Apples are very sweet, which has something to do with the excellent breeding of civilized years. What's more important is Apple's own evolution. Sweet fruits are a kind of self-protection measure for plants, and like their bright red and dazzling appearance, these are the only ones that attract birds and beasts to peck at them, and they swallow the pits to give the plant nutrients during the excretion process, helping it grow and spread.

Tianhao doesn't think that the apples in his hands fall into this category. Such evolutionary logic cannot explain the hard and dull husks. Strictly speaking, such apples are breaking away from the ranks of "fleshy fruits" and rushing all the way in the direction of "nuts".

The hard husk has to be broken with a knife, and the flesh is somewhat soft and more yellowish than solid. In short, this is a fruit that Tianhao has never seen before, the taste of persimmon, the taste of apple.

Salt can change the original form of many things.

Cut the hard-shelled apples in half, spread a layer of finely ground salt on the surface, and let them air dry in a cool place. It's so easy to make it, even if you don't have hard-shelled apples, it's not like no one has ever thought of pickling other foods before. Because of the threat of man-eating monsters in the sea, Panshizhai cannot get more salt, so it cannot process basic food at a deep level.

Tianhao felt that this hard-shelled apple was very suitable for winemaking. He asked the villagers to pick a large number of fruits, except for the pickled parts, the rest of the peels were washed with water, the sweet and soft flesh was dug up, mixed with some berries picked in the mountains around the village, mashed them, put them into clay pots, and patiently waited for them to ferment.

The berries are similar in appearance to blueberries and have a sour taste. This is chosen because the berry skin has a layer of wild yeast. Many fruits in the era of civilization also had similar natural fermentation substances on the skin, such as grapes and plums, and the skin had a faint "hoarfrost".

The old priest was curious about the clay jars filled with hard-shelled apples. These jars were stored in the public warehouse of Panshi Village, and he would go over every day to look at them, tapping the jars with his knuckles, as if doing so would speed up the fermentation and drink the sweet juice of spring in advance.

Night has fallen.

Tianhao politely knocked on the door of the old priest's wooden house and walked in. This afternoon, Yonggang found himself and said that he had made an appointment to come to the old priest's house for dinner in the evening. The hunting team went out this time to harvest a lot, and they had to celebrate.

The hideous-looking boar's head was cut off whole, and the entrails were placed in a wooden basin in the corner of the house. Fishy pig intestines are difficult to clean even in civilized times, and must be rubbed repeatedly with flour and salt. This method is too extravagant in the eyes of the people of Panshizhai, and Tianhao is not interested in asking for trouble. He smiled and saluted the old priest and Yonggang, then walked up to Wu Ji, who was slicing off the entire hind leg from the pig with his knife, took the knife in his hand, and cut off a large piece of loin.

This is the softest part of the whole pig's body, commonly known as "five flowers". Unlike domesticated domestic pigs, wild boars have very low body fat content, and they are fierce and aggressive, and their skin is so thick that they cannot be roasted with leash meat like domestic pigs.

Tianhao cut the pork loin into two-centimeter-square pieces of meat, and asked Wu to wear the pieces of meat on the iron chisel. This simple metal tool is available in every house, and there are many of them. As long as it is for drying the dried meat, especially in late autumn and almost winter, in order to make cured meat as soon as possible, people will use multiple iron chisels to prop up the cleaned prey and hang it under the beams of the house, which is easy to dry.

The pieces of meat sprinkled with salt and seasonings do not bake for long and are tender in the mouth.

After eating a few skewers of barbecued loin, Tianhao put down the iron chisel in his hand, waved his knife to cut the pork belly on the cutting board into thin slices, put on the iron chisel as usual, and roasted it on the volcano.

The old priest and Yonggang invited him over for dinner, largely because of Tianhao's superhuman skills in cooking. There are many ways to eat the same ingredients in one meal, and no one will refuse to raise the level in terms of enjoyment.

Raw pork is a traditional practice of the northern barbarians. It must be tender tenderloin to be eaten raw. When Tianhao came in, the old priest's eldest son, Wu Ji, had already chopped a lot on the chopping board. Tianhao put the mountain-like chopped meat into a wooden basin, put wild coriander picked from outside, and sprinkled with homemade thyme. If there is no vinegar, it is replaced with a sour juice made by fermenting wild fruits. Instead of putting in the fresh pig's blood, which is essential for traditional methods, Tianhao added half a hard-shelled apple to the minced meat and sprinkled it with salt at the end.

The only regret is that there are no peppers.

In the era of civilization, the southwestern provinces of raw pork was popular. There is a crispy and firm "roasted raw skin", and a spicy and sour "chopped raw". Many people in the local area were infected by parasites after eating because the source of pigs was not clean. Despite his illness, he still refuses to give up the special delicacy that has been a habit for many years...... Tianhao has always been respectful of this, and by chance, he was dragged by a friend and barely tasted it once, but he became addicted after eating it.

The gap between food and obsessive thinking is so huge. There are many things that you will never understand if you don't try them yourself.

The old priest was very satisfied, he wiped the bright red meat juice flowing down the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled at Tianhao: "Ah Hao, our village is becoming more and more prosperous now. I discussed with Yonggang that before the winter, you should go to the clan city and apply for your position as the "head of a thousand people". ”

Tianhao's heart twitched suddenly, he didn't show the slightest trace on his face, and shook his head with a light smile: "There are only more than seven hundred people in our village now, which is not up to the standard of a thousand. ”

"Wait until winter to count." Yonggang, the captain of the hunting team, picked up a large ball of raw pork with chopsticks and put it in his mouth, and said while chewing: "I have been walking around the surrounding villages during this time, and their grain harvest is similar to ours, but the share sent to the clan city is at least 50%. Everybody wants a surname! There are many more guys like Fuzon. ”

Speaking of this, Yonggang put down the chopsticks in his hand, picked up the pottery cup in front of him and drank a large sip of strong tea. He picked his teeth in his mouth with his tongue and sighed: "It's not that I'm disrespectful to the patriarch, he's a good person, and the thirty percent quota has not changed." But the leaders of the various villages below don't think so, everyone behaves, scrambling to hand over the grain, and in the end, how many people will really care about the lives and deaths of others? ”

Tianhao smiled slightly, but did not speak.

He actually felt it deeply.

"You are absolutely qualified." The old priest chewed the unswallowed meat in his mouth and handed over a small animal skin: "This is the document I opened to you, Yonggang has already read it, we both pressed our handprints, you send it to the clan city for verification as soon as possible." There will be more and more people in our village, and it is estimated that it will exceed 1,000 by this time next year. Hehe, do a good job, don't let me down. ”

……

After the meal, Wu He sent Yonggang out. Looking at their disappearing figures in the doorway, the old priest turned his head and looked at Tianhao, a dark gaze with deep meaning in the depths of his eyes.

"I said I took you as an apprentice, but in fact, I really didn't teach you much." The old priest's tone was somewhat self-deprecating. He raised his head, looked at the ceiling blackened by smoke, and muttered to himself, "When the master accepted me and made me a witch practitioner, it was about your age. ”

Tianhao looked at the old priest with an inquiring gaze: "Your master? ”

"He's always been with me, he's never been apart." This sentence is a little inexplicable, full of remembrance, faint sadness, and more of a lack of interest.

The old priest stood up, slowly walked to the corner of the house, picked up a clay pot more than ten centimeters high, turned back to his place, and gently lowered the clay pot.

The mouth of the jar is sealed with a whole piece of kneaded marmot skin, and the rattan rope tied tightly to the mouth is like the practice of canned pickles in civilized times.

In front of Tianhao, the old priest untied the tether, uncovered the cover, and took out a human head from the jar.