It's been a month in the blink of an eye.

Time passes very slowly in the eyes of children, because they are always full of expectations for tomorrow, looking forward to festivals, looking forward to holidays, looking forward to the New Year, looking forward to growing up......

Time flies quickly in the eyes of adults, because they understand that what they are looking forward to will not come by themselves with time, and they can only take the initiative to fight for it by their current efforts.

Shu Hui was a little ambiguous about this. After living in the later life for more than 20 years, he came to the Tang Dynasty alone, with no clear expectations for tomorrow, and no shackles that he had to work on at the moment.

With the beginning of summer, the drought in various states has become more and more serious, and japonica rice has risen to 18 yuan a bucket. The few years of short rest and recuperation in Wude have been running out of grain, and this year's new rice still has no hope of a bumper harvest.

When she first came, Shu Hui was also enthusiastic, wanting to use her new life to realize some values that could be sung by the world. With the knowledge brought by the system and later generations, it seemed to him that everything could be changed at that time.

However, after only a month, he became silent.

Because of her physical age, Shu Hui hardly leaves the gate of the house on weekdays. It is impossible for him to make some "peer" playmates, and he does not want to disturb the county officials who have their own responsibilities.

But even so, he could still get a glimpse of how difficult the world outside the door was at this time from the discussion between the slaves and maids in the outer courtyard, and from the increasingly melancholy faces of Yuan Tiangang and the others who occasionally came to visit him.

The worst is far from the worst. Shu Hui may never know that at the beginning of Zhenguan in history, a bucket of rice could be sold for sixty yuan at its peak!

Shu Hui was born in a peasant family in her previous life and suffered from hunger when she was a child. Because of the strength of the motherland, he has not experienced the taste of hunger for many years, even in the Tang Dynasty at this time, he no longer needs to experience it because of his identity......

But he can empathize!

Obviously, everything can be said to have nothing to do with him, and obviously nothing can be changed. Maybe it's as he thought when he first came to Datang, but he hasn't accepted anyone's worship at the moment, Shu Hui is a little skeptical that he is too compassionate?

Redfish and Ao Guang didn't feel much about it. No matter inside or outside the palace, one of them is a maid and the other is a guard, they only share honor and disgrace with their masters, and they never think about life and value.

They just feel that in recent days, Shu Hui has become a little taciturn, and her appetite is not as good as when she first moved into the new house.

That morning, Shu Hui swallowed the last mouthful of porridge in the bowl and wiped her lips with a white silk. Hongyu looked at him with some concern, and at this time, Shu Hui still had two soup dumplings in front of him and didn't move.

After being silent for a while, Shu Hui said with some interest: "Ao Guang, find a few people to untie the frame of making music." ”

Redfish looked at his expression and became more and more worried. This music making was the fourth noon after they moved into this mansion, and Shu Hui made a move with great interest. Hongyu still remembers that her young master said at the time that she would make a dim sum called a sauce meat bun and some roast duck.

At that time, Shu Hui used all kinds of steamed grain powders and steamed buns left over from breakfast to press into many small cakes called "culture medium", and then found some mold colonies of different colors and forms from the warehouses where the grain was piled up, the forage yards where the manure was made, and the rotten bark in the firewood room and other places to inoculate the culture medium.

Then he made a shelf and hoisted the inoculated medium under the eaves of the hanging flower gate at the entrance of the second hospital to keep it ventilated and cool.

Shu Hui's original idea was to cultivate a few clean colonies to see which one has the highest fermentation efficiency, the best taste and is not toxic, and wanted to choose the most suitable mold for fermenting sweet noodle sauce.

But as he learns more about the world these days, his appetite is no longer so good. For a person who has lost his appetite, it is undoubtedly unmotivated to let him worry about food again.

"Yes, young master." Shu Hui's changes Ao Guang also saw it in his eyes, and his mood was quite heavy.

Soon the shelves were untied by the slaves and maids on ladders, and Shu Hui didn't bother to go, so Ao Guang had people carry them to the eaves in front of Shu Hui's main house. Shu Hui walked out directly, and he asked someone to tear down the obstructive threshold the next night when he moved in.

Although I am not in the mood to make any food, since the koji has already been made, we can't waste food. Shu Hui ordered people to untie the ramie fibers that were tightly wrapped around the outside of the medium to prevent the medium from collapsing, and observed the past one by one.

Koji making, almost all of the inoculation this time is Aspergillus. From the naked eye, it is only different in color, and it is difficult to say whether the transformation efficiency or whether it is toxic or not.

Among them, the cyan and yellow colonies were collected by Shu Hui from the granary, and according to the slave who was appointed by him as the head chef, these moldy grains can still be eaten, probably not poisonous.

There is also a kind of light blue mold that grows out of the colony is a smooth round bag, Shu Hui vaguely remembers that he seems to have learned this thing before, although he can't remember it clearly, but it may not be a good thing.

In addition, there are two types of vigorous Aspergillus, one of which has a pale yellowish-brown ribbon with a white edge. The other kind of aspergillus is pitch black, and the appearance is quite scary.

In fact, the kind of koji mold with a light yellowish brown color is the rice aspergillus used in making sweet noodle sauce, but Shu Hui doesn't know this! He had only heard from the elders of the family about the practice, but he had not seen it with his own eyes.

He looked at the Aspergillus niger, good fellow, even the ramie fibers used for binding and shaping had a thick layer, and the reproductive ability was not bad. And although this black color seems dangerous, it happens to be the same color as the sweet noodle sauce that Shu Hui has eaten, isn't it a coincidence?

Shu Hui did not believe that there were so many accidents and coincidences in the world, and in his previous life he was a supporter of the static cosmic model. Now that I saw Aspergillus niger in the same color as the sweet noodle sauce, I decided to test this one first. But what he didn't know was that the traditional sweet noodle sauce was actually golden brown, which was very different from what he bought in the supermarket.

In fact, he had cultivated every common mold before, which shows that he would not have acted so hastily in the original plan. However, plans change every day, and the only constant is change. Shu Hui has been depressed these days, and she really can't spend too much effort on a little appetite.

It is more difficult to test whether there is any poison first. In Shu Hui's original plan, it was necessary to divide it into several steps to experiment. However, now Shu Hui just wants to end this boring trick as soon as possible and let it have a beginning and an end.

In this era, there are already various fermented products, and Shu Hui originally thought that it would be safer and easier to grasp the taste by himself to determine the strain. However, now that the interest has waned, I no longer feel that this matter is of much significance.

"Cut each of these black pieces into small pieces, sprinkle some water, put them in a clay pot, and put them under the stable." He remembered that there were a lot of flies in the stables. After thinking about it, Shu Hui still added: "Wait, these are the same practices." ”

Although he had already made up his mind to verify Aspergillus niger, without spending too much effort, Shu Hui still wanted to confirm whether several other molds were too obviously toxic. In addition, two types of Aspergillus, which are known to be non-toxic, can also be used as a control group.

In the evening of the same day, when the slave maid brought a few pots to Shu Hui, there were tiny maggots wriggling on many of the small pieces of culture medium that had been cut.

"Well, this light blue fungus is really not a good thing, maggots can't survive." Shu Hui took a stick and looked at it carefully, and the red fish was curiously joining in the fun, but he was not afraid at all.

"This kind of turquoise shouldn't be poisonous, why are there so few maggots?"

"Steamed bread is the most nutritious, and maggots grow the most and fastest."

……

"This Aspergillus niger should also be non-toxic, and the situation is similar to Aspergillus flavus and the white (Aspergillus oryzae)."

"This ...... Well? W-So powerful? ”

Shu Hui's eyes widened in surprise when she suddenly noticed a detail - Shu Hui had instructed the slaves and maids to sprinkle water before putting the medium in the stable, so they put a layer of hay at the bottom of the clay pot to prevent the bottom of the medium from being blistered by the water.

Now, the medium of the other molds has not changed much, but the grass at the bottom of the medium of Aspergillus niger has begun to rot slightly, and there are even a few tiny maggots moving inside!

Shu Hui's eyes lit up, and her interest couldn't help but increase a little. This Aspergillus niger is not bad! He ordered the garbage to be taken out, and then the head chef asked the chef to cut the medium of Aspergillus niger for him, and he wanted to taste what it tasted like—

However, this was firmly stopped by Ao Guang. In the end, it was the red fish who took out the reward money and asked the slaves and maids in the front yard to come and taste the taste of their own volition. After tasting the several culture media that were roughly confirmed to be non-toxic, you can get twenty yuan per person, which is not too much, and it is not a fatal temptation.

But in the end, almost everyone chose to "test the poison". First, although in the eyes of Hongyu and others, the allure of twenty coins is really unbearable, but it may not be the case for slaves and maids. Second, they ate too much moldy food, and there were maggots to help test the poison before, so it can be said that the risk is extremely low.

Waiting for the slaves and maids to rank various molds and culture media according to their own tastes, Shu Hui also roughly came to some conclusions.

For example, the steamed bread fermented by Aspergillus flavus tastes the best in the eyes of most slaves and maids, and the faint sweetness is very mellow.

For example, fermented bean products taste similar, and some will have a taste of wine......

is also an example of Aspergillus niger, which Shu Hui has high hopes for, and has received mixed reviews. Most people think it's like a mixture of other fermented media, which is indescribably weird, and some people think it tastes good.

Shu Hui still decided to try it for herself. After the "human experiment", Ao Guang was no longer too insistent, but he and Hongyu also asked to try it.

After Shu Hui finished tasting several fermented products, he groaned slightly in his heart.

These fermented products are not yet finished. Now it's just koji making and cultivating strains. After that, the inoculated medium should be more water-sufficient, and some of the fermentation process needs to add salt, and various condiments will be added after the fermentation is completed. The current flavor is not their final flavor.

In terms of their original taste, they often reflect the end product of fermentation. If there is a sweet taste, it is generally obtained two ponds or simple sugars, and it is needless to say that there is a taste of alcohol, and alcohol is obtained. Fermentation of soy products yields amino acids, which are strange to eat now, but when salt is added, they become umami......

The fermentation products of Aspergillus niger can obtain multiple characteristic tastes, indicating that it is fermented thoroughly and can decompose a variety of nutrients in the raw materials. Coupled with the scene I saw earlier, it can even ferment straw relatively easily......

And its taste is indeed relatively close to sweet noodle sauce when it is not salted.

"Okay, let's try to make a sweet noodle sauce with this 'Aspergillus niger'."

The fermentation process developed to the Tang Dynasty and can be said to have a history of thousands of years. Although the secret recipe for brewing sauce was once in the hands of a few people, the basic method is no secret today.

Yi Shuhui just gave a general account of the sweet noodle sauce process that he had never seen in practice, and he was not worried that the slaves would mess it up. After all, soybean paste is brewed in every household in Qiongzhou, and sweet noodle sauce is relatively small.

……