Uncle Thomas took a bite of the large bread, then slurped the potato noodles stewed with cabbage, closing his eyes in satisfaction.
If it were in the past, eating a meal with very little meat would surely mean the tribe didn’t have much food and was about to go hungry.
Who would have thought that one day, he would willingly eat less meat to choose various vegetables and grains?
This year, with the addition of dishes made from seafood and internal organs, the tribe’s reserves were more than half compared to previous years. Now that the dining hall used grains to make many staple dishes every day, the dried meat stored in the cave was hardly consumed...
To not waste the dried meat they had worked hard to make, Sam and the others now thought of ways to consume a little more every day. Otherwise, even if this type of meat was dried, if it wasn’t eaten in time, it would spoil if left for too long next year.
Steamed buns and meat pies lately had dried meat added to them. The faint smell was also masked significantly by spices. Snow Wolves with sensitive noses didn’t find it unpleasant to eat, let alone others.
"This thick strand type is called potato noodle, made from potatoes, which are large earth beans. The thin strand type cooked in the soup is glass noodle, made from mung beans. Not only are they delicious, but after drying, they can be kept for a very long time. When eating, just cook them directly like I did just now. If stir-frying, soak them until soft first."
Eric pointed at the potato noodles and glass noodles in the dishes, introducing them in detail.
"How long can they be kept? A few months?" Joseph’s action of slurping the spicy and sour noodles stopped abruptly as he asked nervously.
Thomas also stopped moving, pricking up his ears to listen attentively.
Eric tilted his head and thought carefully for a while, answering with a tone that wasn’t entirely certain: "Completely dried potato noodles and mung bean glass noodles can be kept for at least about a year... if kept too long, eating them might cause a stomach ache."
"Pfft!"
Iris, who was drinking water because of the spiciness, couldn’t help but spray a mouthful of water onto the ground hearing this answer.
"How long? One year?!" The bowl in Thomas’s hand fell to the ground with a clatter. Fortunately, the ceramic bowls fired by Eric and the others had thick walls and only chipped a piece.
Thomas, who usually felt sorry for the tribe’s utensils, didn’t have time to care about this and stared at Eric with burning eyes.
In an instant, the eyes of everyone in the dining hall focused on Eric. Even the carefree Sam was no exception.
Eric swallowed his saliva; this atmosphere made him a bit nervous: "That’s right, one year."
Iris, Jessica, and the others looked at each other. Thomas and Joseph were even more excited; ignoring eating and drinking, they excitedly picked up the dried potato noodle strands that Eric had intentionally left behind to examine.
"This is great. Earth beans... potatoes have a very high yield, but their preservation time isn’t that long. This is good; if we turn them into potato noodles, won’t we be able to extend the storage time for a very long time? We have another type of food that doesn’t spoil easily!"
Thomas excitedly held up the potato noodle strand and said to Joseph.
The Ox-Head tribe had said that this type of potato yielded five or six thousand catties per mu!
Eric came from modern times, where potato yields reached eight or nine thousand catties per mu. After all, fertilizers were advanced, and film-mulched potatoes would have even higher yields.
Balu and Eric had discussed that earth beans could be eaten and used as seeds; one tuber could grow into more than ten tubers.
But in Eric’s memory, when his family planted potatoes, they would first place the potatoes in a warm place to sprout, then cut each sprouted part into pieces.
A potato cut into several pieces like that could be planted separately. Each piece could survive and produce many tubers, saving a lot of potatoes.
Every year when the weather warmed up, his grandmother would find the leftover potatoes that had sprouted in the house, use a knife to cut the sprouted parts, and plant them in the ground.
Potatoes were a very easy crop to survive and rarely suffered from pests or diseases. Coupled with the variety of pesticides and fertilizers in modern times, many people grew potatoes.
It was just that although potatoes had high yields, one couldn’t be greedy and use all the land to plant potatoes. A famous example in his previous life was Ireland.
Ireland was ruled by Britain at that time. The people had few potatoes, so they were very dependent on potatoes. A large amount of land was used to grow potatoes, which led to a famine across the country when potato blight broke out one year.
So, although potatoes were good, Eric didn’t intend to rely too heavily on them; other grains also had to be planted.
The Ox-Head tribe surely knew these things, only they hadn’t arrived yet. The appearance of potato noodles made all the tribesmen extremely happy. Eric told them about this planting risk of potatoes.
Thomas and the others calmed down, and looks of regret appeared on their faces. But nothing could be perfect, so they could only accept this fact.
Having forgotten to eat just now due to excitement, Sam listened to the risks of potatoes and dejectedly ladled himself a bowl of vegetable soup with meatballs and glass noodles.
"Then let’s make a lot more potato noodles, dry them, and store them all in the cellar. The tribesmen will definitely like to eat them. There are mung bean glass noodles too."
Sam slurped the noodle soup, opening his mouth with a satisfied expression.
This worked. Eric letting them taste the potato noodles and mung bean glass noodles also had this purpose.
When he was small, every harvest season, his grandfather would ride a small tricycle carrying several bags of potatoes to be processed into starch, saving it for the family to make potato noodles and flatbreads to eat.
One catty of potatoes only yielded about one or two taels of potato starch. Usually, several bags of potatoes wouldn’t produce a full bag of starch.
"Alright, but given the current weather, we can make some frozen potato noodles to eat in the winter. The rest will be dried and stored in the cellar."
Eric said happily. After all, frozen potato noodles wouldn’t change in taste when cooked again, and eating them like that in winter was very convenient.
It was just that winter was ending, and frozen items needed to be consumed before the weather warmed up. Otherwise, once thawed, items that had been frozen would spoil faster than fresh ones.
Joseph happily patted Eric’s waist: "Eric has brought another important food to the tribe. You make a pretty good patriarch."
Initially, when the Dwarves were forced to split into small tribes, Joseph, being older and having slightly higher forging skills, was nominated as the patriarch. At that time, he was extremely worried and could only lead his tribesmen to solve the problem of food and clothing first.
Later, becoming even more exhausted from battling wits and courage with magical beasts and humans crossing the border, Joseph admitted he couldn’t manage things as thoroughly as Eric.
Eric smiled and shook his head: "Without everyone’s help, I couldn’t have done so many things alone."
"Alright, stop flattering each other. If potato noodles are that good, then while we have time, call the idle people to quickly make more. Later when we get busy, there won’t be time."
Thomas interrupted the exchange between Eric and Joseph, clasping his hands behind his back and suggesting.
...
Author’s Note: What should I do? I suddenly have a huge craving for chicken giblet glass noodles, but I’m already so fat. I’ve gained two kilos just from writing this novel for two months :((