After leaving the 'Shield of Lake Light', it was already afternoon. Roland Hill looked at the high sun and decided to find a restaurant nearby to settle lunch and sit for a while.
This time, Lorraine Hill did not look for those luxuriously decorated restaurants, but instead found an ordinary restaurant to see what ordinary people in this country eat.
There was a slightly noisy sound from the open store door. Customers in twos and threes were sitting in the store. Occasionally, they could hear the sound of the kitchen cooking food, and the fragrance of wheat permeated the store.
The dock porters and workshop workers on the ground floor will not come to the restaurant to eat, which is too extravagant for them. Usually, they put up a large pot near the work place and cook some noodles, soup, vegetables and the like. Most of the people who sit and eat here are tourists, sailors and some small businessmen who travel to and from Hopelander, and they can be regarded as ordinary people with average income in the city.
Roland Hill sat down for a while, and a boy walked over quickly with small steps. He was a little fat, and his nostrils were a little big. He couldn't say that he looked good. thing.
"Excuse me, what do the guests want for lunch?" The 14-15-year-old boy had a strange accent, not like a native of Hopeland. He asked excitedly.
The girl looked at the introduction on the wooden menu in his hand.
The staple food is simple several kinds of bread, including rough brown bread with bran, white bread made of refined flour, and freshly baked bread with dried fruit.
Non-staple food or vegetables are some vegetable soup, sausage, bacon, dried fish, grilled fish, and there are also two kinds of fruits, orange and apple. The only drink to drink is ale.
Several simple and common categories are written on the wooden board, and the handwriting is a little faded. It seems that the food category of this store has not changed much.
"One white bread and two oranges, thank you." If the meat of this era is not freshly made, she generally does not try it.
In a world that lacks freezing and fresh-keeping technology, meat is generally preserved in heavy salt for long-term storage. It is difficult to directly eat it without boiling it in the noodle soup.
"Okay, wait a moment." After the little boy wrote it down, he ran away quickly, and after a while, a food tray came out from the back of the kitchen, with the things the girl ordered on it.
Roland Hill looked at it, and it was relatively clean. The plates were all simple pottery. The golden bread was lightly shiny and still warm to the touch. Although it was not freshly baked, it was noon today. Made it, it didn't take long.
While eating the bread in small bites, she also looked at the recipes of the people around her, most of which were cheaper brown bread and a few dried fish. By the sea, fish is abundant and cheap, and is the source of meat protein in most people's diets.
If you want to eat meat in the inland, it is not so convenient. Some small merchants will also transport dried fish preserved in salt to the inland as a commodity with dual attributes of salt and food, but there are still many mainlanders who cannot afford it.
There is a table next to it that is quite rich. In the middle is a large pot of noodle soup, with vegetables and sausage slices in it, which are boiled on a small stove. There were 5 adults, 3 children and 1 old man around, and several adult men were holding large glasses of ale.
When the girl finished eating the bread and started peeling the oranges, the family was ready to settle the bill.
"Waiter, come to checkout." One of the leading brown-haired men shouted.
"Okay, I'll be right here."
Then there was the sound of the boy writing and drawing on the back of the board, and after a while he quoted the price.
"A large porridge soup, 10 white bread, 3 vegetables, 4 cups of ale, 2 sausages, 3 dried fish, a total of 2 silver coins and 18 copper coins."
The brown-haired man was stunned for a while, then said, "Did you make a mistake! There's more than 2 silver coins in this table?"
The boy was frightened by his suddenly loud tone, and after careful calculation, he spoke slowly.
"Sorry guest, I made a mistake. There are 2 silver coins and 10 copper coins in total, and each cup of ale is 2 copper coins more because the price has been adjusted recently."
"What the hell are you doing!?" The man slapped the table, and the shaking plates moved, making him even more excited. The fat boy's body trembled in fright.
"Doing this kind of thing at a young age is so darn shameful. I have seen a lot of cheating tricks in the gutter."
"What? I'm crying like a little girl. Are you funny?" The man said, turning to the other people in the store with a sneer on his face, and there were bursts of laughter all around.
"I... .. I'm sorry... I made a mistake. I'll give you some deductions." Clear the siege.
"Emotion, are you kidding me?" The brown-haired man grinned, leaned back in the chair, and tapped the table with his fingers.
"You were the one who said you should charge more money at first, but now you are the one who said you should charge less money. You are playing me like a gray monkey in the mountains~"
"I... I'm not... I'm sorry." His voice was a little choked, and his body trembled slightly.
"Oh, I'm sorry now, why did you go earlier, you are very interesting."
Everyone else in the store looked at the table, and from time to time there was a sound of pointing, and the boy became more and more frightened.
"Don't keep your head down, did your mother teach you to tell others that?"
"Yes, raise your head." Following the brown-haired man's voice, the boy raised his head slowly, snot and tears mixed together, and the already large nostrils got bigger.
"The way you look reminds me of a... good pet in my hometown."
"It eats and sleeps every day, sleeps and eats, and likes to roll in the mud, and likes to make noises when it eats."
"Can you learn its sound?"
The boy looked at the people present with tears in his eyes, everyone was staring at him, and there was no sound, as if they were expecting a good show. There was sadness, grievance and fear in his heart.
... .
…
"Hum... .. hum... .." After a while, with intermittent choking sounds, he learned to call pigs.
"Hahaha, he really learned."
"interesting."
"Hahaha, what is this called, pig-headed boy?" There was laughter from people around, as if seeing a live joke.
"Enough!" Lorraine Hill slapped the table, the scene suddenly became quiet, and then she stood up.
The brown-haired man looked up and down the girl. "I said... This lady, it has nothing to do with you. I just taught this clerk out of good intentions, and he will suffer a lot in the future if he is so speculative and slippery."
"You're just taking the opportunity to insult people." The girl responded coldly, then walked over and took out three silver coins and placed them on the table.
"Let's go after dinner."
"you... ... "
The brown-haired man wanted to say something, but he watched the girl forcefully press a silver coin into the solid wooden table with her fingers, with a horrified expression on her face, and then stood up in a panic, pulling her family. Get out and leave quickly.
"Cut, it's boring."
The audience around the theater slowly dispersed, and at this time the boy dared to cry loudly. The tears of grievance blurred the originally ugly face, making it even more ugly and distorted.