Fields of gold

Chapter 346- 350

She taught every single northeastern cuisine dish she knew to the imperial chefs. The master opened the door, but cultivation progress depended on the individual person. It was up to the chefs to rely on their own talents to see if they were able to make these dishes up to par with the emperor emeritus's tastes.

The young prince had his common purslane rock candy as treatment. In addition, Yu Xiaocao created menus of food for him, so gradually his body recovered. In the imperial kitchen, Yu Xiaocao came up with some new snacks, such as animal crackers, cakes filled with jam, sheep's milk pudding, and egg tarts. The food she made changed almost every day and never repeated itself.

Once the young prince was able to get out of bed, he followed Yu Xiaocao like a little tail every day. When he saw her, he was even more happy to see her than when he saw his father or mother. The empress felt some pangs of jealousy while the emperor laughingly scolded him for being a foodie and an ungrateful brat...

After her sixth day in the palace, the imperial physicians announced that the young prince's illness had completely healed. Thus, Yu Xiaocao also took her leave and left with a bunch of valuable presents given to her by the emperor and empress. The young imperial prince reluctantly said farewell to her at the steps of Jingyang Palace and waved his little hands, looking forward to her next visit.

Prior to entering the Imperial Palace, Yu Xiaocao had been preoccupied with the conundrum on what to do with the Yu Family's residence in the prefectural city. It had a very good location, so leaving it empty was such a waste. Now, she finally came to a decision. She decided to open a braised food shop in the prefectural city. It would be a regular shop and would have a place to also sell roasted chicken and duck as well.

However, the thing giving her the most trouble at the moment was where to get the raw ingredients. The locust plague had just happened. Although the prefectural city's area wasn't particularly hard-hit by the disaster, there were still significant losses. Almost all of the farmlands had sharp decreases in their crop outputs. Without grain on hand, the families that raised pigs and chickens had all slaughtered their animals prior to the start of winter.

Although the weather had been good at the start of spring and the grass had started growing, how could families that raised poultry rely only on grass to feed their livestock? Spring was a time when people still relied on their stores of food, and many commoners were having trouble filling their stomachs let alone have any extra grain to raise chickens. Thus, she had a problem. If she wanted to open her braised food shop, she needed to start raising chickens and pigs now. However, her family had over a hundred mu of fields to tend and their vegetable stand to manage. If they started to raise a lot of chickens and pigs, she was afraid there wouldn't be enough people at home to do the work...

After thinking things through, she finally came to a decision. She was going to write a letter to her father, who had gone back home after escorting her to the capital, to tell him to buy some land near the foot of the mountain from the village chief so they could construct a piggery. Enclosed with the letter was also a blueprint she drew for the piggery.

Spring plowing had just ended so her three maternal uncles weren't very busy. Thus, she planned on having them go to the villages that weren't as hard hit by the disaster to buy and catch as many piglets as they could. Afterwards, they could spread the piglets among families they were close to raise. The Yu Family would provide the food to raise these pigs. Once construction on the piggery was finished, they didn't need to worry about getting more piglets in the future.

As for who would take charge of raising the pigs, she had also thought this through. Currently, the business at the docks was slow, so she was planning on having Xiaolian bring Eldest Maternal Aunt and her youngest daughter over to help with managing the piggery. As for compensation, if Eldest Maternal Aunt didn't want to get paid on account of familial relations, then she planned on giving her two large fat pigs at the end of the season. Right now there was a shortage of grain, so there weren't many people raising pigs. Thus, pork prices would only continue to rise and not fall, at least until the next year. Two large fat pigs could be sold for at least a few dozen taels each!