In Li Xiu's study, the bearded guest suddenly turned over in his sleep, and the thunderous snoring stopped suddenly, and then he saw the bearded guest open his eyes and sit up, but then he groaned in pain, holding his head in pain due to hangover for a long time without getting up. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

After a while, the bearded guest felt better, put on his shoes and stood up to look around, he was not unfamiliar with Li Xiu's study, he chatted with Li Xiu all night last time, but now it was dark outside the window, and I don't know what time it is.

"Huh? It smells so good! At this time, the bearded guest suddenly twitched his nose a few times and said to himself, he suddenly smelled a strange fragrance, which made his heavy head feel light, and then immediately followed the fragrance out of the study, only to see Li Xiu sitting in the living room, a small charcoal stove on the table in front of him, and a thick soup with a spicy and sour smell was boiling in the small iron pot on the stove, and this fragrance alone stimulated the tongue of the people.

"Uncle, you're awake, and my nephew has prepared a hot and sour belly soup for you, which can just be used to relieve hangover!" Li Xiu said with a smile, and after speaking, he personally filled a bowl of soup to the bearded guest.

This kind of soup is one of the representative dishes of Yu cuisine in later generations, and it is also a necessary soup for folk feasts, and pepper must be used instead of chili pepper when making soup, and of course there are no chili peppers now. Pay attention to sour but not cool, spicy but not strong, salty but not astringent, the three flavors are equal, each flavor can not be overdone, it is just right, and it is a great test of people's cooking skills.

The bearded guest was feeling a terrible headache at this time, and when he heard that this was the sobering soup prepared by Li Xiu, he strode over, picked up the bowl and drank it dry, and drank the soup dry in a few gulps, and then praised it loudly: "It's delicious, this sour and spicy taste is really refreshing, and the sweat on my body has come out, and I feel much more relaxed all of a sudden, but have you eaten here, I patronized and drank at noon, and I didn't eat anything at all, and now I don't have any food in my stomach!" ”

"Uncle, wait a minute, I've prepared a new meal, you'll like it!" Li Xiu stood up with a smile and walked out of the living room, and after a while, he brought in a copper basin with half a pot of clear soup, and then put it on the charcoal stove.

"Why is it soup again, I have a lot of food, I'm afraid I won't be able to eat enough just by drinking soup." When the bearded guest saw Li Xiu bring another pot of soup, he frowned and said, he didn't feel anything when he woke up, but after drinking the appetizing hot and sour soup just now, his stomach seemed to wake up all of a sudden, and he was screaming with hunger.

"Uncle misunderstood, this soup is not for drinking, but for shabu!" Li Xiu smiled mysteriously when he said this, then turned around and went out again, and after a while, he brought two large plates of extremely thin beef and mutton, that's right, Li Xiu invited the bearded guests to eat shabu mutton, and even the sauce was ready.

Shabu mutton was only raised in the Yuan Dynasty, and it was the first time for the bearded guest to see this way of eating, when he saw Li Xiu bringing up the beef and mutton and seasonings, he couldn't help but be stunned for a moment, and then stretched out his chopsticks and took a slice of thinly cut mutton and dipped it in the sauce and stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it, and praised while eating: "This sauce is good, and how did you cut this meat so thinly?" ”

The cuisine of the Tang Dynasty originally had the classification of "guan", and the so-called guani was actually raw meat, such as yuqing, that is, sashimi, and the Japanese people learned it from the Tang Dynasty.

"Uncle, this mutton is not eaten like this, as for why it can be cut so thinly, the main reason is to put it in the ice cellar in advance to freeze it hard, so that you can cut out very thin slices." Li Xiu explained with a smile, at this time, the soup in the copper basin was also opened, and Li Xiu put some mutton in it, this soup is boiled with beef bones, which has been heated on the fire before, and the taste is very strong.

The charcoal fire was very vigorous, and the mutton was cooked after rolling in it a few times, Li Xiu signaled that the bearded guest could eat it, and the bearded guest was not polite at the moment, stretched out his chopsticks and grabbed a few pieces of mutton, dipped them in the sauce and stuffed them into his mouth, and found that the mutton was fresh and tender, and the taste with the sauce was simply amazing.

"Can you kid spend your mind in the right place, it's too wasteful to always think about how to eat!" The bearded guest quickly stuffed meat into his mouth, and at the same time did not forget to count Li Xiu, he learned from Ma Ye that Li Xiu actually liked cooking, originally he didn't believe it very much, but after tasting what Li Xiu made by himself today, he finally believed it, but it made him a little dissatisfied with Li Xiu, and always felt that he was wasting his talent.

"Uncle, what you said is not right, as the so-called people take food as the sky, only when they eat well, can their bodies be strong, their minds will be clear, and they will have the energy to do other things, so my nephew must not be sloppy in eating this aspect!" Li Xiu shook his head and argued at this time.

"It's all about your crookedness!" Hearing this, the bearded guest glared at Li Xiu, and then picked up the plate and put the meat in the basin, and immediately started to eat as soon as it was rolled, he preferred to eat this kind of medium-rare mutton, feeling that it was tender enough.

Seeing that the bearded guest was concentrating on eating, Li Xiu also smiled, and then slowly picked up a piece of mutton and dipped it in the sauce and put it in his mouth, although the mutton was very tender, but there was one thing missing in the sauce, that is, Li Xiu's favorite chili, in his previous life, he was a person who was not spicy or happy, but unfortunately now the chili pepper is still in the jungle of Central and South America, so the chili pepper can only become a luxury.

In desperation, Li Xiu had to pick up a small jar next to him and pour out some sauce from it, this thing is called dogwood sauce, you know that it is made of dogwood, before there is no chili, dogwood is the main source of spiciness, but the spiciness of this thing is not enough, and it also has a strange smell, anyway, for Li Xiu, who is used to eating chili peppers, dogwood sauce is his last resort, at least this thing is still a little spicy.

"Hey, you kid even has dogwood sauce here, why didn't you take it out just now?" The bearded guest also smelled the dogwood sauce at this time, and immediately reached out and grabbed it, filled the small plate in front of him, and then dipped the mutton and put it in his mouth, with an expression of enjoyment on his face.

"Uncle, you also like to eat dogwood sauce?" Seeing this, Li Xiu suddenly asked curiously.

"Of course, although my ancestral home is in Hebei, but I was born in Yangzhou, this dogwood sauce is more common in the south, when I was a child, I liked to eat it with rice with dogwood sauce, but unfortunately since I went overseas, I haven't eaten this thing for many years!" The bearded guest also said with emotion at this time, and after speaking, he stuffed it into his mouth again with mutton mixed with dogwood sauce, as if he was reminiscing about the taste of his hometown.

The most difficult thing to change is not the local sound, but the taste that has been raised since childhood, for a wanderer who has left home, the most delicious is not the delicacies of the mountains and seas, but the most ordinary meals in his hometown.

"It's a coincidence, nephew, I am also a person who is not spicy, but in my opinion, the spicy taste of this dogwood sauce is too light, and it is not enjoyable to eat!" When Li Xiu said the end, he deliberately showed a disappointed expression and shook his head.

"Isn't that spicy? Do you like peppery spicy? In addition to the dogwood sauce, the pepper also has a spicy taste, but it is a little different from the spicy flavor of the dogwood sauce, and the pepper is still very valuable in Datang, and there is a taste of pepper in the hot and sour soup that Li Xiu gave him just now.

"The price of pepper is extremely high, known as 'one pepper and one gold', but I don't like the taste of pepper, and you should know better than me that Nanyang and Tianzhu are rich in pepper, but because of the inconvenience of sea transportation, the price is extremely high." Li Xiu said with a smile.

"Yes, in fact, the overseas pepper production is not low, but the sea conditions are harsh, in addition to the threat of various bad weather, there are pirates from various countries, and it takes a great risk to transport the pepper back to Datang, so if a shipload of pepper does not have more than ten times the profit, the general maritime merchants are not willing to transport it." The bearded man nodded, in fact, his fleet in the south was also often in the pepper business.

"That's it." I saw Li Xiu's mysterious smile at this time, and finally led to a topic that he had carefully buried, "Compared to pepper and dogwood sauce, I actually prefer the spicy pepper, that kind of spicy is not only pure, but also spicy enough, and it is simply amazing to eat with shabu mutton!" ”

"Chili? What kind of pepper is this? Although Li Xiu had talked about the Americas before, he mainly talked about the topography and humanity of the Americas, and did not have a special introduction to the special plants.

"Huh? Uncle, why don't you know, didn't I talk about chili peppers when I talked about the Americas before? Li Xiu asked knowingly, so that it seemed that he was not so deliberately leading up the topic of chili peppers.

"I don't remember the name chili, you certainly haven't said it yet, but what does this chili have to do with the Americas?" The bearded guest thought that Li Xiu was just talking about chili peppers, and did not doubt his intentions.

"Oh, that's probably because I haven't talked about it, when it comes to chili peppers, it can be used as a seasoning or a direct dish, the taste is very spicy, much spicier than dogwood and pepper, and in addition to chili peppers, there are many interesting plants in the Americas, such as the tomato that grows red like a small lantern, the appearance is very bright and eye-catching, it looks like it is poisonous, but in fact, the taste is sweet and sour and very delicious......

Li Xiu talked about several animals and plants unique to the Americas, and the bearded guests also listened to it with relish, until this time, Li Xiu suddenly said again seemingly casually: "The above are some spices and vegetables, for the natives of the Americas, their staple food is still corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes and other things, speaking of which those natives are really favored by God, these three are extremely high-yield crops, the yield of corn is several times that of wheat or rice, and potatoes and sweet potatoes are more than 10,000 catties per mu......"

"What!" When he heard Li Xiu talk about corn, the bearded guest was just surprised, but when he heard that the yield of potatoes and sweet potatoes had reached an astonishing 10,000 catties, he also stood up in shock, and then grabbed Li Xiu's shoulder and said excitedly, "Xiu'er, are you sure you are not lying, there is really 10,000 catties of grain per mu in this world?" (To be continued.) )