Chapter 192: Fruit Shaved Ice
Aside from the normally prepared dishes, the real highlight of today was the post-dinner dessert.
At this time of year, wild fruits were at their peak on the mountains, so Wen Yao didn’t need to go to much trouble. In the afternoon, she had sent Wen Ying to make a round through the village to have the local children climb the mountains, pick wild raspberries, and sell them to her. At one wen per catty, she could get as much as she wanted.
Those children in the village were absolutely overjoyed, as they got to have fun and earn a bit of pocket money at the same time.
The taste of wild raspberries always carried a hint of tartness. Wen Yao spent the entire afternoon just simmering the fruit jam, adding a generous amount of rock sugar and honey.
As for using saltpeter to make ice, this was something she and her brother had played with since childhood. Back then, basically even kindergarten children had done this kind of simple chemistry experiment.
Nesting a smaller basin inside a larger basin, it took only a short moment for ice to form. After drying it in the sun to evaporate the moisture, the saltpeter in the basin could be used again.
It was just a pity that they didn’t have an ice crusher; crushing these ice blocks in a moment would take quite a bit of effort.
As the sun was about to set, two carriages driven in a grand manner rolled into the village once again. The villagers had grown accustomed to it by now; these carriages came every single day now, and they were all heading for the Wen family.
Regardless of whether they were envious or jealous, the Wen family’s days were simply prosperous now.
“Sister, Sister!” The moment Datou returned, he rushed into the kitchen to find Wen Yao, his small face flushed red with excitement.
Wen Yao casually stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth before asking, “What’s wrong?”
Datou chewed and swallowed the meat before eagerly leaning against the stove, looking at Wen Yao as he spoke with an excited face, “Sister, Brother Li took me horse riding! We ran so fast!”
Wen Yao arched her eyebrows. No wonder Datou was this excited; having a horse at this time was just like having a luxury sports car in the modern world. Boys had absolutely no resistance to this, regardless of the era.
Wen Yao glanced outside. Li Yi’s horse had been led into the courtyard by someone, and almost all the men in the courtyard were surrounding it.
This horse looked significantly better than the one they had bought back.
“Sister, what delicious things are you making tonight?” Datou asked.
Wen Yao pinched his nose. “You can eat it after dinner, but it’s cold, so you can’t have too much, okay?”
“Mm-hmm!” Datou nodded happily. Getting to eat new things again was truly wonderful.
“Go out and play then. I think I saw Xie Anyi here too?” If Wen Yao hadn’t seen wrong among the crowd, Xie Anyi was also inside, though she didn’t know if Sister Qiu had come along.
Datou nodded. “After school let out, we went to Godfather’s place together for lessons. Knowing you were making delicious food today, he said he wanted to come too. Godfather sent someone to inform Madam Xie. Tonight he’s sleeping with me, and we’ll go to school together tomorrow.”
Wen Yao arched her eyebrows. Xie Anyi could actually stay out overnight now? This indicated that Sister Qiu had completely taken over the reins of the Xie family.
“Go entertain your friends then. It’ll be time to eat in a moment.”
Wen Yao gave Datou another piece of meat. Datou finished it right in the kitchen before trotting back out to play with Jin Xiuyi and Xie Anyi.
It had to be said that with so many people in the family, cooking truly was a test of physical strength. By the time the food and drinks for all four tables were fully served, Wen Yao felt she was already full just from smelling the fragrance.
No wonder people always said that those who loved to cook didn’t necessarily love to eat; it was because they were full just from the smell, and another aspect was likely being too tired to have an appetite.
However, they were going to have shaved ice in a bit, and it had been a very long time since Wen Yao last had a bite of that. Even if she couldn’t eat much, she forced herself to finish a bowl of rice.
The one who ate the absolute most throughout the entire meal was Li Fu. He finally realized that whatever Zui Xian Tower or Yunwu roast duck there was, none could compare to the Wen family.
Glancing at his son, who had already mingled completely with the crowd of Wen family lads over there, Li Fu felt he needed to step up his efforts.
After the meal, the younger ones already knew through Datou’s grand proclamations that Wen Yao had prepared a post-dinner dessert. The moment the courtyard was cleared, they couldn’t wait to seek out Wen Yao, asking her to give it to them to eat.
Wen Yao had no choice but to ask Lu Jiang and Lu He to go to the cellar to bring out the ice she had prepared earlier—a whole massive basin full. It was also thanks to the low temperature in the cellar and the fact that the ice block was large enough, though a fair amount had still melted.
When the ice block was brought up, everyone felt a wave of cool air the moment they approached. In this kind of weather, feeling a sense of crisp coolness was truly exceptionally comfortable.
Li Fu, however, was somewhat astonished.
“Your family actually stores ice?”
In the capital, as long as a household possessed even a bit of status, they would store some ice in a specialized cellar every winter, bringing it out to beat the heat when the summer weather was at its peak. He hadn’t expected a household like the Wen family to store ice as well.
“Store ice? No.” Old Man Wen was also thoroughly bewildered. He looked toward Wen Yao: “Yao’er, where did this ice come from?” He didn’t recall his family storing any ice.
Old Madam Luo spoke up from the side: “Yao’er made this in the afternoon.”
Old Madam Luo didn’t feel there was anything wrong with these words, because she felt nothing was surprising anymore regarding what her eldest son and granddaughter could do.
Yet she had no idea how massive of a shock these words brought to Li Fu beside her.
Making ice! What exactly was the background of this Wen family that they actually knew how to make ice? One had to know that even the imperial family relied on the ice stored in the ice cellars every year to get through the scorching summer.
If this Wen family truly understood the art of making ice, they could make a massive fortune just by selling ice when summer arrived. Why would they still need to live the kind of life they did now?
Not only Li Fu, but even Divine Doctor Jin and Manager Qiu were shocked for a moment. However, they snapped back to their senses very quickly; this was the Wen family, after all, so it seemed nothing that appeared on the Wen family could be considered strange anymore.
“Yao’er, what do you plan to do with such a large block of ice?” Manager Qiu stepped forward, walked a circle around the basin, and asked with a face full of complete nonchalance.
Li Fu looked thoughtfully at Manager Qiu, then at the completely placid members of the Wen family. Could it be that making ice wasn’t some rare occurrence either?
He truly came from the capital, right? How was it that after arriving at the Wen family, he felt like he was the country bumpkin who had never seen the world?
“Make shaved ice, but we need to turn this ice block into crushed ice first.” Wen Yao lifted her head, scanned the crowd, and arched her eyebrows. “Who’s up?”
Li Yi shot a glance at Xun Feng.
Xun Feng rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward: “Miss Yao’er, let me do it.” For this kind of manual labor, he naturally couldn’t let the Prince and the Young Master do it.
Xun Feng knew martial arts, so it would definitely be simple for him to operate.
Wen Yao explained the requirements to him, and Xun Feng carried the basin back to the kitchen. Holding a washed cleaver, he started hacking away in a wild blur.
He managed to hack the ice block into finely crushed fragments without damaging the basin at all.
“Excellent blade work!” Wen Yao gave him a big thumbs-up. This was far more useful than an ice crusher; it was just that the crushing wasn’t uniform, but it didn’t affect the texture.
Wen Yao brought out the fruit jam she had simmered, filled each bowl with an appropriate amount of crushed ice, drizzled a layer of the delicious raspberry jam over it, and topped it with chopped dried fruits. A bowl of fruit shaved ice was thus completed.
Lady Li and Lady Cai carried the trays, which were lined with neatly arranged small bowls: “One bowl per person, don’t grab! Everyone gets one, everyone gets one.”
The moment the trays were placed on the table, the fruit shaved ice on top was instantly snatched up cleanly.
Xun Feng was quick of eye and deft of hand, snatching a bowl for his master and young master each.
Li Fu had never eaten it this way before. Even in the palace, ice was merely used to chill some fruits and such; no one had ever eaten ice blocks like this.
However, it looked very novel, so it was worth a try.
When a mouthful of shaved ice mixed with the sweet fruit jam entered his mouth, that crisp, cool feeling immediately rushed straight from his mouth to his brain. In an instant, Li Fu felt his entire being cool down.
This sense of refreshing comfort was something that eating any amount of chilled fruit could never bring.
“Delicious!”
