Chapter 8: What is the real dark cuisine?
All in all, after a conversation filled with screams, tears and hysteria, the five Bennet sisters managed to figure out the current situation:
"...I already understand the general situation - although the main god system has collapsed and there is no way to exchange reward points for equipment and bloodline, we still need to save up to 50,000 reward points per person before we can leave the system and return to the real world. Right! Five people add up to 250,000..."
Jane, the "eldest sister" among the five girls. Bennett said with a lamentation, "...What a desperate number!"
"...Don't worry about this, we will try our best to help you get points. We have successfully rescued many people before."
Wang Qiu comforted the five Bennet sisters in the time-travel version, "...Although the number of two hundred and fifty thousand reward points is a bit too much, as long as everyone works together, we can still get it... But the premise is that you yourself We must cooperate with our work..."
"...please rest assured that we will definitely cooperate with the work of the party and the government." The five Bennet sisters quickly expressed their stance in unison.
After completing the basic communication and reaching a preliminary consensus, Wang Qiu and his two Ji friends visited the house with great interest.
——In general, he entered this peaceful world with the mentality of going on an outing, so he rushed in with two women.
Compared with the five Bennet sisters who have been here for several months, Wang Qiu, Marikawa Shizuka and Nan Lixiang, who have just arrived, have not yet felt the inconveniences of rural life in the pre-industrial civilization era, but are looking forward to visiting and traveling. mentality, they looked at this exotic villa with great interest... Of course, they still insisted on expressing their gratitude to the three cups of strange-smelling tea that the three old ladies dressed in girlish skins diligently served.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth. Bennett couldn't wait to put forward a lot of requests, hoping to be satisfied as quickly as possible.
"...Well, you want tampons, toilet paper...and toothpaste and toothbrush?" Shizuka Marikawa wrote down in a small notebook with a pencil.
"...Yeah, the kind of days when the whole family shared a rope to wipe the stool, and broke off a fresh branch every morning and evening to brush their teeth, it was so frustrating!"
"...and...you also need a bra and underwear?" Shizuka Marikawa blinked her eyes in confusion and curiosity, as if she was looking at the curves under Elizabeth's clothes, "...could it be that under your There’s actually a vacuum inside the dress?”
Elizabeth was immediately stared at and felt a little shy, "...I can't help it. It seems that women in this era are not allowed to wear pants, and there is nothing underneath the petticoat. As for the upper body... I would rather not wear the kind of corset that strangles people." Good! **** will be crushed..."
"...Even underwear is included?" Shizuka Marikawa exclaimed slightly, "...Doesn't that mean there's no room for sanitary napkins?"
Faced with Marikawa Shizuka's direct and direct question, Elizabeth's fair face suddenly blushed as if she was about to bleed...
——What many people don’t know is that in Western European and American countries, until the first half of the 19th century, it was considered extremely immoral for women to wear pants, even if they were worn under a skirt. At that time, the real ladies and ladies in the upper class of the West were actually naked buttocks under their skirts. The disadvantage is that when women ride horses, the lower body is easily in direct contact with the saddle, causing various lacerations or abrasions. Therefore, those women who did not wear pants at that time had to ride with a very troublesome side saddle, and they could roll off if they were not careful. And dealing with menstrual period issues is troublesome. The good thing is that if you want to have an affair secretly at dances and cocktail parties, those ladies don't need to take off their clothes at all, they just need to lift up their skirts. In addition, there is another way to let men get under the skirt and lick it...It is said that pet dogs are also used...
"...Next...are you going to give Mary a pair of glasses for myopia?" After knowingly skipping the embarrassing question, Marikawa Shizuka continued to ask.
"...She is highly myopic and couldn't see anything after breaking her last pair of glasses. I was worried that she would fall down the stairs."
"...This is quite dangerous. I have seen a person roll down the stairs before and break his neck on the spot (see Volume 1)." Wang Qiu came over and interjected, "...But, over there, we Her base is not in a big city, but on an island in the South China Sea. It is really inconvenient to get glasses in the city, so it is better to cure her myopia once and for all. ”
"...Is this okay? Do you have the equipment and conditions for laser treatment of myopia?" Elizabeth asked suspiciously.
"...We have an [automatic medical kit] that can cure all diseases!" Wang Qiu replied, "...Strictly speaking, myopia is also a disease..."
Then, under the diagnosis and treatment of female doctor Marikawa Shizuka, Mary... Miss Bennet's pair of highly myopic eyes recovered instantly, which made her overjoyed after being blind for a long time. But with the medical examination report displayed on the screen, Marikawa Shizuka couldn't help but cover her mouth and exclaimed: "...slight nitrite poisoning, mercury poisoning, and a lot of other heavy metals and bacterial toxins... …What did you feed her before?”
"... Nothing special? We usually cook and eat together... Is there something wrong with the food we bought from the town?"
So a group of people hurried to the kitchen for inspection and saw several bags of flour and rice piled on the kitchen floor. The latter was very expensive in the UK where rice was not produced, and the former was not available because it was finely sifted refined flour. Cheap. Then, in addition to the staple food, since there were no refrigerators in this era and canning had not been invented, the side dishes were mainly bacon, salted fish and sausages that were easy to preserve at room temperature, and the only vegetables were onions and potatoes. Next there are odds and ends such as butter, cheese, milk, tea, pepper, coffee, and sugar.
At first glance, there seems to be no obvious problem, but when I check it with the magical props in Doraemon World, it is really creepy:
"...Either harmful bacteria are seriously exceeded, or they are rich in various heavy metals... Is what you usually eat food or poison?"
Marikawa Shizuka exclaimed with eyes wide open, while Wang Qiu also shook his head repeatedly while checking the relevant historical information collected in advance by the support expert team on his tablet, "...Oh, could this be the real British dark cuisine? Are you risking your life? ”
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
——When they traveled through medieval Europe, Wang Qiu and the others had fully experienced how "green food from the pre-industrial era" was hard to swallow. However, with the development of the times and the emergence of the industrial revolution, the healthiness of folk food in the British Empire has not improved, but has further declined, and has even reached the point where modern people think it is crazy and "risking life for death". degree.
To put it simply, at least more than half of the various ingredients in the Bennet family's kitchen are out-and-out poisons...
First of all, let’s talk about Mary, Kitty and Lydia, three old ladies in girlish skins, who have been thinking about tea since they traveled through time. Since ancient times, profiteers in the East and West have been happily adding leaves, hay powder and sheep dung balls to tea. The dark food processing industry of the British Empire during the Industrial Revolution obviously looked down upon such low-level methods. At that time, British profiteers mainly added patina to tea, namely copper sulfate, copper chloride, etc. It should be noted that adding patina is not mainly to increase the color of green tea. In fact, the consumption of black tea in the UK at that time far exceeded that of green tea, and profiteers also added patina to black tea, with the main purpose of preserving quality and preventing corrosion.
The reason for this is that in the humid climate of the British Isles, tea leaves are prone to mildew. Therefore, the capitalists at that time prepared a solution of copper sulfate or copper chloride, sprayed it on the surface of the tea leaves, and then dried it. , in this way, copper ions can effectively inhibit the growth of fungi, allowing the tea to be kept longer. The patina is not easily discovered by consumers under the cover of dark tea leaves. Even after brewing into tea, drinkers will only feel that the taste of tea is a bit weird due to the confusion between the dark tea soup and the inherent astringency of tea leaves. But couldn't figure out what was going on.
It seems perfect, right, but there is another problem. The chemical industry of that era was far less developed than modern times. The patina can be widely used in the printing and dyeing industry, and its price has remained high for a long time. If the patina is directly put into tea If you let go, it will definitely be a losing business. However, although we should not overestimate the integrity of the capitalists, we should also not underestimate their IQ. In order to solve this cost-effective problem, the capitalists in the dark food processing industry of the British Empire quickly discovered a way to crack it. That is...using chemical waste! ! !
——As we all know, in the chemical industry, with the reaction of various products, some by-products and waste materials will inevitably appear. In order to obtain the maximum profit, capitalists will always find the "most suitable" use for them. The key is The most profitable sales.
The waste material of patina, perhaps more appropriately called residue, is a mixture containing copper, iron, lead, zinc and other metal salts. It is usually in the form of black blocks and needs to be smashed with a sledgehammer before use. broken. The most important use of this lump at that time was as a food additive, and the ingredients would be different depending on the origin and production process of the raw materials, which would bring different "flavors" to the tea after adding it - something to note Yes, the alchemy Taoist priests in ancient China used similar heavy metal materials to refine countless golden elixirs and killed a lot of dignitaries and even emperors and queens. The British during the Industrial Revolution were taking pills every day...
For example, a grand tea expo was held somewhere in the UK at that time, and various tea dealers presented their signature products to the exhibition. For this reason, some people happily wrote articles saying that they tasted hundreds of different flavors of tea in one day. However, unfortunately, some good people soon discovered through investigation that most of the teas exhibited at this exhibition actually came from the same variety in the same region, were sold by the same dealer, and even came from the same merchant ship. ...So, why do these teas from the same source turn into varieties with different "flavors" after being packaged by a middleman? The secret naturally comes from the must-have preservative additive for British tea at that time - patina waste. Since the content ratios of copper, iron, lead, and zinc in different patina wastes are different, after adding them, they create different flavors of tea. I have to say that this truth really makes people want to go out. Vomit...
In addition to tea, the British black-hearted capitalists at that time also generally promoted the use of cheap antiseptic additives such as copper green waste residue on pepper, which was also in danger of mold. In addition, it was natural to add a lot of sawdust and stone powder into the pepper. This was It is an old method that has been used since the Roman Empire. Naturally, British profiteers two thousand years later will not forget the traditional craftsmanship of their ancestors.
However, patina, a colored preservative additive, also has its limitations in use. For example, white liquids such as milk are not suitable. Most of the green and blue milk cannot be sold anyway. Of course, all the smart black-hearted capitalists also have their own countermeasures - Deng Deng! Another toxic preservative, mercury salts, makes its debut! Like patina, in order to save costs, the mercury salts added to milk at that time mainly came from factory scraps. The difference is that this time the scraps were white lumps...
Mercury salts have been widely used in ancient China. Alchemists during the Warring States Period used it to make elixirs. Mercury was also used in the tomb of Qin Shihuang to embalm corpses. When used in food, it naturally has excellent antiseptic effects: Added Milk containing mercury salts will not go bad after being stored for decades, and the color is even better! Think about China in later generations, even if they just add some proteinaceous (melamine) and other things to dairy products, there will already be a torrent of curses. But the profiteers of the British Empire actually forced the people of the country to eat amalgam milk for hundreds of years!
As for whether living people will be poisoned if they eat too much mercury... The safety standards for additives in the dark food processing industry of the British Empire at that time were - as long as the additives are not eaten by dead people on the spot, they are qualified additives! Anyway, the average life expectancy at that time was also short, especially for the working class. They usually died of exhaustion after working in factories for less than ten years. Therefore, under normal circumstances, most consumers would not survive the day when heavy metals accumulate and become poisoned!
Although all conscientious capitalists in the British Empire never care whether their customers will suffer chronic poisoning from eating mercury salt milk, there is still an urgent problem that needs to be solved, and that is the precipitation that will occur because of the mercury salt in the milk. Soluble proteins will denature and settle when encountering heavy metals such as mercury ions. The British Empire capitalists' method of dealing with this kind of precipitation was also very simple - filter and separate these precipitations, and then make the dregs of the precipitation into cheese and sell it. As for the filtered supernatant, it is naturally the milk to be sold.
Anyway, no one could measure the protein content in milk at that time, as long as it tasted like milk. However, the capitalists suddenly obtained two products, milk and cheese, and both contained high concentrations of mercury salts, had a long shelf life, and almost never spoiled. As for the taste of this kind of milk, you can't be too particular about it. In the eyes of modern people, I'm afraid it's more appropriate to call it swill...
What’s even more desperate is that despite the addition of so much toxic mercury salts, milk at that time was still one of the important ways to spread tuberculosis. Why is it that adding so much mercury salt to milk still fails to eliminate tuberculosis bacteria? This is because there is a capsule on the outside of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Under the action of heavy metals, the protein contained in the capsule will denature and form a dense protective layer, thereby protecting the bacteria themselves from being killed. Unlike aluminum pots, The principle of rust is somewhat similar. Under the technical conditions at that time, the most effective way to eliminate Mycobacterium tuberculosis was actually very simple, which was to boil the milk. However, this would cause the lactose in the milk to denature, thus causing the "milk taste to change", which was very unpopular with consumers. welcome.
Therefore, urban civilians at that time drank antiseptic poisonous milk with mercury salts added, while rural farmers and manor owners drank fresh raw milk, and then were struck down and killed by tuberculosis, dysentery or cholera without discrimination - until the French biologist Louis. Pasteur invented the pasteurization method in 1864...
In addition to milk, mercury salts at that time were also widely used as sugar additives. In addition to taking advantage of its colorless and antiseptic properties, it also took advantage of its high sweetness properties: as long as a little bit of mercury salt was added, it would be Turning low-quality sugar that is not too sweet into high-quality sugar that is very sweet... However, this is definitely risky, because what is added is actually mercury salt waste, so no one can guarantee what ingredients are in it. For example, one time, a certain manufacturer sold candies that were added with mercury salt waste residue from a certain mine, and poisoned many children to death, causing an uproar. However, this is not actually a problem with mercury salts, but because the cinnabar ore used to produce mercury salts contains too much arsenic. Using the waste there is like adding arsenic to sugar! As a remedial measure, candy manufacturers stopped using the mercury salt waste produced in that mine and instead used mercury salts from other places to add to candies for children to eat...
To sum up, in the British society of that era, drinking tea in a fashionable manner was equivalent to taking a golden elixir to commit suicide, but drinking coffee was equally unsafe. Even if you don’t add sugar or milk to your coffee and only drink pure bitter coffee, you still can’t guarantee whether the coffee beans have been sprayed with patina...
Then, as another by-product of milk, the deterioration problem of butter has also troubled the black-hearted capitalists. During the Roman Empire, the main strategy for preserving butter was to add salt, and add a lot of salt, but the effect was often still poor. In modern times, the capitalists of the British Empire finally discovered that the first manifestation of butter spoilage was acidification. Well, to suppress acidification, just add caustic soda, that is, sodium hydroxide, to neutralize it!
But there is another problem here. Sodium hydroxide was one of the most expensive chemicals at that time, because making caustic soda required soda ash as the raw material. At that time, soda ash was mainly collected from natural salt lakes, and the cost was very high. At least it had to be sold. The price of a pound of soda ash and a pound of silver. Therefore, budget-conscious capitalists will not directly mix expensive caustic soda into butter. They will just soak the butter in the wastewater discharged from the alkali production plant. In this way, the oil contained in the butter will be degenerated under the action of caustic soda. Saponification reaction produces fatty acid sodium, which prevents To prevent it from spoiling... From this point, we can conclude that the British at that time were actually eating soap every day, or in other words, under the meticulous care of the capitalists in the dark food processing industry of the British Empire, they enjoyed soap every day from the inside out. Cleaning care…
After talking about nauseating dairy products, next is flour and rice, which are also rich in industrial toxins. The way to preserve flour in Roman times was to fumigate with sulfur, which can prevent mold and insects and whiten, but the problem is that the effect is not long-lasting. And it leaves an unpleasant sulfur smell. The capitalists of the British Empire naturally wanted to improve on the basis of their predecessors. After several generations of painstaking research, they finally discovered Diaobaikuan, a new food additive called sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate. In addition to its basic functions of preventing mold and insects and whitening, it also has many advantages such as very little odor and the ability to eat without killing people in a short period of time. It is really the best choice for processing rice and flour in the dark food industry of the British Empire, and it has been used ever since. So far: China is still cracking down every year on those unscrupulous profiteers who learn from the experience of their British predecessors and continue to mix white lumps into flour...
Then there are salted meat, salted fish and sausages. As everyone knows, these must be rich in nitrite. In addition to preservatives, its biggest function is to make the meat red. Even in modern China, it is not exempt from this custom. But the problem is that at that time, the British went too crazy in adding nitrite to bacon. For example, the bacon supplied by the Royal Army and Navy was called "salt bones". The advantage was that it could be preserved for more than half a century, but the disadvantage was that it was not only very salty. , and it is as hard as bone, so chefs have to use axes and saws to deal with it. God knows how much nitrite is added to it?
Even if you don't take nitrite into account, the environment in which these pickled foods are made is daunting enough: garbage is commonly littered in raw material warehouses, and sewage flows across the street. The spoiled pork was rubbed with soda ash to remove the sour smell, and the poisoned rats were shoveled into the sausage mixer. Some meat was even littered on the floor, mixed with garbage and sawdust, and workers trampled and spit on it, leaving behind hundreds of millions of tuberculosis bacteria. Moldy ham was minced and stuffed into sausages; workers walked around and spit on the meat; poisoned rats were mixed into the meat grinder... so many sausages that people eat are rich in "raw materials". Not only were rats mixed in, but rat poison was also mixed in...
Pickled fish certainly makes people feel apprehensive when eating it, but can fresh meat from a butcher shop make people feel at ease? The answer is not necessarily - even for fresh meat, there is a need to delay spoilage as much as possible, and there were no refrigerators at that time. The only way to preserve fresh meat was to use chemical methods, which was to soak it in ammonia-containing wastewater discharged from printing and dyeing factories. However, the fresh meat treated in this way will have a strong ammonia smell, and it must be neutralized with pickling wastewater discharged from the machinery factory. However, the pickling wastewater mostly contains a large amount of copper, iron and other metals and appears gray-black, so Finally, a large amount of water is needed to rinse the blackened meat... After these three processes, the "fresh meat" can be shipped to major butcher shops in London for sale.
Therefore, unless the animals are slaughtered in front of you, most of the fresh meat on the British market in this era is poisonous...
All in all, in Britain at this time, apart from vegetables and fruits, only eggs were considered conscientious foods, and they were guaranteed not to contain any Sudan red. If there had been a great inventor who could come up with Sudan red, he would have used it as a dye long ago. Sell it and make a lot of money.
However, since there were no refrigeration conditions and no intensive poultry raising technology at that time, the price of eggs was much higher than today. At least the middle class and above could afford it regularly, while the poor could only find ways to raise their own hens. Then, the popular way to eat eggs in the UK at that time was to boil the eggs until they are medium-ripe, sprinkle some salt and pepper to make a paste, and then eat them with bread. However, even if the time traveler is laughed at by others, it is best to eat the eggs. Cook them until they are fully cooked before eating, otherwise the salmonella in the eggs will make you suffer from diarrhea and dehydration until you lose your life...
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
Although from the perspective of social development, the above-mentioned crazy actions of the dark food processing industry in the British Empire still have historical and progressive significance. At least it extended the storage period of food and allowed capitalists to assemble food from a larger range. meet the basic needs of the urban population, especially The main purpose is to ensure the daily caloric intake of early workers so that they have enough physical strength to work as cows and horses. As for lifespan, workers at that time were used as consumables by capitalists anyway, and they could not live for a few years... ...So as long as they can prevent them from being poisoned before dying of exhaustion, it is enough.
However, as modern women who are deeply influenced by the "green food concept", the time-travel version of the five Bennet sisters really lacks the courage and courage to try poisons themselves. Instead, after learning that the kitchen is full of poisons, they all Mental breakdown... After being rescued by Marikawa Shizuka, these five women The soldiers suddenly realized that they all became vegetarians, and begged Wang Qiu and the others with tears in their eyes to quickly get more ingredients from the modern world, at least a few bags of rice, so that their poor stomachs would no longer suffer from the darkness of Britain. The cruelty of cooking...
In this regard, Wang Qiu, who was also trembling with fear, immediately agreed with kindness... Then the Bennet family ate vegetable pickled rice for several months...
Compared with the poison of British dark cuisine, the harm caused to the Bennet family by the property heir, Cousin Collins, can almost be ignored. Based on the suggestions of the expert team, Wang Qiu and the others formulated a plan to "replace the pillars" .
So, William, who had not yet become a priest. Mr. Collins, with the desire to inherit a large estate and quickly become a rich man, took a stagecoach and made a dusty journey to the village of Longbourn. As soon as he walked into the door of the Bennet house, he was greeted by a He was knocked down with a high-voltage electric baton and immediately injected with anesthetics. He was locked in a small dark room underground using an "explosion-type basement" and was interrogated by professionals for information.
Then, Wang Qiu put on contact lenses and a wig, disguised himself as Mr. Collins, and moved into the Bennet house in a grand manner.
——At this time, Mr. Collins has no father or mother. All the elders in the family have died, which makes him an orphan. Even if he loses news for a few months, no one will probably care. On the other hand, although the Bennet and Collins families are relatives, their relationship was extremely bad in the previous generation when they were competing for inheritance. No one knew Mr. Collins.
Therefore, with the full cooperation of the five time-traveling Bennet sisters, this strategy of secretly changing identities has temporarily succeeded...
It didn't take long for the residents of Longbourne Village to know that Mr. Collins, who was scheduled to inherit the Bennet family's real estate, was really a gentleman with high moral standards. After arriving in Longbourne Village, not only did he not rush to In order to obtain real estate, he tried to drive the Bennet sisters out, but generously agreed to follow the usual practice and wait until the Bennet couple had disappeared for seven years. In addition, he also gave many gifts to the five sisters.
Of course, as a thank you and reward, the five Bennet sisters also asked Mr. Collins to stay at home for a while and prepared to entertain him well - although according to the conservative customs of the society at this time, a young man lived in a group of single women. It seems a little unruly in his home, but considering that the two parties are relatives and the house will be owned by him, such a thing does not seem unacceptable.
Next, as Wang Qiu initially gained a foothold here, the opening of the hospital in another world was also put on the agenda. Among the terminally ill patients admitted this time, in addition to domestic citizens, there is also a foreign friend...