CHAPTER 644: [638] QING CHUAN CHENG WANGFEI 7 (2 MORE UPDATES)

Xiyuan was very busy. She felt that ever since she had transmigrated, she was always bustling about.

This body was too weak and had too little resistance to illness. The first thing she did each morning was half an hour of yoga. It didn’t only stretch the whole body, but also helped with bowel movements. Afterwards, she would wash up and have breakfast.

Beginning with Huang Taiji, the breakfast table was never without sticky foods, which were made from yellow rice and Japonica Rice.

Put simply, the food included various steamed buns, sticky rice dumplings, sticky rice pancakes— all of which were their favorite staples.

Besides these, there were also well-known foods coming from the palace, such as bean flour rolls, Su Ye Cake, Shaqima, and others.

What are bean flour rolls?

Actually, they’re made by grinding yellow sticky rice into flour, then steaming it and wrapping it in toasted bean flour, rolling them up and cutting them into pieces. Because they’re rolled in toasted bean flour, today we

also call them "fried dough twists."

Su Ye Cake, also called Su Ye steamed bun, is made by making small cakes from yellow rice flour, filling them with bean paste, shaping them into a ball, and then wrapping them in seaweed leaves before steaming.

Shaqima comes from a Man language transliteration, meaning "golden thread cake."

Legend has it that after the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, Shaqima made in Shenyang was sent to Beijing every year!

As for green vegetables, just like ordinary people’s families, the Imperial Palace, too, had various fruits and vegetables like cabbage, eggplant, Celeriac, spinach, chives, radish, and melons. They also pickled sauerkraut, made soybean paste, and pickled vegetables in jars; pickles and sauerkraut were particularly favored side dishes in the palace.

The Man people loved eating meat, especially pork.

And eating meat was a traditional delicacy even for the Imperial Family.

The kitchen would boil pork in clear water and then serve it on separate plates as sliced pork, blood sausage, pig’s head, intestines, heart, liver, lungs, and so on— eaten without any vegetables, just dipped in the sauce.

It was said that Huang Taiji enjoyed eating like this, and he would also drink wine with the soft pork meat picked from the big bones, enjoying himself with his ministers.

Over time, all the brothers, princes, and such got used to eating in this way.

But Xiyuan didn’t like eating like this. Her breakfast consisted of a bowl of sheep’s milk, two boiled eggs, and at most, an added steamed bun.

Actually, she didn’t like drinking sheep’s milk, but it was the only milk-producing animal the household steward could find for her, and also the only one that could be raised on the premises of the Prince Manor.

Sheep were easier to raise than cows. Cows produced more milk, but with few female members in the manor and only she drinking it, maintaining a cow was too costly. So, they had no other choice but to keep a sheep.

Whether sheep’s milk or cow’s milk, both were rich in calcium. This was very helpful for her as she was still growing; after all, this body was only fourteen years old. She still had plenty of room to grow, and she might not be stuck at five feet and one inch for life.

After breakfast, it was only seven o’clock, because she had woken up relatively early.

The reason why she could tell the time so easily was that they had a Western clock in their residence (which had been passed down since the Ming Dynasty); it made it convenient for her to check the time.

Seven o’clock was still early, and she had been teaching the Shopkeepers and those in the accounting room for three days; they had basically understood the routine, and the rest was up to them to refine.

In the morning hours, from seven to ten o’clock was her free time, and after ten o’clock, she would follow her mentor to practice cooking; so what should she do with these three hours?

The gardener in the Prince Manor had already pulled out all the flowers and plants from the hidden corners, and now they were being tidied up. As for those on the main roads, she had not yet taken care of them; she wanted to utilize the flowerbeds in unseen areas first.

She thought about her body still developing, and how she felt uncomfortable wearing bellybands, so she personally went to the storeroom to find cloth materials. Because she couldn’t find suitable sponge, the bras she made, although not as elastic and well-shaped as those from later generations, were still better than wearing bellybands. Furthermore, the cloth she chose was the most comfortable type used for making inner garments.

She couldn’t find materials with special elasticity for making underwear, so she threaded the waistband through to the side and tied it; although it was a bit troublesome, it was still more comfortable than wearing long immodest clothes and underwear. This was a time when the benefits of the Space Mall became apparent.

But these things were a matter of habit, and time would erode her discomfort.

She had only arrived recently after the new year had passed, and her marriage date was just after her "small days." When she used to be an ancient person with the aid of the Space Mall, she used sanitary pads from the space, but now without them, she had to make her own menstrual pads.

Lucky for her, she married into a wealthy family, so she didn’t have to use plant ashes for her menstrual pads. Instead, she chose the best cotton cloth and cotton. After use, she would burn them completely. Although it seemed wasteful, it protected her personal hygiene. Even though it was a bit wasteful, she felt it was worth it.

When it came to Ms. Wuya’s most proficient skills, it wasn’t the Four Arts; it was needlework, because her aunt had been an embroidery lady from Suzhou who had contributed to Beijing, and she was one of those talented ones. That’s why the embroidery shop that came as part of her dowry had goods from Suzhou delivered over mountains and through waters, earning at least five hundred taels of profit each month. On the surface, her aunt gave her only one thousand taels for the dowry, but in reality, the shop was something her father had negotiated with her legitimate mother, of course, not without her aunt’s whispering advice.

Thanks to Ms. Wuya’s memory, double-sided embroidery in her hands was just a process of regaining a lost skill. After a few hours of needlework, she quickly became proficient again.

She didn’t dare let Su Mei and Su He know what the inner garments she was making were for because she didn’t want to deal with their endless questions.

"Princess Consort, Master Liu has already come over; he’s starting a fire in the kitchen."

Kitchens in wealthy families were always built with chimneys, making them very clean and sanitary. Starting a fire was also a task for the maids responsible for such rough work, so she didn’t need to do it herself; her job was to practice knife skills. Knife skills training was a compulsory lesson for every chef and was the basic skill that took the most time to practice.

She already knew how, so she took advantage of her so-called "natural gift," mastering the technique of using a knife in three days.

Although the chopping was problematic at first, irregular in size and shape, persistent practice meant there were no major issues.

So every day, she spent at least an hour practicing the cutting methods for various vegetables; after that, she would learn the essentials of frying, steaming, boiling, and other steps. Finally, she would get the chance to experience doing it herself.

At first, the mentor would assist her, but later, seeing that she could tell the difference between oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, he would only watch and let her work by herself.

Although the food she made was either too salty or too sweet, too bland, or overcooked, at least it was edible.

The practice dishes all ended up in the mouths of the Maids and old women in West Garden, while the final products were shared between her and the mentor.

After all, isn’t everyone’s cooking bound to get better with practice?