I was a god in the 18th century

Chapter 366: Imperial Kitchen
Because of the problem of counterfeit and inferior tea, no one bothered to drink afternoon tea. After chatting for a while, the two said goodbye.

Xia Qingdai also invited Jane and her sister Miss Austin to have dinner at Fucui Villa tomorrow.

After riding a sleigh back to the castle from Austin's house, Owen took the white bread to the laboratory in the back mountain, while Xia Qingdai simply went upstairs to sleep.

She had almost not slept all night, and it was already dark in the castle, but if it weren't for the winter in modern times, it would have been dawn.

No matter how much Xia Qingdai needed sleep, she felt a little sleepy and almost fell asleep immediately.

When she fell asleep, Owen had finished testing the white bread. As he expected, this so-called "white bread" was also a chemical product. Potassium aluminum sulfate dodecahydrate, commonly known as alum, was added to it, which directly bleached the black bread into white bread.

Owen doesn't know yet how harmful this thing is if ingested by the human body, but what is certain is that it will never be beneficial.

There was naturally no food safety law in Britain in the eighteenth century. It was not until the late nineteenth century that the Food and Sale of Drugs Act was born.

In the era of the Bloody Code, where stealing more than twelve pence would result in a death sentence, food safety was actually turned a blind eye. This was purely due to the lack of knowledge among people in the legal profession.

During this period, Britain was rapidly transforming towards a labor segmentation and accelerated industrialization. Without legal constraints on morality, manufacturers were naturally unscrupulous in committing fraud.

Soaking blackthorn in copper sulfate can be investigated from the perspective of counterfeiting, but adding alum to rye bread or whole wheat bread to make white bread is really impossible to investigate, and there is no legal code to support it.

However, as the local sheriff, Owen can still restrain the merchants to a certain extent if he takes a negative attitude towards food with added ingredients.

Even if he couldn't punish these merchants who sold "chemical food" legally, Owen could suppress them commercially. As long as he took out some of the giant food hidden in the underground granary, he could make the merchants in the small town cry for mercy.

Last year, Owen didn't do these things because he had just arrived and his foundation was not stable. But now that he has been conferred the title of Earl, a guard team has been formed, and the security territory has been expanded, even without the guardian god holding a giant hammer to deter him, he doesn't have to be afraid of other forces.

As for the inside of the villa, Owen decided to convert part of the servants' bonuses directly into food. Instead of asking everyone to buy poisonous food on the market, it would be better for him to distribute it directly.

With Xia Qingdai's support, it is not difficult to do this.

Xia Qingdai's changes to Fucui Villa are not just about feeding the animals directly, but also about inserting nutrient bars into the fields, providing rain during droughts, and absorbing water during floods, so that the villa's agricultural output can reach a barely self-sufficient level.

If this "miracle" continues next year, it is only a matter of time before all the land here becomes high-yield farmland.

The main reason why the famine in Europe was so severe during this period was that the climate of the Little Ice Age caused a serious reduction in grain production.

Britain has a temperate oceanic climate, which is much better than the European continent. Coupled with the impact of the Industrial Revolution, it is no problem for Britain to be the strongest country on earth.

And with the intervention of "God", Fucui Villa has an even more promising future.

After testing the bread, Owen walked out of the laboratory and headed towards the castle in the cold wind. On the way, he met David, the housekeeper who came to the back mountain to look for him.

"Have you found out anything?" Owen didn't need to beat around the bush when asking his confidant, so he went straight to the point and asked.

"Yes, sir," David replied, "Charlotte told me that this batch of tea was all imported from London. Because the price was much cheaper than the market price, not only did he buy it, but several department stores also bought it."

"How many have flowed into the town of Ifra?" "According to preliminary investigation, there may be three or four boxes." David paused and continued to report the situation.

When walking from the back mountain to the castle, Owen had almost finished listening to all the information David had. He pondered for a moment and gave David a few instructions before entering the castle.

"Okay." David bowed slightly, took the order and turned to leave.

After waking up from a nap, Xia Qingdai went downstairs to enjoy an 18th century dinner to satisfy her taste buds. The cooking skills of the cooks she had personally trained were far superior to those of the entire British chefs.

But what surprised her today was that the dinner menu was similar to the French meal she had invited her roommates to. This didn't seem like something that the cooks Lily and Mrs. John could achieve. Could it be that they hadn't seen each other for a few days and had learned some French cooking secrets?

"Is this French food?" Xia Qingdai asked.

Before Owen could speak, Caroline smiled and said, "Yes, my cousin has just hired a French chef. Now we can enjoy the most authentic Ragu anytime."

"A French chef?"

Xia Qingdai was quite surprised that in an era when transportation was so slow, a villa in the British countryside could actually hire a chef from France.

Although France is not peaceful now, many people have fled from mainland France. But if they were going, they would go to a big city like London, why would they come to the countryside?

"There are many foreigners in London. This chef used to serve Louis XVI in the French royal court. After Louis XVI was arrested, he lost his job."

"Wow, the royal chef! I'd like to try it." Xia Qingdai fell in love with it after just one bite.

As expected, those who can become royal chefs in the palace are all very skilled - except for the British royal chefs, whose level is much better than what Xia Qingdai spent three hundred dollars on in a modern French restaurant!

"Owen, how did you find this treasure royal kitchen?"

"He met my uncle in London and came here with a letter of recommendation from my uncle."

"Oh, I know Lawyer Henry, what a coincidence." After all, London was definitely a big city in that era. People living in the west of the city might never meet someone from the east of the city in their entire life.

A chef like this would definitely not find a job in a middle-class family. In this case, it was really lucky for him to get to know the middle-class lawyer Henry.

Owen smiled faintly when he heard this and did not explain.

In fact, there was no coincidence at all. He just remembered Xia Qingdai's previous complaint, saying that the chefs in hell must be British, and people who go to heaven can enjoy French food.

From this, he knew that Xia Qingdai must prefer French food to British food, so he specifically asked his uncle to pay more attention to chefs who can cook French food in London.

Don’t want ordinary ones, choose the top-notch ones that will impress the goddess as soon as they appear.

Now Owen is not only Henry's nephew, but also their family's breadwinner. Henry naturally took his request to heart.

For this reason, a French chef who claimed to have worked in the French royal court and applied for a job in the upper class of London would naturally come into the sight of lawyer Henry.