Chapter 438: There are eggplants to eat
After the Winter Spirit Festival and before the new year comes, it is a day of rest. There is only one place that is still busy, and that is the vegetable greenhouse.
The castle in winter is not a place for people to stay, so Frederick and the others moved to the manor early.
This manor was originally quite lively and noisy, but it was still more comfortable than a refrigerator-like castle.
Maria went home to be with her parents before the Winter Spirits Festival, and Lilu returned to Amstel in the autumn to help her relatives rebuild the house that was destroyed in the fire and fulfill the hull order for the shipyard there. Susan went into hibernation mode and pinched her nose without waking up. A certain Cuckoo Knight quietly went home to see his parents after returning from Citrus Island. Frederick had to go to the greenhouse to take care of his vegetable patch alone.
Nowadays, several different greenhouses have been newly built in the manor, with a length of 100 meters and a width of about 8 meters. The rammed earth wall in the north is about 5 meters high.
What is different from other greenhouses is that these greenhouses are not made of film, but large transparent hard slime sheets, 1cm thick, divided into inner and outer layers and installed on a steel frame. The rammed earth walls on the north and east and west sides are particularly thick, and the interiors are painted black.
These greenhouses were designed for the natural church in the dark land of the north. Taking into account the heavy snow and severe cold weather there, and because of the short daylight in winter, some lights were added.
In the summer, Psyche set aside a piece of land in a greenhouse and planted the newly introduced "Emperor Fruit", also known as eggplant, named after the noble purple color of the fruit.
However, the current eggplants have not been selectively bred, and they are about the size of a mouse. They can be grown one season a year in the open air and two seasons in a greenhouse, and the yield is pretty good.
Now that Psyche was satisfied with braised eggplants, he went skiing in the mountains after returning from Cologne, so he threw these eggplants to Frederick.
There are many aunts busy in the greenhouse. They are all nuns and retired Aurora warriors sent by the Church of Nature to learn how to grow vegetables in winter. They will become the backbone of agriculture in the north when they return.
The only young girl was Valkyrie. She had just finished checking the beehives in the greenhouse, and when she saw Frederick coming, she came over to say hello.
It was eggplant harvest time now, and others were doing the work of saving the seeds. Frederick just ate, thinking about what to do with the eggplants today.
Wal Qiulei came over and asked: "Is the Emperor Fruit ripe?"
Frederick answered while picking eggplants: "You can eat them as soon as they turn purple. It will take longer to save the seeds."
"Are the strawberries over there ripe?"
Currently The only fruit that can be grown in the greenhouse is strawberry, and the other greenhouse is all strawberries.
Waltieri did not answer, but looked around and saw that no one was looking here, so she quickly took a ripe strawberry out of her pocket and stuffed it to Frederick.
The aunts would scold her if she secretly hid strawberries and ate them. Moreover, it was the first time for Walqiulei to do such a thing. She was so nervous that the strawberries were stuffed into Frederick's nostrils.
Frederick was stunned for a moment, then raised his head skillfully and ate the strawberry.
Walqiulei asked in a low voice: "Is it delicious?"
Frederick nodded, and then another strawberry was stuffed over, this time in the right position.
Their little moves have long been seen by the aunts, but they just don’t say anything.
Frederick picked a basket of eggplants and asked Waldorf: "Want to try them?"
Walqiulei nodded. Psyche had cooked it once before for the teachers and students of the Agricultural College. I heard it was delicious, but she couldn't get it when she went shopping that day.
Frederick smiled and said: "Come over for dinner tonight."
After Valerie came to Weissenburg Castle, she basically spent time in the manor learning from the teachers and students of the Agricultural College. , occasionally go to the city for shopping. After the students from the Nature Church arrived, they took on the responsibility of communicating with relevant departments.
After the World Expo, Frederick was either busy with domestic affairs or going out. He rarely communicated with her and planned to ask more about things in the north.
At afternoon tea time, Hua Qiulei came to the mansion with the northern snacks she made.
She made tea in the tearoom. When the door of the tearoom opened, she took a quick look and saw Frederick holding a snow bear. Only when she took a closer look did she realize that it was a girl wearing snow-white bearskin clothes and a bearskin hat.
Frederick put Susan on the sofa and said with some helplessness: "She has been in the north for so long, and every time it snows, it is like being sealed in the bed. She only eats and sleeps."
While speaking, Susan blinked her big golden eyes, yawned, greeted Valkyrie, then leaned over and rested her head on Frederick's lap, looking lazily , seems to continue to sleep.
Frederick pinched her nose, picked up a biscuit brought by Valtius Lei and put it to her mouth.
Susan just lay there and started eating.
Valkyrie found it interesting and asked cautiously: "Can I try?"
Frederick nodded, and then the two of them fed Susan like a pet.
Wal Qiulei said: "You can try giving her more liver in winter. We also have such children there, and it will be better."
Frederick thought it made sense, Maybe Susan suffers from seasonal iron deficiency anemia and lacks oxygen supply to the brain, so she often dozes off.
He and Walqiulei chatted about things in the north for a while. It was almost time and he was going to the kitchen to cook eggplant.
Valkyrie said she wanted to help, so Frederick took Susan back to the bedroom and then to the kitchen.
Stew is commonly eaten in the north. Everything is put into the pot and stewed before eating. It is also easy to keep warm. Frederick first made a salted fish and eggplant stew. The animal husbandry in the north was not developed, so salted fish was a commonly eaten meat
He made some improvements and cut the eggplant into small pieces so that it could be eaten with a spoon.
Then the eggplant slices and red eggplant are stewed together. When the eggplant is ripe, the red eggplant becomes soft and becomes a paste, which can be eaten on bread slices.
Finally he got an eggplant box, which was convenient for eating with a knife and fork.
Wal Qiulei saw that Frederick put a medicinal material into the food when he was cooking, her face suddenly turned as red as a strawberry, she bit her lips tightly, and finally seemed to have figured it out. look.
Everyone was very happy after the meal. Susan ate more slices of bread than usual with the red eggplant slices, and Val Qiulei had a special liking for the salted fish and eggplant stew.
It started to snow after dinner, and Frederick held an umbrella to send Waldorf back to her residence.
Wal Qiulei and other "students" of the Church of Nature live in a red brick building not far away. This is what Frederick called a "peach blossom stone-style residence", also known as a tube building. The goal of the migrant workers' struggle was originally intended to be linked to Frederick's guards, but now it was given to them.
This building has three floors, with eighteen rooms on one floor, five staircases, and a public corridor to the north.
On the left and right sides of the entrance to the house are the bathroom and the kitchen. There is a bedroom and a living room inside. The floor is paved with rough tiles. There is a balcony outside the bedroom.
When he walked downstairs, Frederick felt Valkyrie pulling on his coat a little nervously, and walked up without letting go.
Frederick thought she had something to say, so he followed her.
"Sit down for a while and drink the water yourself." Walqiulei helped Frederick take off his coat and hang it on the coat rack. She took out a pair of cotton slippers from the shoe cabinet and opened it. Turn on the heater, then run back to the bedroom to change clothes.
This was Frederick's first time here.
On the right side of the living room is the dining table and chairs, with a samovar and cups on them, and a cabinet next to it.
The left hand side looks like a library. The wooden sofa is covered with thick cotton cushions. There are stationery and thermos cups on the coffee table. There is a half-read "Color Atlas of Diagnosis and Treatment of Poultry Diseases" with half a pack. Fruit gummy pressed. There are full bookshelves on both sides of the sofa, with books on agriculture on the right and books on surgery and trauma treatment on the left.
Frederick glanced at the trash can next to the coffee table. They were all packed with snacks.
At this time, Walqiulei changed into a pair of loose pink pajamas and came out. She saw Frederick noticed that the trash can was full of snack packages, and ran downstairs to take out the trash with a red face.
Frederick sat on the sofa and read the "Color Atlas of Diagnosis and Treatment of Poultry Diseases", which was full of notes.
After Valkyrie came back, she sat next to Frederick, clasping her hands tightly together. After a while, she blushed and whispered: "It's inconvenient for me these days. I can't sleep with you. I want to sleep with you." Why don’t you hug me?”
Frederick blinked, but he didn’t say he wanted to sleep with her.
Waltzulei continued: "The Pope told me when I came here that he wanted me to...be pregnant with your baby..."
Frederick had a question mark on his head, What the hell is this?
He hurriedly asked: "Wait, when did I say I wanted to sleep with you?"
Walqiulei raised her head and looked at him and said: "If you didn't want to sleep with me, why did you do it in the dish? "Horse radish?"
Frederick scratched his head and asked: "What is horse radish?"
Wal Qiulei was stunned, seeing that he didn't look like he was pretending. Yes, could I have made a mistake?
The two parties communicated and understood what was going on.
There is a plant from the east of the Piast Kingdom to the eastern coast of the Inland Sea. The locals call it "horse radish", and its roots are spicy.
Frederick didn’t understand why the Taohua Stone had tomatoes and potatoes but no peppers, so he looked around for spicy substitute plants.
At this year's World Exposition, a businessman heard about it and offered a kind of rhizome, saying it was called "Platinum Radish." Frederick was overjoyed when he tried it. Although it was not as good as peppers, it was still usable, so he gave a lot of it. As a reward, let him get the seeds.
The businessman played a little trick and gave the plant a rich-sounding name. Frederick was not familiar with botany and herbal medicine and did not think about herbal medicine.
The so-called "Platinum Radish" is horse radish. It looks a bit like a radish, is as thick as a finger, and looks a bit like a horse's whip. It has been used medicinally in its place of origin and surrounding areas for thousands of years. It is taken internally to aphrodisiac and applied externally for treatment. Rheumatism,
The locals say that "the value of radish is measured by the weight of lead, the value of sweet radish is measured by the weight of silver, and the value of horse radish is measured by the weight of gold." This shows how precious it is.
Wal Qiulei also studied medicine, so she naturally recognized horse radish. When she saw Frederick adding this to the dish and sending her back, she thought she was going to attack him.
After Frederick figured it out, he twitched the corner of his mouth, scratched his head and said: "The businessman only told me that it was a condiment like ginger and garlic, but he didn't tell me that it had medicinal value! "
Wal Qiulei asked a little uncertainly: "Really?"
Frederick replied definitely: "If I lie, there will be no seasoning packet for instant noodles in the future!"
Walqiulei saw that he didn't look like he was lying. Thinking of what she just said, her face suddenly turned red to the root of her neck.
(End of this chapter)