, Fang's father and mother and Niuniu sat down in groups when they smelled the fragrance and came to "discuss something with the second brother". When respecting the elders, Fang Zhongyong asked the uncle to taste it first. Uncle couldn't wait, and hurriedly picked up the largest and fattest piece and put it in his mouth. I saw that the uncle's eyes were wide open, he was condensed, and when he raised his neck again, a large piece of braised pork was swallowed. After a long time, the uncle came back to his senses and praised "good".

Seeing that the uncle was not poisoned, everyone immediately carried chopsticks like flying and feasted one after another. Father Fang ate a few bites of braised pork and choked. When he looked up, he saw Fang Zhongyong holding half a piece of braised pork with chopsticks in his hand, chewing half a piece of braised pork in his mouth, and tears were falling like rain on his face.

Is it so delicious that you cry?

Father Fang hurriedly asked, "What's the matter, son?" ”

Fang Zhongyong wiped his tears and said, "It's okay, the smoke is smoking." ”

If you eat too much braised pork, you will be prone to accumulating food, and you need to drink some tea to help digestion. Lu Yu's "Book of Tea" in the Tang Dynasty has been popular for many years, and literati and scholars have enjoyed tea. The so-called qin, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, wine tea, the so-called firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar tea. Yashipin's tea is to add various spices, fats, meat foam, etc., which is close to the existence of hot and sour soup in later generations. Fang Zhongyong is reluctant to have another bowl of hot and sour soup after he has eaten and drunk enough, so he prefers to drink clear tea, that is, the later way of drinking after stir-frying and brewing.

Not far away, Yunlinyuan in Huangtong Township produces Yunlin tea, which is quite famous in later generations, and it is just a wild tea in the countryside at this time, with a big basket of fifty yuan. Although I didn't know how to fry tea, I lost a lot, and my hands were burned several times, but I finally succeeded in developing it. Although Fang Zhongyong likes tea, Fang's father, as a "pseudo-gentleman" who often participates in high-level banquets, is a little unsightly.

He earnestly taught his son, "Zhongyong, you are going to be a great official and a gentleman in the future, how can you only drink wild tea?" Like last time, how good is the tea soup of Wang Yuan's house, there is nutmeg, nutmeg! And last time, Li Daguan's tea soup also put a sheep's tail. Tsk, that taste...... Oh, by the way, I'm going to the west gate of the county tomorrow to celebrate my birthday, you, "Oh, Fang Zhong can't help but have a toothache: the taste is more evocative than outsiders drinking Beijing bean juice." Let's drink tea honestly! Fang Zhongyong, a country child, said that the city can play. Oh, by the way, I'm going to the west gate of the county tomorrow to celebrate my birthday, you

After eating and drinking, Fang Zhongyong went back to his room to study as usual. Don't think that copying just two poems can easily get promoted, raise salary, marry Bai Fumei, and reach the peak of life. If you don't have the corresponding knowledge, you will miss two sentences, and others will question whether your poems have been copied (although they are copied). Once the source of the poem is in doubt, your character will be in doubt, and your career will be "unbright". Although character is a very mysterious and "difficult to find" thing in later generations, such as "conscience medicine, reassuring medicine, leather shoes gelatin poison capsules" incidents emerge in endlessly, but at present, character can be used as real money. If the character is poor and the reputation is stinky, it is simply difficult to move an inch. If you want to become an official, go home and eat Xiang!

What's more, although the imperial examination in the early Song Dynasty followed the Tang system and attached great importance to poetry, the requirements for the scriptures and meanings were not high, only the "Analects" ten stickers (silent writing), Moyi "Spring and Autumn" or "Book of Rites" ten articles (noun explanation), not to mention the three current affairs and policies (current affairs analysis) and the treatise (argumentative essay writing). If you have an incomparably high level of ancient literary attainments, or stumble over what you write, at most you will be a showman, and you don't have to think about the roll call outside the Donghua Gate at all. Fortunately, Fang Zhongyong had a bit of a foundation in ancient literature in his previous life, and he was also a time-tested veteran in memorization and dictation, but he was prepared! In case there is no resignation to copy, it is good to write an article based on strength and fill it up. Fang Zhongyong tried to make a few strategic essays by himself, but he was always not satisfied, and it was not as good as the chapters handed down from later generations (some readers said that your face is really big).

I tried to write an argumentative essay again, and again I was not satisfied. Fang's father was afraid that his son would stay up too late and not be good for his health, so he came over to urge him to rest, and arranged tomorrow's activities: go to Jinxi County to run a church meeting, uh, don't celebrate the birthday of Liu Daguanren's mother.