Rebirth Space Farming

Chapter 408 Jumping Memories

After entering "Yuelai Building", the waiter in the store greeted Locke very familiarly, and then led six people to sit in a small private room separated by a screen.

In Chinatown, where Sichuan and Cantonese dishes are everywhere, such a Chinese restaurant with a Northwest flavor is really not easy to be discovered, and I don't know how Locke found it.

There are three Chinese people present here, only Zhou Ziang has been to XJ, and has a little understanding of the folk customs and food in the Northwest, and the rest of Xiaoxian and Yiyi have no idea about the food in the Northwest.

As for Aisha and Peili, they came here to follow.

After Locke ordered, after a while, a plate of cakes with crispy skin and golden topping was served.

"The queen mother's cake is a famous snack in Shaanxi, China. It is said that it was the favorite pastry of a certain queen mother in the Han Dynasty in China. Everyone should try it." With Aisha present, Locke didn't say anything else. After eating.

Noodles in Northwest China are unique in China. When Xiaoxian and Yiyi were in Sacred Heart High School, they liked to eat sliced ​​noodles outside the school.

Compared with the pizza that Europeans and Americans often eat, which is sprinkled with layers of vegetables, beef and seafood, the appearance of the queen dowager's pancake in front of several people's eyes can be called simple.

To put it bluntly, it is a piece of flour dough mixed with lard suet. After kneading, it is shaped into a cake embryo and brushed with a layer of egg white before entering the oven.This kind of pasta has an advantage, it is delicious both hot and cold.

Among them, Aisha was the most picky about food. In order not to embarrass Locke, she tore off a piece of cake and chewed a few mouthfuls.

"Well, it tastes really good. The skin is very crispy without being burnt. The flour is hot and soft. The salty and sweet tastes are well balanced," Yiyi ate a few mouthfuls, full of praise.

"It's not too bad," Aisha was also a little surprised, she didn't expect such an unremarkable piece of bread to have such a rich taste.

"You guys are not lucky. In fact, the original taste of this kind of cake is better. It is because the old master who made the cake was not in good health. Now his son is taking over. Although the craftsmanship is not bad, it is not my old craftsmanship after all. It’s inevitable that it will come close,” Locke said half proudly and half regretfully.

A few more dishes came up one after another. During the meal, Zhou Ziang picked up some dishes for Xiaoxian a few times, which made Aisha feel sour again.

"I won't eat it, it's nothing more than that, it's greasy and dirty, the Chinese pastry made by our pastry chef tastes much better than this." Aisha was in a bad mood, so she spilled her anger on the food, got up and said A few people were left behind.

Perry looked at the few people present, "Team leader, you'd better pay attention, otherwise not only you, but they won't get any benefits." After she finished speaking, she also left.

"Lock, you called us here, it's not really just for dinner, right?" Zhou Ziang also heaved a sigh of relief after hearing Pei Li's warning, he didn't make any expressions, but waited until the person left, then he raised his doubts.

According to him, Locke is not a person who is better than his appetite.

"Well?" Locke's eyes were blank for a moment, as if he was recalling something, "You must also be curious, how did I, who only knows how to work in the research room all day, discover this restaurant. I invite you It’s really not just to eat this kind of famous snack that can be eaten everywhere in Northwest China.”

Locke ordered a pot of tea, and amidst the scent of the tea, he began to talk about the "Queen's Cake" and his origin.

Locke's father was a Jewish scientist and her mother was a Polish pianist.

With a good background and parents' education, Locke was bathed in the love of his parents in the first few years of his life.

But soon, the ruthless war shattered his supposedly colorful childhood.

When Locke was three years old, the Second World War broke out, and his parents were persecuted by the German government because of their nationality.

In order to protect Locke and his sister, his father was kidnapped and sent to a concentration camp in western Poland, and never came back.

Locke's mother was smuggled to the United States with the help of a kind smuggler.

Although life in postwar America was easier than in Europe, it was difficult for a single smuggling mother with her son and daughter.

Locke's mother was a stowaway, and after failing to find a job everywhere, she finally found a job as a dishwashing waiter in New York's Chinatown, which had just been built after the war.

Although the salary is not high, at least there is still some income, which barely feeds the three of them.However, the God of Destiny did not take good care of the Locke family. In order to support the family, Locke's mother turned upside down day and night, and her body lacked nutrition for a long time.When Locke was 13, her mother fell ill with scurvy.

What is even more unfortunate is that shortly after her mother fell ill, Locke's younger sister also fell ill with the same disease. Locke was only a child at that time, unable to send his mother and sister to the doctor for help.In this way, Locke's mother died of illness.

Locke's mother's body was parked for three days in the rented house where they temporarily lived.It wasn't until the boss of the restaurant where she worked saw that she didn't come to work and couldn't be contacted before she came to her.

Locke's mother worked part-time at a Chinese restaurant, and the owner who came to her was Hu Song, the former chef of Yuelailou.

Seeing the miserable situation of Locke's family, he paid for Locke's mother to be buried.

It's just that Locke's sister's illness is still getting worse.
Having said that, Locke paused for a moment.The haze of life had shrouded him for a long time. It was not until later that he won a university scholarship and a job in a research institute through his own efforts that his life improved.

"Then your sister, finally." The food on the table was already cold, Xiaoxian and Yiyi were both moved by Locke's story, even Zhou Ziang was also moved.

Their generation was fortunate enough not to have experienced the smoke of war and was a happy generation.Locke's experience sounds too far away and too unfamiliar, but this does not prevent them from recalling that bloody memory.

Scurvy has almost disappeared in peaceful times.However, in the decades after the war in the last century, tens of thousands of people were killed.

"When Mr. Hu Song sent my sister to the hospital, the hospital had already refused medical treatment. I hugged Susan and begged for a long time outside the operating room of the hospital. In the end, Mr. Hu took the two of us back." Locke His voice became hysterical, and he returned to that terrible cold winter that almost took away all his hope of life.

Zi Ang patted his shoulder, comforting his partner with the typical silence among men.It's no wonder that when Locke gets along with others, he always responds with a strong sense of distrust.That's because he suffered from the indifference of this society in his childhood.

That kind of indifference hurts a person for life, and it was also the indifference encountered during that time that made Locke's character weird.

"So, in the end your younger sister is still..." The eye sockets of the two female students were a little red.

"My sister just became a grandmother last month. Her daughter gave birth to a mixed-race child, and her husband is a Chinese from Hong Kong, China." At this point in the narration, the topic suddenly changed, Locke's tone became cheerful, and In his hand, he grabbed another Queen Mother cake.

"Didn't it mean that the hospitals refused to take him in? Could it be that you found some powerful experts later?" Locke went from a Jewish outcast to an internationally renowned scientist, and there must have been extraordinary encounters in the process.Xiao Xian and the others were not easy to ask about the details, but they couldn't bear their curiosity.

"Things are not as complicated as you think. What saved my sister is the Queen Mother's cake in front of everyone," Locke smiled, pointing to the cake on the table.

"It's this kind of cake?" Xiaoxian and the others couldn't believe it.If there was a famine, a piece of cake might save a life, but how could scurvy save Locke's sister with just a piece of cake without medical treatment?
"When you ate the cake just now, did you find anything different, such as what material this cake is made of?" Locke was not in a hurry to reveal the answer, but first tested everyone's tongue.

"I can answer this. I am the best at eating. My dad said since I was a child that my tongue and sense of taste are more sensitive than police dogs." Seeing Yiyi's lively appearance, Locke also smiled and asked her to continue. go on.

Yiyi took a few more mouthfuls of the cake, savored it carefully, and acted like a gourmet: "First of all, the basic material of this cake is refined wheat flour, and boiled lard, um, it should be added I added some chili water and star anise to enhance the taste. Then there are white sesame seeds, some sugar, and refined salt.” There are a lot of ingredients.

Locke smiled and said nothing, Yiyi scratched her head, "There is also egg white liquid, which is usually only added to western pastries. I think Yuelailou probably learned some western baking techniques."

"It's like saying I missed it," Xiao Xian looked at the cut queen queen cakes.

"Missed it? No way, my mouth is so tricky," Yiyi wondered, turning the cake over and over again.

"It should be said that I made a mistake. I just saw an old lady who came to buy a few cakes. She asked the waiter if she could pack the gift box and say how long the shelf life is. She wanted to send it back to relatives in China. , the cakes here are sweet but not greasy, and this kind of sweetness is not like white sugar," Zhou Ziang said, he observed carefully, and when everyone was vying to eat the cakes, he was the only one paying attention to the situation around him.

"Hey, I see, it's not sugar, it's honey. No wonder I think there is a faint scent of flowers in this cake, it should be fresh honey and egg white, brushed with a layer before and after it comes out of the oven," Yiyi With a sudden slap on the forehead, Zhou Ziang felt a little less jealous in his heart. This man is really meticulous. Compared with him, he is a fool.

"Honey?" Xiaoxian remembered the beekeeping hive in the research center, and looked at Locke, who nodded at Xiaoxian, as if confirming what Xiaoxian was thinking.

~Going home last night, I saw the pink ticket of "Li Yuxue", thank you, in fact, Fuzi is quite lucky, there are so many new and old faces appearing every month, touching~
(End of this chapter)