Reborn as a Landlord-Chapter 756 - 387 Autumn Coolness_1

At the break of dawn, with a slight chill in the air, Lian’s business was exceptionally prosperous. With the arrival of autumn, Lian’s menu had made subtle seasonal adjustments. The staple foods hadn’t changed much, only the porridge had switched from mung bean porridge to millet porridge in the summertime, and the soup from sea wood ear soup to shredded radish and pork bone soup.

As the sun rose higher and higher, the coolness of the morning gradually dissipated, and the dew also retracted.

Lian Manman and Lian Zhizhi each carried a basket and came out of the shop to the vegetable garden in the back to pick long beans. It was the peak season for flat beans, with lush, green beans hanging in clusters and plump, emitting a unique fragrance, and the flowers, both white and purple, bloomed in clusters.

Since Lian’s employed sufficient staff, and with Lady Zhang and Lian Shouxin overseeing things, the two sisters no longer had to help in the shop.

In a short while, the sisters had picked two full baskets of flat beans.

These were not picked for immediate consumption.

Returning to the back courtyard of the shop, Lian Manman took a large wooden basin, fetched some water, and washed the two baskets of flat beans. In that era, with virtually no air pollution, and tenant farmers growing crops without the use of pesticides, the beans grown on the vines were very clean, requiring only a quick rinse.

Lian Zhizhi brought over a chopping block and a small stool, and the sisters, each with a kitchen knife, sat on their stools, chatting and laughing as they sliced the beans into shreds.

The shredded beans had to be spread evenly on mats or winnowing trays and placed under the sun to dry completely. Once the moisture was dried out, the beans were stored in cloth bags in a cool, dry place, preserved for winter when fresh vegetables are scarce.

To dry one pound of bean shreds, approximately ten pounds of fresh flat beans were needed.

Drying vegetables might seem technically simple, but only diligent, household-savvy tenant farmer’s daughters and young wives did it, adding variety to their family’s winter meals. The lazier households seldom undertook such a task, comfortably relying on enough potatoes and Chinese cabbage for the winter.

After cutting two baskets of flat beans, Lian Manman then took an iron hoe to the vegetable garden and dug up two baskets of mustard tubers to bring back. The mustard tubers, similar to radishes, were tubers buried in the ground, tasting slightly spicy, astringent, and a bit bitter.

Despite that, once processed, mustard tubers were quite a delicacy.

At the Thirty Mile Camp, the most common practice for tenant farmers was to pickle the mustard tubers into salty vegetables.

There were two methods to pickle mustard tubers with salt. The first was effortless: cleanse the tubers, dry them, then throw them into a large sauce jar for a period to let them absorb the flavor before they’re ready to eat.

The second method was to pickle them in brine along with Chinese cabbage and radishes for an entire winter. By springtime the following year, the bitterness, spiciness, and astringent taste would be gone, leaving only an appetizing salty fragrance.

It wasn’t yet time to pickle vegetables, so these mustard tubers that Lian Manman had dug up were intended to be sliced and sun-dried.

Cut into fine shreds like the bean shreds and left to dry in the sun, they were then stored. In winter, just soak them in water, stir-fry them in a pan, and the mustard shreds became tender and delicious, with high nutritional value.

Though Lian Manman enjoyed eating pickled mustard tubers, she knew that consuming too many pickled items was not healthy, so she preferred to make dried mustard shreds. This method preserved the nutrients of the tubers to the utmost degree and similarly removed their bitter, spicy, and astringent tastes through drying.

High in fiber content, mustard tubers were extremely effective in treating and preventing constipation, served as an excellent remedy for eye diseases, and also helped to prevent cancer.

So, one should never underestimate the seemingly inconspicuous dishes on tenant farmers’ dining tables. Before nature, all beings are equal, and sometimes the land under our feet secretly favors those who live in its embrace without any barrier, the farming people.

When the sun was about to reach its zenith and it started to get hot outside, Lian Manman and Lian Zhizhi finished their work and returned to the shop.

The shop had already closed for the day, and Lady Zhang and Lian Shouxin were overseeing the cleanup.

Lian Manman went straight into the inner room, and Shouxin followed shortly after. Shouxin counted the money while Manman kept the books. After they had sorted through all of that day’s income and expenses, Wu Lang and Xiao Qi returned from their private school.