Chapter 57: Fresh Pork Mooncakes

Usually, Aunt Liu was always the first to arrive, but today she had not shown up yet, which was truly baffling.

Time was tight and the task was heavy; perhaps she had been delayed by something, but they needed to finish the inoculation work as soon as possible today.

Without waiting for Liu Fen, Tong Chuxue led the Luo family and Xu Jinniang to get to work first.

She instructed everyone to first disinfect their hands with white liquor, then take a small amount of the germinated Ganoderma lucidum spores, place them at the opening of the culture substrate bag, and tie the opening tightly.

After working for more than two hours, there was still no sign of Liu Fen.

"Should I go check on Sister Liu at her home?" Xu Jinniang stood up.

Before Xu Jinniang could even step out of the main gate, she saw Liu Fen running over from a distance in small, hurried steps.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm late." Liu Fen panted, smiling with considerable embarrassment. "I was cleaning up things at home last night and woke up late this morning."

"You live alone, what was there to clean up?" Lin Chunyan asked curiously.

"The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up soon, and I was thinking of making some mooncakes, so I was looking everywhere for the molds at home last night," Liu Fen said.

Reminded by her, the others suddenly realized that the Mid-Autumn Festival was fast approaching.

For farming households, the Mid-Autumn Festival was an extremely important holiday. The whole family would gather together for a reunion meal, enjoy the bright moon, and eat mooncakes.

Mentioning mooncakes piqued Tong Chuxue's interest.

"Aunt Liu, what kind of filling are you planning to make for your mooncakes?"

Liu Fen replied, "What other filling could there be? Jujube paste, of course."

"Are there no meat-filled ones?" Tong Chuxue asked.

"What? Mooncakes with meat fillings?" This was the first time Liu Fen had ever heard of such a thing.

The others present also found it novel. Who would put meat inside a mooncake? How could one possibly eat that?

Seeing their reaction, Tong Chuxue explained, "There is a kind of mooncake called fresh meat mooncake. It has a flaky crust on the outside and a meat filling on the inside. They are exceptionally delicious."

However, the name sounded completely unfamiliar to them.

"Big Sister, are they really that delicious?" Luo Huiqing asked curiously.

"Of course, fresh meat mooncakes straight out of the oven are the most fragrant." Tong Chuxue could not help reminiscing. She remembered that she once had a friend whose hometown was famous for fresh meat mooncakes, and whenever Mid-Autumn Festival arrived, her friend would make them for her.

"Oven?" Xu Jinniang looked bewildered. "What is an oven?"

"It's a device used to bake mooncakes until they are done," Tong Chuxue said. "Once we're done with the work at hand, I'll build an oven."

Everyone showed immense interest in the novelties Tong Chuxue mentioned and was eager to learn more.

By the end of the day, the inoculation of the Ganoderma lucidum was basically finished. The next step was to bury the bags of culture substrate deep underground and wait for the Ganoderma lucidum to grow. During this period, the entire greenhouse had to be kept dark to facilitate the growth of the mycelium.

"Girl Xue, how do you build this oven you mentioned?" Luo Changhua asked.

Tong Chuxue noticed that Luo Changhua had a strong capacity for accepting new things and was willing to experiment.

Under Tong Chuxue's guidance, Luo Changhua constructed a simple earthen oven.

Ever since Tong Chuxue piqued her appetite, Luo Huiqing had been following closely behind her like a little tail, pestering her every day with endless questions.

Seeing that the oven was ready, Tong Chuxue went to town and bought two strips of pork and a block of lard, preparing to make some fresh meat mooncakes. These mooncakes could be eaten by the family or taken out to sell.

However, Tong Chuxue's culinary skills were truly subpar, so the scene turned into her giving instructions while Xu Jinniang did the cooking.

Seeing Xu Jinniang take a large chunk of lard and knead it together with flour under Tong Chuxue's guidance, Lin Chunyan could not help clicking her tongue twice. "You have to use this much lard?"

In their daily cooking, using a single spoonful of lard was considered luxurious. Now, Xu Jinniang was using a massive chunk at once, making Lin Chunyan's heart ache—just how much would this cost? She finally understood why Tong Chuxue said the fresh meat mooncakes were delicious; with so much lard put into them, how could they not be delicious?

While preparing the dough wrappers, they also needed to prepare the meat filling.

This time it was Tong Chuxue's turn to take charge. Mincing the meat filling just required strength, demanding no sophisticated culinary skills.

As she minced the filling, Tong Chuxue explained the techniques for making fresh meat mooncakes, and Liu Fen listened extremely attentively nearby.

With the wrappers and filling ready, Tong Chuxue rolled out the dough into flat pieces, rolled them up, cut them into segments, wrapped the meat filling inside, patted them into flat cake shapes, and placed them on an iron tray.

She had specially commissioned a carpenter in town to make this iron tray. Finding a baking pan in this era was not easy, so she had to make do. After making ten mooncakes, Tong Chuxue placed the tray into the oven and blocked the opening with a wooden board.

"Chuxue, won't these bake and get ruined?" Xu Jinniang asked, having never seen a so-called oven before and feeling somewhat worried.

"Don't worry, Mother," Tong Chuxue said with great confidence.

Everyone waited anxiously for the finished product to emerge, especially Luo Huiqing, whose eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the oven.

"I think if we take these mooncakes to sell in town, they might fetch a tidy sum," Tong Chuxue fantasized freely during the wait.

"Will anyone actually buy them?" Xu Jinniang was somewhat apprehensive. The cost of mooncakes with meat filling was inherently high, and if they wanted to make a profit, she wondered if anyone would be willing to buy them.

Tong Chuxue, however, was full of confidence. "Mother, these novel treats have the biggest market. If you don't believe me, we'll see when the time comes."

"You child..." Xu Jinniang had no way of dealing with Tong Chuxue either. She could not figure out why this girl was so confident—was she not afraid of losing money?

Actually, Tong Chuxue had already considered Xu Jinniang's worries. But she believed that on important holidays like the Mid-Autumn Festival, people tended to be slightly more generous when buying things, especially those who worked in town and needed to bring gifts back home. Everyone could understand why meat filling was expensive; after all, this was not something eaten every day.

Tong Chuxue cheerfully distributed the freshly baked mooncakes into everyone's hands.

Holding the white, bun-shaped mooncakes, they looked at one another. Xu Jinniang, driven by trust in her daughter, took the very first bite.

The crispy, flaky crust was tender and easy to bite into, and the mooncake filling, which had released its savory meat juices, was utterly irresistible. Farming folk, who could only afford a few bites of meat during festivals, were deeply conquered by this flavor.

While chewing her mooncake, Luo Huiqing praised it with her mouth full, "Big Sister, delicious!"

Luo Changhua and Luo Hui'an, who had also been called over to taste them, gave thumbs up in succession.

"If these are taken out to sell, they will definitely sell very well," Luo Hui'an said.

"It's settled then. Starting tomorrow, we'll go to town to set up a stall and sell mooncakes," Tong Chuxue made a swift decision. "Since we don't know the sales volume yet, let's start by making a hundred of them."

Making a hundred mooncakes was not a difficult task for a house full of people, but to ensure freshness, it was best to make and sell them on the same day.

"Girl Xue, how much are you planning to sell them for?" Liu Fen asked. In her view, something with such high production costs would likely result in a loss if sold too cheaply.

"The price?" Tong Chuxue was actually unsure and hesitated slightly.

"Ten coins each," Luo Hui'an suddenly spoke up. "Mooncakes sold in regular shops generally cost about four coins each. These fresh meat mooncakes have high costs and use meat filling, so they certainly cannot be cheaper than ordinary mooncakes from the shops."