The Age of Discovery: Chinese cuisine swept across Europe

The cook named Judy looked at the two of them as if she had seen a ghost. How could there be customers who would take the initiative to cook for her? After seeing their appearance clearly, she was speechless.

Min Xi nodded slightly to the other party: "Hello, Madam, I would like to borrow your kitchen."

Judy came back to her senses and shrugged. "I don't know what's going on now. Even distinguished guests have to go to the kitchen to cook for themselves. Are they questioning whether the food in our hotel is delicious?"

She was clearly expressing her displeasure.

Min Xi smiled and said, "We have no intention of offending Madam. I believe that Madam's cooking skills are very good. It's just that we come from the far east, and our eating habits are different from yours. We prefer to eat our own food. Please forgive us, Madam!"

When Judy heard this, she just shrugged her shoulders and didn't respond. She glanced at them with disbelief. It's not that she looked down on men, but what kind of decent meal can a man cook?

"Madam, please take care of your own things and don't worry about us." Min Xi took out a basin and prepared to knead the dough.

Yun Ji snatched it away: "Let me mix the dough, let's eat noodles?"

"Well, noodles." Min Xi went to wash the pot and prepare to boil water.

Min Xi put the pot on the stand to boil water, saw the vegetables and eggs on the table, and asked, "Madam, the hotel provides us with three meals for free, right?"

Judy hummed and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

Min Xi said, "Can I have two eggs and a carrot? That'll be our meal at the restaurant tonight."

What could Judy say? Two eggs wasn't too much to ask for, so she shrugged and said, "Go ahead."

Min Xi smiled and said, "Thank you, Madam! Next time we want to cook, we will bring our own ingredients. We just arrived today and haven't had time to buy groceries yet."

Judy could only shrug again.

Min Xi fried the eggs into poached eggs and cut the carrots into shreds and stir-fried them, so he had both protein and vitamins for the day.

By the time he was done, the water had already boiled. Yun Ji had kneaded the dough, and he pulled it and put it into the boiling water to boil. Min Xi then added a little cold water to boil the noodles again. He repeated this twice, and the noodles were ready.

He served the noodles, added chicken chili sauce and mixed well, then added eggs and shredded carrots, and the simple noodles were ready.

Judy originally still had a contemptuous attitude towards them, but when she saw Min Xi take out a strange knife and start cutting carrots, she knew that something was wrong, because his knife skills were quite amazing, and the carrot shreds were cut very thin and even. She had been cooking for twenty years, but she had never been so fast and so good. Maybe the other person's knife was more suitable for cutting shreds, she comforted herself in this way.

Looking at Min Xi's skillful movements of frying eggs and cooking, you can tell that he is really a man who can cook.

Moreover, their way of cooking is really different from that of the British, because the British do not stir-fry their dishes. They only fry, boil or deep-fry them. But I have to say, the stir-fried dishes are really fragrant. Only fried foods in the UK have such a fragrance, but the British do not fry vegetables.

When Yunji was kneading the dough, Judy thought he was going to make bread or flatbreads, but she didn't expect that he actually pulled the dough into long thin strips, boiled it in water, and could just scoop it out and eat it.

The tableware they used for eating was also very strange, it was actually two sticks. They could afford to stay in a hotel that cost 1 shilling a night, so could they not afford silver tableware?

Min Xi and Yun Ji naturally ignored the cook's gaze. They packed up their cooking utensils, brought noodles and came to the restaurant. There was no one in the restaurant at this time, so the two sat opposite each other and ate together. They had eaten cold and dry bread all day, and their Chinese stomachs could not stand it. Now they finally had a meal of hot noodles, and they felt like they were back to the human world.

The two of them were busy eating noodles when a well-dressed fat man walked into the restaurant on crutches. He told the front desk, "As usual, serve me afternoon tea."

After he finished speaking, he sat down in his usual seat. His eyes were involuntarily attracted to Min Xi and Yun Ji, because they looked so different, they both had a round bun on their heads, and their faces were different from the British. Their skin color was not very white, but not dark at all. Their faces were relatively soft, unlike the high noses and deep eyes of the locals. What they were doing was also very strange, using two sticks to scoop something out of a deep wooden bowl to eat. He had never seen this way of eating, not even in France.

The fat man saw that the two of them were eating with gusto, and his mouth moved involuntarily. At this time, the receptionist brought him afternoon tea: "Sir, your tea is here."

The fat man asked him, "Who are those two people? Why have I never seen them before? What do they eat?"

The clerk who received Min Xi and his friends at the front desk took a look and said, "Those two gentlemen are the new guests who checked in today. They are Chinese and came from Lisbon, France. They ate food that they made themselves, but I don't know what it was specifically."

The fat man immediately became very interested when he heard this: "Go and ask them if they are interested in having afternoon tea. I'll treat them."

Sure enough, the receptionist came to Min Xi and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Hopson over there would like to invite you two for tea. Would you be willing to honor me?"

Min Xi turned his head and looked over there, and a fat man raised his hand and waved to them.

Min Xi asked Yun Ji: "Seventh brother, the gentleman over there wants to invite us for tea, do you want to go?"

Yun Ji glanced at Hopson and said, "Go ahead and get to know more locals so you can get some information."

"Well." Min Xi said to the front desk, "Tell Mr. Hopson that we will go there after dinner."

After they finished their noodles, they took their bowls and chopsticks to the kitchen and rinsed their mouths before coming to Hopson's table and extending their hands to him: "Nice to meet you, Mr. Hopson. My name is Min, and this is my brother Yun. We are from China."

Mr. Hopson stood up and shook hands with the two people very enthusiastically: "Nice to meet you, nice to meet you! I hope I didn't disturb you. Please take a seat!"

"Thank you very much!" said Min Xi.

The front desk brought up two silver plates and placed them in front of Min Xi and Yun Ji. Hopson took the initiative to pour them tea: "Please have some tea!"

Min Xi had heard that the British first drank afternoon tea from saucers, and this was completely confirmed. Yun Ji stared at the tea in the shallow saucer with wide eyes. Drinking tea from a saucer?

"Please have some tea!" Hopson picked up the saucer, put it to his mouth and took a sip, making a "tsk tsk" sound in his mouth.

Min Xi almost couldn't hold back his laughter. He had also heard the legend that Europeans made a "tsk tsk" sound when drinking tea.

He also picked up the saucer and took a sip. The tea was the most common tea, the kind that ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty could afford.

Yun Ji was looking at the saucer, hesitating whether to drink it.

Hopson saw that Min Si didn't make any sound after drinking, so he asked, "Is this tea not as good as the one you drink in China?"

Min Xi explained: "In China, we drink tea from cups, not saucers, because it is too inconvenient to hold tea in a saucer."

Hopson showed an expression of sudden enlightenment: "I see! It seems that we British people don't know how to drink tea."

"Few Europeans have been to China, so it's normal that they don't know how to drink tea," said Min Xi.

"Today I had the honor of learning how to drink authentic Chinese tea." Hopson laughed. He didn't feel embarrassed at all. It seemed that he was a social expert.

Hopson asked curiously: "I heard you are from China. I have never seen Chinese people in Europe. You are the first. How did you come to Europe?"

Min Xi then gave a brief account of their situation.

Hopson was amazed. "Your experience can really be called a legend! So, you stayed in Lisbon for more than a year?"

"Yes."

"Then how did you come to England?"

"We thought since we were here, we might as well take a look around. And then we happened to know a friend who was sent by His Majesty the King of Flanders to visit England as part of an embassy, ​​so we came along to play. But we encountered a storm on the way and were separated from another ship in the embassy. We landed in Southampton, but our friend's ship was nowhere to be found, and we didn't know whether it had arrived in London." This was the experience he and Yun Ji compiled. Anyway, they couldn't say that they had anything to do with pirates, otherwise they wouldn't be able to explain themselves even if they had a lot of mouths.

"You are so blessed!"

"you do not say!"

"Why isn't your brother talking?" Hopson said as he looked at Yun Ji who was trying to drink tea from the saucer.

"His English is not very good and he is still learning."

"It seems that you have a better talent for languages ​​than he does."

"haha, thank you!"

During the chat, Min Xi learned that Hopson was a businessman who lived in this hotel for a long time. He was from Manchester and traveled between London and Manchester to do business. According to him, he was doing quite big business with a wide range of business, including cotton, wool, sheepskin, timber, etc. He also dealt with merchants from continental Europe. He was preparing to buy a big ship and try his luck overseas, but he was a little hesitant about whether to go to the New World or the Old World.

It seems that during this period, anyone with a bit of ambition wanted to try their luck overseas.

While they were chatting, Yun Ji was working hard to learn English. He was not as gifted in languages ​​as Min Xi, but he was smart and eager to learn, and he had a good environment, so he learned English quite quickly.

After chatting for a while, the cook Judy came in: "Mr. Hopson, dinner is ready, do you want to eat now?"

Hopson, who was talking to Min Xi, stopped and said, "Thank you. I'll use it later."

The cook glanced at Min Xi and the others and asked, "Do you two need more food?"

"No, thank you! We've already eaten." Min Xi politely declined.

Hopson suddenly asked, "Just now I saw you two sitting over there eating. I wonder what you were eating? I've never seen it before. Did the cook make it for you?"

Hopson asked this on purpose, of course he knew they made it themselves. He was a person who loved to eat and knew how to eat, which was why he was so fat, and he was always the first to come for every meal. When he came in today, he saw Min Xi and Yun Ji eating a kind of food he had never seen before, and he was already very curious, and now he finally had the opportunity to ask what was in his mind.