Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 885 Simple Meal Continued
For the convenience of preservation, the relief rations are thoroughly dehydrated, so the texture is too hard. Generally, when eating, people have to use a hammer to break them, and then eat them with water. It is almost impossible to swallow without drinking water——more When eating, the eater will add some vegetables and cook them in a pot directly to make a paste.

Relief rations are essentially a simplified ration for individual soldiers, and their taste and nutrition cannot be compared with ordinary military ready-to-eat food.Its tough, rough texture and weird taste, in particular, make it admired by few but hungry refugees.During a business trip, Skade had to eat relief rations for a week due to a mistake in the logistics department. He once commented very harshly: A person can live on the grass series for half a year, and can live for seven days without food. With rations, you can only live for three days.In the mainland strategy, relief rations were nicknamed "molar bricks".

Relief rations still made some efforts in taste.Within a few months after the ration was developed, the research and development team imitated the modern instant noodles and developed a variety of flavors such as cumin, spicy, spicy, seafood, and scallion by adding various spices and seasonings.Of course, the change in taste didn't really increase the appetite much—except for the hungry, soldiers and laborers generally gave them poor reviews.Just as Dongmen Chuiyu, who has eaten all the fast foods that have been put into production or have not been put into production, said: For hungry people, a variety of flavors cannot fill an empty stomach; for people who can eat normally, No amount of complex seasoning can make a relief ration palatable.

From the beginning of "Operation Engine" to transport refugees until the end of the mainland invasion, tens of millions of relief rations of various types were produced, and millions of refugees were saved from starvation.These rations are wrapped in oiled paper and neatly stacked in a standard twenty-liter wooden box made of wooden nails-this wooden box is exactly the same as the wooden box for ammunition, so it is usually painted red and yellow. the difference.Later, the imperial army who went on a crusade sometimes carried some to stabilize the hearts of the people or to pay commissions to migrant workers.Relief rations during this period were printed in bold bold letters: "Gifts from the Senate and the People of the Empire".

The shelf life of relief rations is set at three years. In fact, in a relatively low-temperature and dry environment, some production is late, and batches of rations produced under better processing conditions can still be eaten safely after 20 years of storage.Of course this ration had become so hard it could hardly be chewed.You must add a lot of water to boil it into a paste before you can eat it.Because of its storage resistance, in some remote outposts on the outskirts of the empire with long logistics lines, commercial stations and research stations in deep barren lands, relief rations were tightly sealed and used as rooms for certain rooms. Internal non-load bearing walls, as a sort of last resort.This measure saved the lives of many soldiers and surveyors on duty in remote locations, enabling them to persist under the siege of barbarians until the arrival of rescue forces.

"Because the relief rations are very strong and difficult to eat, there will always be expired relief rations placed in the warehouses of the military and planning institutes in various places because no one eats them. The general way to deal with them is to hand them over to the agricultural department for grinding and then breeding earthworms. However, some better-looking ones will be picked out, and some soldiers will use bayonets to cut relief rations into various handicrafts or small daily necessities in their spare time. For example, the pipe you see is the veteran Shi Zhiqi, Admiral of the Marine Corps The pipes made by myself with relief rations. In addition, General Panda, the engineer, has collected relief ration pipes from all years since the advent of relief rations. Please see, this is the private collection donated to our museum by Pan Yuanlao. They bring There are different smells, such as seafood in Shengwu, cumin and spicy in Shengliu, coconut in Shengqiu, and potatoes in Shengba because of the expanded production capacity of the chemical fertilizer plant in the previous year. And the sweet potato harvest, which led to the livestock industry, added corned beef grains—unprecedented at the time. We can still see whole corned beef grains on the surface of pipes. Therefore, the relief rations of the Holy Eight Years The pipes made are also called Great Harvest pipes..."
――Explanation of relief ration pipes by the lecturer of the Imperial Military Museum
The people in Lingao, whether they are naturalized people or aboriginals, now know that the Australians are about to have a large-scale operation.

This is not groundless - anyone who has a little understanding of the way "Australians" or "thieves" behave knows: the busy scene in the food factory of the Ministry of Light Industry reveals this disturbing omen .

在文澜河畔食品厂的新厂房里，救济口粮正在大规模投产，而草地干粮的产量也比平常增加了3倍。从3月份开始，食品厂的任务是每个月生产10万份1号救济口粮和2万份草地系列干粮。企划院下达的任务是：到1631年6月底，完成40万份1号救济口粮，5万份1号速食汤块。到年底前完成完成120万份的年度总订货。此外还下达了其他速食品的订单，包括鱼露、咸鱼、酱菜、咸菜、泡菜、饼干和糖果等等。

Various food enterprises under the Ministry of Light Industry and the People's Committee of Agriculture: grain processing factories, seafood processing factories, and food factories have all expanded their scale and increased their personnel. The 850 naturalized workers were divided into two shifts and all vacations were cancelled.Production is carried out at a rate of 7 hours a day, 24 days a week.

The roads from Bopu to various food factories have been renovated and all have been changed to high-grade cinder hardened roads.Heavy ox carts and light purple electric trolleys run on the road, their wheels rolling.The factory gate looks no different from factories in other industrial areas except that cars come in and out from morning to night.However, when producing instant food with a lot of spices, people nearby can smell the strong fragrance.

食品厂每天有许许多多的车辆进进出出搬运货物。有的甚至食用车载的冷藏柜送来得：150公斤一筐的各种蔬菜；50公斤一袋的糙米、米粉、豆子；100公斤一包的红薯干和红薯粉；50公斤一筐的水果；50公斤一包的蔗糖和食盐；5公斤一包的香料；50公斤的一箱的咸鱼和鲜鱼；5公升包装的鱼露……最后是最为稀罕的食品：油脂。用5公升容量木桶或者陶瓷罐包装着。里面的内容五花八门：除了常见的豆油和猪油，还有腥味扑鼻的鱼油和各式各样的可供人食用的植物油。

The floor and walls of the newly built workshop are all covered with ceramic tiles, and rows of glass windows are used for lighting, and multi-layer screens are installed on the ventilation windows, ranging from ordinary roving to spun yarn that can be used for clothing.Block even the tiniest flying insects from entering.When workers enter and leave the workshop, they have to dip into the lime pool, change their clothes, and wash their hands carefully.Workers in white overalls, hoods, masks, and oilskin overshoes process raw materials.Most ingredients are ground into powders, and vegetables and fruits are processed into pastes or dried products.Then according to the formula, various raw materials are continuously poured into the big pot for processing.Then add water to the stirring pot for stirring—the stirring pot is driven by a steam engine driven by a transmission shaft on the zenith. A newly installed large stirring pot can stir 250 kg of raw materials at a time.

Industrial ports are temporarily unable to produce stainless steel, and aluminum cannot be produced because of cost and energy issues.Therefore, most of the processing equipment in the food factory uses tin-plated iron sheets, and a few small-sized processing equipment uses copper, and some use glass or ceramics.

After stirring well, the paste is steam heated to 100°C to ensure that the food is fully cooked.Then the paste is poured into the mould, and the mould, which is mounted on a rotating chain plate, is drawn into a gas-heated continuous kiln for drying.The biscuits that shrink during the drying process automatically fall out of the mold when the chain plate rotates and fall on the large tinplate tray.

Since there are no latex gloves, the workers are not allowed to touch the food and wrapping paper with their hands when packing, except that they must use disinfectant to sanitize their hands before entering the workshop.All done with clips.

The packaged relief rations were put into the disinfection room, heated to 120°C with superheated dry steam from a special boiler, and then cooled to 40°C.After sterilization, the rations are packed into a standard 20-liter wooden box.The wooden box is lined with oiled paper coated with persimmon oil to ensure that it will not seep through.Then put a bag of lime in the box as a desiccant.A striking black font is printed on the lime package: "Recyclable materials, pay attention to recycling!" - not only lime packages, but also similar warnings on cartons and wooden boxes.

In addition to supplying relief rations that individuals can eat at any time, the food factory also produces relief rations for multiple people. The ingredients are exactly the same, but they are made into 2.5 kg lumps.When in use, smash it and add water to boil it into a paste.Known as the "No. [-] local relief ration".This ration is used to recruit refugees when setting up a refugee relief center in the disaster area.

In order to ensure the supply of vitamins and avoid beriberi and sepsis due to the lack of vitamins in a single diet, the food factory will produce 1.5 kilograms of dehydrated vegetables and dried fruits in addition to instant soup cubes.In addition, the grain processing factory has to prepare 5 kilograms of brown rice—used to prepare meals in the transit camp.Brown rice is also processed: it is boiled and then thoroughly dried.This way porridge can be cooked without much fuel.In an emergency, it can also be eaten directly.

(End of this chapter)