Chapter Ninety-Nine: Wine Brewing
This is really a big family, in Zhang Yue's humble house, it is just a restaurant, and it is also an independent hospital.
The architectural pattern of the Chinese noble family is completely different from the gorgeous manor houses of the Russian aristocracy.
Compared with the luxurious palaces of Tsarist Russia, the buildings here are five steps, one floor, ten steps and one pavilion, and the winding paths are secluded and scattered.
Apart from Frank Mir, none of the Soviet citizens present had ever eaten Chinese food.
The antique sandalwood building, with jade and knotted bamboo, is fresh and elegant. When I came to the house, the light in the house was not very bright, there were no electric lights, no oil lamps, only rows of red candles, and it really had a bit of a candlelight dinner.
It's just that these revolutionary aspirants, who have received revolutionary education since childhood and regard hedonism as dung, lack a little bit of the natural taste of life. What they see and hear is very limited, and many things that seem ordinary to large families are unheard of and unseen for them, and natural life becomes much more boring because of this.
An oversized amber table sits in the center of the room, with two conservatories on the left and right. This makes one wonder how such a large amber could be made, even in Arabian Nights, such a thing could not have appeared.
The crowd didn't have time to pay attention to the giant amber table wrapped in prehistoric arthropods. Their attention was already completely drawn to the delicious food and wine on the amber table.
It can really be said that the beasts in the mountains and the swallows in the clouds, the cattle and sheep on the land are fresh under the sea, there is no shortage of everything, this is the traditional Chinese standard banquet, eighteen dishes and three soups.
In the Russian regions, which have always been short of food, the grain problem has been greatly improved in recent years after years of painstaking management and construction by the Soviet Government, and although it is not possible for every household to eat potatoes and roast beef every day, it is not a problem for them to have enough food to fill their stomachs.
Whether it's Professor Saul, Kafka or Yulia in the Gulag, or Franky Mire and Maria in the KGB. As public servants of important state departments, there is no doubt that their treatment and welfare are much better, and they can still have a certain surplus without worrying about food and clothing. Compared with the vast majority of ordinary people in the Soviet Union, their lives were extremely well-off.
But even for people like them, they have never seen such a sumptuous meal in their lives. The delicacies on this amber table were top-notch dishes, and a large part of them were ingredients they had never even seen before. It is self-evident what a corrupt and depraved life it is, and yet this depravity is so attractive.
Everyone sat around the table, these Soviet citizens were not rude and rude, but they did not know the Chinese principle of dignity and order.
The Chinese are equally different in that instead of knives and forks, they use two slender wooden sticks. This is more or less a trouble for them, and they cannot solve the problem directly with their hands, and that kind of rude behavior, whether in the East or in the West, is extremely rude in the eyes of civilized people.
Only Franky Mill can use chopsticks here, and in any case, he has lived in China for at least three years, and this little thing is not difficult for him. It's a pity that the remaining four people don't have such good blessings, and this little chopsticks is really annoying for them.
Seeing these Chinese on the side, both the master and the servant couldn't help but be handsome, but they were worried that they were guests from afar, and they were not old acquaintances with each other, so they forced themselves to smile, lest they could not get off the stage.
Before they could move the dishes on the table, Zhang Yue called two burly men and carried a large jar of wine. Before the jar was opened, there was already a strong aroma of wine. No one knows what kind of wine it is, but there is no doubt that it must be a good wine.
"This is my own brewed Eight Immortals drink, three steamed and three brewed for nine years, today you are here, you might as well drink a cup together." Zhang Yue smiled and asked the servant to open the wine jar.
The maidservant brought a silver wine jug, carefully took a full pot of wine, and poured them into the exquisite white jade moonlight cup in front of everyone.
Jade is a treasure that Chinese regard, but in the eyes of foreigners, it is just a broken stone.
At that time, the Magalny delegation met with the Qianlong Emperor of China and presented many precision instruments such as astronomical clocks, telescopes, and sextants, but the Qianlong Emperor only asked He Shen to give them two jade ruyi.
In China, even though the price of these Western imported products is very expensive, if you want to compare it with gold and priceless jade, it is really worth a few dollars.
For the emperors and officials of the Qing Dynasty, this was a typical example of thin and thick exchanges. However, in the eyes of the Magalny Mission, it was a complete shame to give back a few broken stones as a national gift, an insult to the Queen of England, the greatest monarch in the world, who could be equipped with 120 cannons, who could use 33 million square kilometers of land, whose flag always shines under the sun, and who was the greatest monarch in the world, and who was in supreme glory.
Eventually, the seeds of hatred took root forty years later, and the British ships and cannons defeated the invincible Qing Empire. And in that short and rapid war, the son of Magalny in the past, little Staunton also became the key to the victory of the British in the war. Today, Staunton Street in Central, Hong Kong, is named after this little Staunt in honor of him.
The wine poured into the white jade moonlight cup showed a strange lilac color, which was originally very beautiful, but it also reminded everyone of the Madame Peacock in the purple gauze tent of the "Heavenly Beast Firmament".
Wine is not intoxicating, people are drunk; The color is not charming, and people are fascinated by themselves.
This crystal clear lilac mellow wine has no problems, but it makes everyone feel palpitations. In particular, Kafka and Yulia, who were born in biology and engaged in medical work, instantly thought of Jia Zi. It is a medical mixture of tetramethyl pararosaniline chloride, pentamethyl pararosaniline chloride and hexamethyl pararosaniline chloride.
This purple agent is also commonly referred to as gentian violet. Early toxicologists in the United States have experimentally proved that methyl violet is a dose-related carcinogen, and a certain dose of methyl violet can cause mutations and chromosomal breaks.
Zhang Yue saw that everyone didn't drink, so he didn't think too much, let alone Mrs. Peacock. She just thought that the Russians, who were accustomed to pure vodka highly filtered with peat, might not be used to drinking koji-infused liquor like China.
In the Twin Cities, there are many foreigners who, when they first arrive here, are not accustomed to the strong flavor of Chinese wine. Zhang Yue has been accustomed to this kind of thing since she was a child, and these Russians in front of her are not used to the wine in their twin cities, and there is nothing incomprehensible at all, which is completely within her expectations.
"Come, come, come. Ladies and gentlemen, in addition to the selected rice, there are also eight special ingredients, so it is called the Eight Immortals Drink. These eight special ingredients are peaches, oranges, strawberries, jujubes, mulberries, lychees, mangosteen from Yunnan, and milk grapes from Xinjiang. Since the mulberry is the darkest in color, the color of this wine has changed to a crystal clear purple, and people also nickname it gentian wine. Come! Let's drink this cup together. Zhang Yue got up and said.
Everyone also hurriedly stood up, but this Kafka and Yulia were a little more puzzled, and they didn't understand why Zhang Yue wanted to emphasize that the purple color of this wine came from mulberries.
Could it be that she was worried that someone here would think of something else? Could her deliberate explanation be to cover up the wine, whether the wine should be drunk or not, and whether it can be drunk.