In fact, along with the rubber, there were also bananas. Not fresh rubber, of course, but dried bananas. There are no refrigerated ships these days, and it is difficult to bring back fresh bananas. It's not that you can't get it, it's that the cost is too high.

Adding the method of making ice from saltpeter to store a batch of bananas is not a problem. However, in this way, the cost of transporting bananas from Cuba back to the mainland of the North Sea country has risen dramatically......

Canned bananas aren't hard to get, but Marin has eaten canned bananas and feels terrible. In his eyes, pineapple, a sour fruit, is the most suitable for canning.

As for bananas, Marin is more accustomed to another way of eating - dried bananas......

Dried bananas are very easy to make, peel ripe bananas and slice them directly. Then, bake directly and dehydrate. If the weather is fine, you can also take it out to the sun. After all, Cuba has a high temperature, and sometimes exposure to the sun is just as effective as baking. But it must be hot in the early stage, because then it will dehydrate quickly. If dehydration is slow, bananas are prone to spoilage.

Then, you can take out the bag and wrap the dried bananas. It is best to vacuum pack to avoid mildew. Of course, the thermal containment method that Marin originally "invented" is now popular in Cuba. That is, after the finished banana is dried in an oily paper bag, it is placed on a high-temperature drying table for high-heat sterilization. Then, take the opportunity to seal it with glue. In this way, the effect is similar to that of a can seal. Even if the residual air is sealed in the oiled paper bag, because when sealing, the air in the oiled paper bag is also hot, and it is impossible for bacteria to survive. As long as the packaged dried bananas are not opened, they can be stored for more than a year.

And in this era, food that has been preserved for a long time is the best food. Because, the traffic in this era is too backward. It can take months to get food from A to B. If something breaks down in three to five days, it won't be shipped to its destination in good condition.

In particular, the sailors of the Great Voyage could not have been able to purchase new food in a few days. At sea, there is often no way to buy new food for months, so you have to eat and store food. And bagged dried bananas, a food that can be preserved for more than a year, are naturally the best choice. Moreover, dried bananas have a sweet taste and are a high-quality snack.

However, its cost is quite low. Especially in a tropical region like Cuba, it is perfect for growing bananas. It's just the beginning, and when you get there, you might be full of banana trees. In that case, the cost of bananas will be very low. As far as Marin knows, in many poor African countries in later generations, ordinary people usually rely on eating bananas to make a living. They couldn't afford anything else, but there were plenty of bananas, and when they came out of their huts, the woods were everywhere. Sometimes, orangutans rush to pick bananas to eat. But the conditions in the African rainforest are so good that there are plenty of bananas, and there is no need for people and orangutans to fight for bananas. Everyone, you pick yours, I pick mine, you can eat enough...... Of course, that's West Africa, with a tropical rainforest climate. If you change to the East African savannah, there will be no such good thing...... Therefore, most of the famines in later generations occurred in East Africa, and West Africa did not hear much about it—people had tropical rainforests, and as long as they did not get eaten by wild beasts, there were many bananas and wild fruits in them. And if a sturdy man can starve to death in the rainforest, this person is hopeless, and he will die sooner......

The process of making bananas into dried bananas is also very simple and the cost is not high. Bananas are ready-made, picked. The drying process is also costly, just go to the forest to pick up some firewood. As for oil paper bags, other countries may think they are expensive, Marin has a modern paper mill in Canada, and oil paper bags are still very cheap.

In the future, when the banana trees in Cuba grow, Marin plans to make bagged dried bananas the standard food for sailors. At the same time, there must be regular supplies in the army. This thing is low-cost, delicious, and durable, and belongs to the high-grade military rations.

However, at present, Cuban bananas have not yet been mass-produced, and there is currently only a banana plantation, and the bagged dried bananas produced can only be supplied in limited quantities. Since it is a limited quantity, it is naturally supplied to the aristocracy.

So, in the evening, Marin gathered the nobles of Aurich and held a dried banana tasting meeting. Everyone was eating dried bananas, drinking draft beer, and bragging, but they were also happy. Because they were all aristocrats, not the rough men of the army who loved to drink spirits, and after drinking some draft beer, Marin didn't get drunk again......

After the tasting meeting, the nobles present unanimously gave the dried bananas a good evaluation. Everyone thinks that dried bananas are no less than fried peanuts when drinking wine, and hope to have more in the future. Naturally, Marin didn't refuse, anyway, the cost of this thing was low.

……

However, it seems that the dried bananas of later generations are different from this one...... The difference is that the dried bananas of later generations are more golden in color and look more attractive...... The dried bananas that Marin ate were a little black, and there were many black spots......

Marin searched through his memories and finally found out the reason - it turned out that there was a sulfur fumigation link in the production of dried bananas in later generations. This link can make the color of the food bright, which is the golden yellow in Marin's memory. Moreover, the sulfur dioxide gas fumigated by sulfur is toxic, and the process is also a process of anti-virus......

However, Marin knew very well that although the dried bananas looked better after this processing, the poisonous gas of sulfur also penetrated into the dried bananas during fumigation. Although the amount is very small, you can't eat more of such dried bananas, especially not let your children eat more.

However, the dried bananas that Marin now asks his subordinates to make in the sulfur-free fumigation link are a little different, but they are much healthier, and they can be safely eaten by children such as Caesar and Robert.

In the next few days, Robert and Jack Ma and Ma Li (born to Felis), who were already a few years old, both regarded dried bananas as a staple food and refused to eat. Only Caesar seems to be ripe, not greedy, but just uses dried bananas as a snack like afternoon tea.

……

Speaking of this afternoon tea, it was also made by Marin. Marin opened up the trade routes of the Ming Dynasty and brought back a large number of tea bricks. Then, the next step is the promotion and sale of tea.

However, if Europeans did not have the habit of drinking tea, tea would not be able to open a market. Although tea is also popular among European monarchs nowadays, it is not regular and is not drunk every day. After all, tea is not cheap now. Generally, only when you come to a distinguished guest, or if you are in a good mood, you will drink a cup of milk tea. So, Marin thought about it and decided to learn from the British style of later generations - to have an afternoon tea......

That is, at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, Marin would gather all the officials who worked in the front yard of the palace to drink milk tea and eat some biscuits and pastries in the gazebo in the front yard of the palace.

Afternoon tea and occasional tea are two concepts, and the consumption of tea is very limited. Perhaps, just a few times a month. Afternoon tea is different, it's a habit and you have to do it every day. If all the nobles developed the habit of drinking afternoon tea, then the sales of tea would ......

In this way, under the leadership of Ma Lin, the habit of drinking afternoon tea became popular in the aristocratic circle of the Beihai Kingdom. As for the tea leaves, there are a lot of tea bricks in the Marin warehouse, and the black tea bricks that can be stored for ten years, brother, do you want one? Just a few coins......