Spring comes to the desperate place

Chapter 145 Starch

This year's sweet potatoes and potatoes have another bumper harvest. Apart from those that are handed over to the imperial court, the rest are enough for ordinary families to eat for a year. Therefore, the families who planted potatoes and sweet potatoes this year are smiling wherever they go, and when they see the Song family on weekdays, they are as friendly as if they had met their benefactors.

It just so happened that the Song family's workshop was recruiting workers, and some people thought they were going to make the chopped peppers, so they were a little hesitant. In their minds, peppers are something that should not be touched easily, and if the juice splashes on the skin, it will cause swelling for a long time.

But there were also some women who wanted to earn some copper coins to supplement their family income and came to the Song family to inquire about the news. However, the Song family kept their mouth shut and did not let them find out anything. They only knew that there was such a workshop.

Aunt Wang and Aunt Liu no longer chop peppers. The peppers planted by Song Chunlin had been harvested long ago, and now only a few strings of peppers are left for hanging for cooking. Recently, the work he assigned to them is to cut potatoes into pieces, cut cross-shaped cuts into the steamed sweet potatoes and dry them in the sun.

The sweet potatoes that Song Chunlin took out have a high sugar content, and the dried sweet potatoes are even sweeter after being dried. In order to preserve them, rural people often dry them very dry, which makes them very chewy to eat. If stored properly, they can be kept for two or three years without going bad. Song Chunlin is not afraid of storage problems, so of course he only needs to dry them to about 60% to 70%. At this level of dried sweet potatoes, they are still a little soft to the touch and tough to eat, but not chewy enough.

The Song family's snacks lately are all these dried sweet potatoes. They just put one or two in their pockets when they have nothing to do and chew them when their mouths are empty. Not to mention, they are quite delicious.

Song Xiaojiu has recently been sharing this delicacy with his friends in the village. When those friends bring home dried sweet potatoes, they say that they are made by the Song family when their parents ask. The method of making dried sweet potatoes is not very complicated, and Song Chunlin is not afraid of being learned by others. As long as someone asks, they will teach the other party generously. So before long, almost all families with sweet potatoes in the village started to dry them, and those children also shared their own dried sweet potatoes.

The potatoes were given to Aunt Wang and the other woman cut them into small pieces. Song Dazhuang and Song Chunsheng ground them with a stone mill and added water. Then they filtered out the residue and impurities with gauze and placed them in a large water tank to settle. The next day, they poured out the clear water on top, washed them, added water, and settled them again until the starch underneath was snow-white. Then they dug it out and dried it. This is potato starch.

Aunt Wang and her partner both witnessed the production process of potato starch for the first time, and were amazed at the final snow-white product.

"The color is really white, and the powder is very fine. I didn't expect that potatoes could be made like this."

"That's right. Young people are more intelligent. If we old guys were to do this, we would never be able to come up with such a good idea in our next lifetime."

Song Chunlin was delighted by the praise. He pointed to the sweet potatoes on the ground and said proudly: "The same method can be used for sweet potatoes, and the result is sweet potato starch."

Aunt Liu was surprised: "Sweet potatoes will work too?"

Song Chunlin: "Yes, yes, as long as it can be used as a staple food to fill our stomachs, basically it will be fine." Song Chunlin didn't know how to explain to the two of them what starch was, so he could only tell them in the most common terms.

Song Chunlin also had potato starch. Seeing that the quantity was almost right, he made sweet potato starch in the same way while the potato starch was waiting to dry.

With the experience with potatoes, the speed of making sweet potato starch was significantly improved. In just seven or eight days, Song Chunlin obtained more than 100 kilograms of potato starch and sweet potato starch. This quantity was indeed a bit small, but there was no way. Their current production could not be increased, and they had to hand over a part of it to the court. There was less left on the surface. Song Chunlin also smuggled several hundred kilograms of stock in the space. He dared to do this because everyone was making starch for the first time. After gaining experience, he would not dare to do such tricks again.

Already having potato starch and sweet potato starch, are potato flour and sweet potato flour far behind?

In order to make Song Chunlin's potato flour and sweet potato flour, Grandpa Song specially made several molds for him using gourds, and the holes were opened according to Song Chunlin's requirements. Grandpa Song thought the holes were too big, but Song Chunlin said they were just right.

Sure enough, when they made sweet potato flour for the first time, the Song family knew why Song Chunlin said it was just right.

As soon as the crystal clear sweet potato noodles came out of the pot, Song Dazhuang was the first to pinch one and put it in his mouth to taste it.

Song Qin poked her husband curiously: "Boss, what does this sweet potato flour taste like?"

Song Dazhuang finished eating and shook his head: "It has no taste, but the sweet potato flour is quite smooth and goes in easily."

Everyone laughed at his description, and then they picked up a piece of sweet potato flour and put it into their mouths. Just as Song Dazhuang described, it went into the stomach in a flash and was extremely smooth.

It would be unreasonable not to make a pot of hot and sour noodles with the freshly cooked sweet potato noodles, so everyone gathered around the stove and started slurping the hot and sour noodles.

The spicy and sour soup, paired with the refreshing vermicelli, is so appetizing that you can’t stop eating it.

It was the first time that Zhou Ning had eaten such heavy-tasting food. After finishing a whole bowl, he still felt a little unsatisfied.

Song Chunsheng, the big eater, ate up two large bowls of food directly, and burped comfortably after putting the bowls down.

The hot and sour vermicelli received unanimous praise from everyone. After the meal, they began to work enthusiastically, trying to make all the sweet potato starch into vermicelli.

However, more than 100 kilograms of sweet potato starch can not make much sweet potato flour. The finished sweet potato flour is hung on bamboo poles to dry. Now the sun is strong, and it is almost done in a day. The next step is to make potato flour in the same way. However, Song Chunlin prefers to eat fresh potato flour, so only half of it is dried, and the remaining half is placed in the space and can be taken whenever needed.

After this busy period, Aunt Wang and Aunt Liu each received two large boxes of vermicelli they made themselves, including sweet potato and potato vermicelli. They were so happy that they immediately cooked a meal for their family when they returned home. The Wang family was very happy, but the Liu family was not so happy.

Previously, Liu Huaer ran away when Song Chunsheng was getting married. Old Mrs. Liu was afraid that things would get more complicated, so she asked someone to find a marriage for Liu Huaer in the neighboring county overnight. It was said that the man was a widower, and his wife died of illness during the drought a few years ago. This time, he married Liu Huaer as his second wife.

When Liu Huaer heard that it was a remarriage, she was immediately unhappy and cried and made a fuss, saying that she didn't want to get married. However, Old Man Liu had accepted a betrothal gift of 18 taels of silver, so no matter how reluctant Liu Huaer was, he had to let her marry him.

Seeing that the matter was irreversible, Liu Huaer cried all day at home. Old Lady Liu persuaded her that although the man was a widower, he was not too old, with a son and a brother, and the two children were still young and easy to take care of. The other party's family was well-off, and the land he owned was more than twice as much as theirs. The man said that Liu Huaer would not need to work in the fields after marrying him, and she only needed to take good care of his family at home.

For a farming family, these conditions were already very good. What Old Lady Liu didn't say was that with Liu Huaer's current reputation, she was lucky to be able to get this marriage. Otherwise, with her conditions, she would not be able to find many good ones.

Even though Old Lady Liu broke the story down to her daughter, Liu Huaer, who was in love, wouldn't listen at all.

She was always thinking about Song Chunsheng. Every time she heard others say how much Song Chunsheng loved his wife, she would be furious. The one who should have enjoyed all this was hers, but was snatched away by that jinx Zhou Ning. How could she not be angry?

If it weren't for Zhou Ning, she would have gotten her wish and married Song Chunsheng, enjoying all the resources of the Song family. She had heard from those young ladies that Zhou Ning was an orphan, who was unlucky to both her father and mother, but after marrying into the Song family, she started to wear gold and silver and lived a very comfortable life.

If it weren't for the Song family, how would he have the chance to wear gold and silver and show off everywhere?

Whenever Liu Huaer heard her sisters say how well Zhou Ning was doing, her heart ached so much that she wanted to tear off the hypocritical mask on Zhou Ning's face.

It’s all Zhou Ning’s fault. If Zhou Ning didn’t exist, Song Chunsheng would have married me. Instead of being forced by my family to marry someone I don’t like, and that person is a widower.

How could she, a beautiful young lady, be inferior to that little bitch Zhou Ning?

The more Liu Huaer thought about it, the more unbalanced she felt. Today, Aunt Liu happened to bring some sweet potato noodles from the Song family, and stewed a big pot of cabbage, pork and vermicelli according to the recipe Song Chunlin gave. Now they have separated, so when she came upstairs with a large bowl of cabbage, pork and vermicelli, Old Lady Liu asked where it came from.

Aunt Liu said naturally that the money was taken from the Song family. Her family also knew that she worked for the Song family, and they had no objection to it. As long as they could make money, it was fine. However, Liu Huaer came to her all day long to ask questions about the Song family in a roundabout way. Usually, Aunt Liu would directly change the subject.

Today, because everyone was eating sweet potato noodles for the first time, they asked more questions. Aunt Liu could ignore Liu Huaer, but it was not easy to be perfunctory in front of her elders, so she just said everything she could.

Old Man Liu nodded after listening to this: "This little brother from the Song family is also very smart. He has come up with other ways to eat sweet potatoes so quickly. If this happened at our house, I guess we would just cook them and not think of making sweet potatoes and potatoes into flour to eat."

Old Lady Liu also praised him, "That boy is also good-looking. If we didn't have a suitable son, I would really like to have him as my daughter-in-law. He is smart and pretty, who wouldn't like him?"

Listening to her parents praising Song Chunlin, Liu Huaer felt sour inside that her heart was bubbling. The vermicelli in her mouth also tasted different. She snorted coldly and slammed her chopsticks on the table. When she saw the whole family looking at her, she said coldly, "He just knows some unorthodox tricks. He can buy you off with a little food. You are so easy to fool."

These words were so harsh that they almost scolded everyone at the table. Old Man Liu was the first one to frown. He pointed at his daughter and shouted, "You idiot, listen to what you are saying?" After that, he turned around and started scolding Old Lady Liu again.

"Look at this good daughter you gave birth to. Humph, a loving mother often spoils her child. I think you should not go out recently. Stay at home and teach her the rules, otherwise she will be rejected by the Wu family after she marries."

Liu Huaer had always been raised as the apple of the eye by the two old people. This was the first time that old man Liu said such harsh words to her. She felt aggrieved for a moment, and the more she thought about it, the more unfair it seemed. In the end, she covered her face and ran away.

Old Lady Liu wanted to chase her, but Old Man Liu stopped her, saying, "No one is allowed to chase her. Let her run. She is the one who is embarrassed. I don't think she will have the face to stay in the village in the future."

Since the head of the family said so, no matter how anxious Mrs. Liu was, she could only sit there and look at her other sons with pleading eyes. They looked at each other, put down their chopsticks tacitly, said they were full, and then resigned themselves to their fate and left the table and went out to look for their sister.

In fact, Liu Huaer didn't run far. She was not brave enough to run far. It was time to have lunch and take a rest. There were not many people in the village. She walked aimlessly in the village and unknowingly walked to the gate of the Song family. She stared blankly at the brand new gate of the Song family, not knowing what she was thinking.

Just at this moment the door opened, Zhou Ning walked out holding a basket and met the eyes of Liu Huaer who was standing not far from the door. He had never seen Liu Huaer before, but since they were from the same village, he smiled at her politely.

Today Zhou Ning was wearing a light green linen dress, with his long hair tied up and pinned with the bamboo leaf hairpin that Song Chunsheng gave him when they got engaged. Liu Huaer looked at the hairpin on his head that was shining with silver light. The green spot on the top was illuminated by the afternoon sun and was a little dazzling.

It’s this person. If it weren’t for this person, she would be Song Chunsheng’s wife!

Will Song Chunsheng marry me as long as I get rid of this guy?

Liu Huaer seemed to be possessed, staring at Zhou Ning with a look that could make one's spine chill. Zhou Ning instinctively felt that something was wrong, and in broad daylight, he actually got goose bumps all over his body.

Zhou Ning was a little flustered. Without waiting for the other party's response, he left in a hurry and prepared to go to the field to find Song Chunsheng.

He almost ran all the way until he saw Song Chunsheng's back from afar. He felt relieved and ran to Song Chunsheng's side in a few steps.

Song Chunsheng looked at his breathless husband, thinking that the things he was carrying were too heavy. He took the basket and saw that there were only a few buns, a pot of water, and a few washed peaches in it.

Song Chunsheng couldn't help but ask him: "What's going on? Why are you running so fast?"

Zhou Ning touched his chest and felt his heart pounding very fast. He had been running so fast just now that he forgot to see if the girl was following him. Now when he looked back, where could he see the girl?

Of course Zhou Ning didn't think he was making a fuss out of nothing. He told Song Chunsheng what had just happened. Song Chunsheng frowned after listening.

"The one you met was probably Liu Huaer from the Liu family. That girl is mentally ill. I'll tell you the details when I get back. If you meet her again next time, stay away from her. Don't get into a conflict with her. Come directly to me, or Chunlin will do the same."