Chapter 104 Diet
October 3, 1867.
Mbeya, Ininaia village.
Ayigul Yahefu is preparing breakfast for her husband and herself.
Aygul Yahefu is an Armenian who was bought by Arab slave traders from the nobles of the Ottoman Empire and trafficked to the East African colonies.
She was awarded as a "prize" to Zhao Yizhan, a model model recognized by the colonial government.
Zhao Yizhan is a Chinese immigrant, one of the first group of people to arrive in Mbeya, that is, the first group of Chinese immigrant troops organized in the colony.
At the beginning, Zhao Yizhan led a group of one hundred people, but only ninety-seven survived to reach Mbeya, and three of his comrades fell on the bad march.
Later, Mbeya became the capital of the Upper Malawi Lake District, and the East African colonial government set up villages and developed land in the entire East African colonial territory.
Ininaya Village also existed near Mbeya, and Zhao Yizhan was assigned to Ininaya Village as a veteran team member and became a member of the Ininaya Village Security Team.
Zhao Yizhan was originally from Shandong, and he was not short, reaching 1.78 meters (at the beginning of the 20th century, the average height of many European and American countries was less than 1.70 meters). When he was in the Far East, he was a little skinny because he couldn't eat. looks like a big hemp stalk
Although Zhao Yizhan was still malnourished when he first arrived in the East African colony, he was full of vigor when he started working after eating and drinking.
The whole person is in a good state of mind. He was selected as a member of the first batch of Chinese soldiers in the first town, and finally embarked on a journey to conquer Mbeya.
In this year when Mbeya was a soldier, Zhao Yizhan's obedience and tenacity were also appreciated by his superiors, and he was appointed as the backbone of the newly established Ininaya Village (after all, there are only a few people in the village security team, and there is only one person on his head). The head of the German village and a Hexingen student who led the team, so they also belong to high positions in the village.)
Later, catching up with the "purge" movement, Mbeya was located on the main traffic route from the indigenous people to the southwest (in the direction of Zimbabwe and Zambia).
The local government of Mbeya not only has to maintain the smooth flow of passages to ensure that the indigenous tribes will not stay, but also is responsible for the task of expelling the local indigenous tribes. Therefore, Mbeya has a relatively heavy workload and responsibilities.
And in this way, Mbeya can earn a lot of achievements. In the follow-up, he took advantage of applying for female quotas, and Zhao Yizhan also organized militias (temporary expansion) in this purge campaign. Outstanding among peers.
Became the first batch of people assigned to daughter-in-law, Ayigul Yahefu married Zhao Yizhan at that time.
The East African colony, the Mbeya government, personally issued the marriage certificate of the two.
As an Armenian woman, Aygul Yahefu is actually not very good at handling East African ingredients.
The place where the Armenians live is located in the Transcaucasus region of West Asia. It has been influenced by Greek culture and Persian culture in history, so the food style is a mix of Greek, Persian, Turkish and Arabic cuisine.
The Armenians live in high mountains, valleys, and plateaus, not to mention the harsh environment, and the transportation is not very convenient.
Compared with West Asia, East Africa seems to be a bit of a "land of fish and rice".
East Africa is quite rich in products. All kinds of tropical fruits and vegetables are suitable for growing here. The fertile and flat land provides sufficient food production. There are also many rivers and lakes, flying in the sky, running on the ground, and swimming in the water. Yes, there are all kinds of ingredients.
East Africa is currently promoting the use of fish instead of wild animals as a meat supplement, and the Armenians are also good at handling fish.
However, in the face of many ingredients in East Africa, Aigul Yahefu still has no experience in handling them.
At this time, Zhao Yizhan's advantages are reflected. As a native of the Far East, Zhao Yizhan can certainly cook, but he just knows how to cook, and cannot cook delicious food.
Even so, he still taught Ayigul Yahefu how to fry, cook, and make pancakes, noodles and other oriental cooking skills.
Although these items look simple, they can already handle most foods.
Although Zhao Yizhan’s food is relatively simple, it reflects the combination of Chinese and Western. Anyway, it’s good to be able to eat enough these days, and no one cares much about the taste of the food.
As an agricultural planting area, East Africa has considerable food production capacity, and one person can get about one catty of rations a day.
Zhao Yizhan, as a model soldier and a member of the security team, can be allocated one and a half catties of rations a day, and Ayigul Yahefu, as a woman, can also get nearly seven taels of food. The two of them add up to just over two catties.
Plus irregular meat supply, and vegetables grown by oneself, as well as wild vegetables and fruits in the field.
In this era, the living conditions of Zhao Yizhan's family far exceeded the world average, that is, in terms of clothing, housing and transportation, the East African colonies were almost the same, otherwise they were no different from Europe.
Today, Zhao Yizhan’s family’s breakfast consisted of two pieces of toast, one fish broth, and one serving of fried vegetables.
Ayiguli Yahefu is in charge of handling the ingredients, while Zhao Yizhan is in charge of lighting the fire.
In addition to a set of oriental stoves, there is also a West Asian style oven.
Most of the pots and pans in the former East African colonies were imported in bulk from the Far East and Europe.
Since receiving the mainland part of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the brick kilns and handicraft workshops above have also been taken over by the East African colonies and expanded to provide bricks, clay pots, iron pots and other industrial products needed for stoves throughout East Africa.
Of course, apart from families like Zhao Yizhan who cook for themselves, there are also a large number of canteens in East Africa. After all, there are still a lot of bachelors in East Africa who are not married (you can’t eat canteens after they get married.), and their food problems are solved by big pot meals.
However, with the resolution of more and more people’s marriage affairs and the increase of family immigration, the proportion of people who eat at restaurants has begun to gradually decrease.
Soon, the canteen in the village is likely to close down. According to the instructions from above, future family immigrants will be allocated to the village first.
Male single immigrants will be arranged to go to the city first. The East African colonies are currently establishing a number of traditional handicraft workshops to provide simple daily necessities for the development of the East African colonies.
Besides, cities can be more conveniently managed. Immigrants with families are naturally easier to govern than single immigrants. Therefore, family immigrants are given priority to farms at present.
Single immigrants are first allocated to cities with stricter management. East African cities are not the kind of conventional European cities, and citizens enjoy full freedom.
In fact, the cities in East Africa are slightly larger towns, or giant farms, which are called cities only in terms of administration, for the convenience of management and name.
Its industry is still mainly agricultural, but the conditions and transportation of these cities are advantageous. Even if the East African colonial government interferes with its development, relying on its own conditions, it will become a regional center in the future.
(end of this chapter)