Li An didn't want to disturb the villagers here, but since the old man sincerely invited him, it wouldn't be appropriate if he didn't go. Moreover, Li An also wanted to drink a mouthful of the sweet water from the local cold well that was boiling.
"Since you're sincerely inviting us, it would be impolite for us to refuse. You guys can wait here!"
Li An and Lao Guo each led a guard to follow the old man, while the other eight guards stayed near the well to wait. The main reason was that if too many people went together, it would be too noisy, especially if there were more than a dozen horses, which would disturb the villagers too much, which would be too much of a disturbance.
"Uncle, how many people do you have in your family?"
Ang Lee asked.
The old man answered with a smile, "Not many, just eight."
"Oh! Eight people are not many? That's quite a lot. "
Lao Guo sighed.
For a big family, there must be a lot of people in the family, but for an ordinary person, there were not that many people in the family. Eight people was indeed quite a lot.
"Let me guess. It must be the second son, the second grandson, and the two daughters-in-law. Including the old couple, there are exactly eight people in the family."
Ang Lee guessed.
Most ordinary families had such a structure. The two sons married and had children respectively. Including the old couple, there were exactly eight people in the family, which was quite perfect.
"You are right. This is the eldest grandson. There is another one in the family who hasn't learned to walk yet."
When the old man talked about his grandson, his eyes were full of kindness.
Soon, Ang Lee and Lao Guo arrived at the old man's house. However, there was only an old lady in the house, and there seemed to be a child's voice in the room.
"Old lady, these two are the original guests. Get some hot water and a big bowl. The guests want to taste our sweet well water."
The old man said.
The old lady soon brought the boiled water and put it in front of Ang Lee and the old man, inviting them with a smile.
"Delicious! It's even sweeter than when it's cold! Haha! "
Ang Lee took a sip and praised with satisfaction.
Lao Guo also nodded with satisfaction. Even the two guards drank some water under the old granny's warm invitation and praised the taste of the water.
"Old lady, where are Dabao and the others?"
The old man asked.
"They are working in the field and won't come back until dark."
The old lady answered.
Li An casually looked around. This family's life was not bad. There was a lot of food in the front and back of the house, and there were dried sweet potatoes in the yard. This was enough to show that sweet potatoes were very popular. In just a few years, they had been popularized in such a remote area.
"These are sweet potatoes, right? Quite a lot of them? "
Li An said with a smile as he walked to the side of the dried sweet potatoes and looked at the thin slices.
"Yes. These are only a small part of them. There are a lot of them. It's all thanks to this thing. Otherwise, we would all go hungry. "
The old man said excitedly.
"This place didn't fill your stomach before?"
Ang Lee asked.
We don't have many paddy fields here, but we do have a lot of dry fields. The harvest of crops is very low. In the past, we often didn't have enough to eat, but now that we have sweet potatoes, it's different. This thing can be planted in the dry fields. Moreover, the harvest is much higher than in the paddy fields. Even without topdressing, the harvest is several times higher than in the dry fields. This is a great help to us farmers. These small sweet potatoes have fed too many people. If not for these sweet potatoes, many of us here would have gone hungry! "
The old man said excitedly.
According to the technology of this era in the Great Tang, it would be considered very good if one mu of dry wheat could yield two to three hundred catties after applying fertilizer. If one didn't apply fertilizer, one mu of land could yield two hundred catties.
But planting sweet potatoes was completely different. It was not difficult for sweet potatoes to yield more than one thousand catties per mu. Even without any fertilizer, it was easy for one mu of land to yield more than one thousand catties. If top fertilization was applied, one mu of land could easily yield two or three thousand catties, which was ten times the harvest of wheat. In the later generations, the best sweet potato yield could even reach as much as ten thousand catties per mu, and some could even reach tens of thousands of catties. It was simply a myth.
In short, the yield of sweet potatoes was very high, which was ten times higher than that of local crops such as wheat in the Tang dynasty.
If the people had the same amount of land, the food production would increase by ten times. What kind of concept was this? This meant that they could feed ten times more people. However, the increase in population could not reach ten times more in a short period of time. Therefore, there would always be a surplus of food. In other words, every household would have a surplus of food. The lives of the people would become better.
Of course, the yield of one thousand catties per mu referred to the wet sweet potatoes. When the sweet potatoes were dried, their weight would be reduced, but at most, it would be reduced by about half. The yield was still far higher than that of wheat and other crops.
"That's right! Sweet potatoes are a good thing. Not only are they delicious, but their yield is also high enough. The people rely on sweet potatoes to live. Many people have been saved by sweet potatoes. "
Ang Lee also sighed.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties of the Hua Xia, the population suddenly increased a lot. For example, the population in the Qing Dynasty increased more than three times in a hundred years, from one hundred million people to more than three hundred million people.
The most important reason for this was that high-yield plants such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn were introduced from the west at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The introduction of these high-yield plants was the most important factor that led to the tripling of the population in a hundred years. Without these high-yield plants, the population could not have reached such a large number in any case. High-yield crops were the biggest contributor to the population increase.
"Come, come, come, guests. These are freshly steamed sweet potatoes and dried sweet potatoes. Have a taste! It's very sweet, sweeter than the well water. "
The old woman brought the hot steamed sweet potatoes and dried sweet potatoes, which were their breakfast. A steamer of them had been steamed and taken away by her son and daughter-in-law. They ate as they walked. In addition, they would save some for when they were hungry in the afternoon. The second steamer was for the old couple and the two little grandsons. After all, in the countryside, the main labor force was the most important. They had to eat first, and then the children and the old people. It was not like the society in the modern world, where the children and the old people were at the top. After all, work should not be delayed. The able-bodied workers could go to work early if they ate early, while the old people and the children could eat later if they didn't have work to do.
Now that these delicacies were at hand, it would be inappropriate to not eat them. It was good to have a taste. Although Lao Guo and Ang Lee came here after breakfast, they didn't eat much. They just ate some sweet potatoes as a snack.
"Not bad! It's very sweet. "
Ang Lee picked up a piece of dried sweet potato and put it in his mouth.
Lao Guo picked up a whole sweet potato and ate it as well. He praised the sweetness of it, and the bodyguard ate some as a token of appreciation.
The sweet potatoes in this place absorbed the local water, so it was normal for them to be sweet. After all, the soil and water raised the people. The sweet potatoes nourished by the sweet water were naturally sweet.
There were two main ways to store the sweet potatoes for a long time. One was to cut them into pieces and dry them in the sun to make dried sweet potatoes. The other was to dig a cellar and hide the sweet potatoes in the cellar, which could also preserve the sweet potatoes well.
Although the two ways were both feasible, the preserved sweet potatoes tasted different. Therefore, under normal circumstances, people would adopt both ways. One part of the sweet potatoes was cut into pieces and made into dried sweet potatoes, and the other part was directly stored in the cellar. In this way, people would have two kinds of food, and they wouldn't feel tired of eating one after the other.
The sweet potatoes were indeed delicious. Ang Lee ate a few pieces before he knew it, and felt a little full.
The old man, the old woman, and the two kids were also eating sweet potatoes. They ate the sweet potatoes in an interesting way, with the skin included.
Ang Lee looked back and found that Lao Guo and the two bodyguards also ate the sweet potatoes with the skin. Only Ang Lee ate the skin. Ang Lee didn't like to eat the skin, no matter the whole sweet potato or the dried sweet potato. For one thing, he felt it was a little dirty, and for another, the skin was really not tasty. What's more, there were a lot of fibrous roots on the skin, which made him lose his appetite.
"This visitor from afar must have been very lucky since childhood. You even peel the sweet potatoes when you eat them. Haha!"
The old man said.
Ang Lee smiled and said, "Uncle, you have a good taste. My family is very rich, and I don't have to worry about food. It's a habit to be picky. It's hard to change it."
Ang Lee had learned how to cater to others to make everyone happy.
"By the way, Uncle, how many meals do you have a day?"
Ang Lee asked.
"We have one meal in the morning and one in the afternoon. But now that we have sweet potatoes, it doesn't matter if we have one meal or not. If you feel hungry, you can bring them here at any time. Every family has an endless supply of sweet potatoes, so you don't have to worry about being hungry."
The old man said.
Since ancient times, many people in the countryside had two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. They had one in the morning at about eight or nine o 'clock, and one in the afternoon at four or five o' clock, which could basically meet the needs of a person for a whole day.
If they needed to get up early in the morning and go to the field, they would directly turn breakfast into dry food and bring it to the field. They would work for two hours before eating breakfast, or eat a little in the morning and bring more dry food to the field. They would eat at noon when the weather was hot. In this way, there were three meals a day.
Therefore, three meals and two meals coexisted. In many rural areas, they could eat three meals when they needed, but if they didn't need to work, they would only eat two meals a day. This was more reasonable. After all, people were more tired when they worked, and eating one more meal could better replenish their physical strength. When they didn't need to work, they really didn't need to eat three meals a day. One meal in the morning and one in the afternoon was enough.
In addition, the reason for the two meals a day was also related to the backward productivity. In the era of gas and electricity, cooking a meal was very simple and didn't take much energy at all. But in the countryside with backward productivity, it took a lot of effort to cook a meal. It often took one or two hours to cook a meal, or even longer. So, if there were three meals a day, wouldn't the cook be exhausted to death?
Li An had such an experience in his previous life. Before his relatives in his hometown could cook, they had to fetch water from a puddle a few miles away. They also had to go to the vegetable garden to pluck vegetables. After that, they could wash the vegetables. After that, they had to prepare firewood and grass. Only after that could they start cooking. At the very least, they had to stir-fry a few side dishes. After such a delay, it would take at least one or two hours before they could eat a delicious meal.
Without gas and electricity, the speed of cooking was greatly limited. This directly caused the villagers to only eat two meals. If they woke up at seven in the morning and cooked for two hours, it would already be nine o 'clock. If they ate at nine o' clock, it would be almost ten o 'clock by the time they finished eating. Naturally, they wouldn't have an appetite at noon. They would only feel hungry at four or five o' clock in the afternoon. So, they would eat a second meal.
The villagers generally went to bed very early at night. It was very common to go to bed at seven or eight o 'clock. So, before the food was completely digested, people would have already fallen asleep.
In the future, many people in the city lived very irregularly. They could eat three or even four meals a day, but many people only ate two meals, which was the so-called lunch and dinner, or lunch and supper. They didn't eat breakfast directly.
Because the people in the future could use the Internet, they slept very late. They wouldn't wake up early the next morning. When they woke up, it was about ten o 'clock. It was best to move a little and have their first meal at twelve o' clock.
And because there wasn't much activity, they wouldn't have an appetite at seven or eight o 'clock in the evening. They would also forget to eat dinner. They would only realize that they were hungry at eleven or twelve o' clock, so they would order takeout and have their second meal of the day. This meal could only be considered supper.
The first meal was lunch, and the second meal was supper. This kind of lifestyle was very harmful to people's bodies. But many young people in the future ate like this. They ate so arrogantly that they didn't care about their own bodies at all. They wouldn't regret it until the day their bodies collapsed.
It was fine if the meal time was unreasonable. It would be good if the food was healthy. But many people liked to eat food with a strong taste. Although these foods were delicious, they were very harmful to the human body. If they ate these foods often, the human body would suffer great damage. In a few years, there would be a big problem with the stomach and intestines. They might even suffer from an incurable gastrointestinal disease, which could even take a person's life.
So, eating was a big problem. It couldn't be treated carelessly. If a person didn't cherish his body, his body would take revenge on him sooner or later.
"Uncle! It's not enough to eat two meals a day. Eat one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. Three meals a day is the best. But if there are sweet potatoes, there won't be a problem of eating several meals a day. But eating only sweet potatoes isn't enough nutrition. In the morning, you still have to eat some vegetables and boiled eggs. "
Ang Lee said.
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