Li An didn't want to disturb the villagers here, but since the old man was sincerely invited, it would not be appropriate if he didn't go, and Li An also wanted to drink the sweet well water from the boiling local cool well.

"Since the old man is sincerely invited, then we are disrespectful, you just wait here!"

Li An and Lao Guo each led one guard to follow the old man, and the other eight guards stayed near the well to wait, mainly because if too many people went together, it would seem chaotic, especially a dozen horses, which would interfere too much with the villagers in the village, and the formation was too big.

"Uncle, how many people are there in your family!"

Ang Lee asked.

The old man replied with a smile: "Not much, just eight people." ”

"Oops! Eight is not a lot! Not a lot. ”

Lao Guo sighed.

For a big family, there will definitely be a lot of people in the family, but for an ordinary person, there are generally not too many talents in the family, and there can be eight people, which is really a lot.

"Let me guess, it must be the second son, the second grandson, plus two daughters-in-law, counting the old couple exactly eight people."

Li An opened his mouth to guess.

Generally, many ordinary families have such a structure, two sons, each marrying a wife and having children, plus the old man is exactly eight people, which is very perfect.

"Yuanke is right, that's right, this is the eldest grandson, and there is another one in the family who hasn't learned to walk yet?"

When the old man talked about his grandson, his eyes were full of kind expressions.

Soon, Ang Lee and Lao Guo arrived at the old man's house, but there was an old woman busy at home, and there seemed to be children's voices in the house.

"Old woman, these are the two original guests, hurry up and get some hot water, and there is a big bowl, the guests want to taste the sweet well water we have here."

The old man spoke.

The old lady quickly brought the boiling water, put it in front of Li An and the old man, and invited with a smile.

"It's delicious, it's sweeter than when it's cold! Ha ha! ”

Ang Lee took a sip and praised with great satisfaction.

Lao Guo nodded with great satisfaction, and even the two guards drank some water at the warm invitation of the old woman and praised it for being delicious.

"Old woman, where are they?"

The old man asked.

"You're all working in the fields, and you can't come back until dark?"

The old lady replied.

Li An took a casual look, the life of this family is not bad, there is a lot of food in the front and back of the house, and there are dried sweet potatoes in the yard, which is enough to show that sweet potatoes have been very popular, and in just a few years, they have spread to such a remote area.

"This is a sweet potato! How much more? ”

Li An walked to the side of the dried sweet potatoes, looked at these thin slices of dried sweet potatoes, and said with a smile.

"Yes, these were harvested last fall, and that's just a small part, and there's a lot more? Thanks to this thing, otherwise, we would all be hungry. ”

The old man said excitedly.

"I couldn't fill my stomach here before?"

Ang Lee asked.

"I'm not afraid of jokes from afar, we don't have many paddy fields here, there are a lot of dry fields, the harvest of crops is very low, I used to often not have enough to eat, now there are sweet potatoes are different, this thing can be planted in dry fields, and the harvest is much higher than that of paddy fields, no topdressing is several times the harvest of the previous dry fields, this is a great help to our crops, this small sweet potato, feeding too many people, if there are no these sweet potatoes, many of us here are afraid that they will starve!"

The old man said excitedly.

According to the technology of Datang in this era, an acre of dry wheat, in the case of top dressing, can produce two or three hundred catties is very good, if not top dressing, one acre of land can produce two hundred catties is more.

But planting sweet potatoes is completely different, sweet potatoes per mu yield of more than 1,000 catties is not a difficult thing, even if there is no fertilizer, an acre of real estate more than 1,000 catties is an easy thing, if it is top dressing, an acre of land easily has two or three thousand catties, is ten times the previous wheat harvest, and the most awesome sweet potato yield per mu in later generations, even can reach as much as 10,000 catties, more than tens of thousands of catties, it is simply a myth.

In short, no matter what, the yield of sweet potatoes is very high, which is incomparable to wheat and other local crops in the Tang Dynasty, and the gap is as much as ten times.

What kind of concept is this for the common people to have the same land, and the grain production has increased tenfold, which means that ten times more people can be fed, and the increase in population cannot reach ten times more in a short period of time, so there will always be a surplus of grain, that is, every family has a surplus of food, and the life of the common people will become very good.

Of course, the yield of 1,000 catties of sweet potatoes per mu refers to wet sweet potatoes, and when the sweet potatoes are dried, the weight will be reduced, but at most it will be reduced by about half, and the yield is far more than that of wheat crops.

"That's right! Sweet potatoes are a good thing, not only delicious, but also high enough yield, the people rely on sweet potatoes to live, sweet potatoes have saved a lot of people? ”

Ang Lee also sighed.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, the population increased a lot at once, for example, the population of the Qing Dynasty increased more than threefold in one hundred years, from 100 million to more than 300 million.

Among them, the most important reason is because at the end of the Ming Dynasty, sweet potatoes, potatoes and corn came from the West these high-yield plants, the introduction of these high-yield plants is the most critical factor that led to the three-fold increase in population in a hundred years, if there is no such high-yield plants, the population will not reach such a huge number in any case, and high-yield crops are the biggest contributors to the increase in population.

"Come on, original guest, this is a freshly steamed sweet potato, and dried sweet potato, try it! It's sweet, sweeter than well water. ”

The old woman brought hot steamed sweet potatoes and steamed dried sweet potatoes, these are their breakfast, just now they have been steamed in a cage, taken away by the son and daughter-in-law, they eat while walking, in addition, they will leave some to eat when they are hungry in the afternoon, this second cage is the ration of their old couple and two little grandchildren, after all, in the countryside, the main labor is the most important, they must eat first, and then the children and the elderly, this is not like the society of later generations, the children and the elderly are ranked first, after all, Work can not be delayed, strong laborers can eat earlier can go to work earlier, the elderly and children do not have the task of work, naturally can eat later.

Since these delicacies have been delivered to hand, it is a little inappropriate not to eat them, and it tastes good, although Lao Guo and Li An have come over for breakfast, but they don't eat much for breakfast, and eating some sweet potatoes is considered a snack.

"Not bad! It tastes very sweet. ”

Ang Li picked up a piece of dried sweet potato, put it in his mouth and ate it.

Lao Guo directly took a whole sweet potato, ate it too, and praised the taste as sweet, and the guards naturally ate some symbolically.

The sweet potatoes in this place absorb all the local water sources, and it is normal to be sweeter, after all, one side of the water and soil nourishes one side of the people, and the sweet potatoes nourished by the sweet water source are naturally sweet.

If sweet potatoes are to be stored for a long time, there are two main ways, one is to slice and dry the sweet potatoes to make dried sweet potatoes, and the other is to dig a cellar and hide the sweet potatoes in the cellar, so that the sweet potatoes can also be well preserved.

Although these two methods of preserving sweet potatoes are feasible, the taste of preserved sweet potatoes is different, so, under normal circumstances, people will take both methods, one part of the slice is made into dried sweet potatoes, and the other part is directly placed in the cellar, which is equivalent to two kinds of food, and you will not feel tired of eating it.

The sweet sweet potatoes are delicious, and Li An ate several pieces unconsciously, and felt a little panicked in his stomach.

The old man, the old woman, and the two little babies are also eating sweet potatoes, and the way they eat sweet potatoes is very interesting, and they eat them directly with the skin.

And Li An looked back, Lao Guo and the two guards also ate the skin together when they ate sweet potatoes, only Li An peeled the skin and ate it, whether it was a whole sweet potato or a dried sweet potato, Li An didn't like to eat the skin, one was that he felt a little dirty, and the other was that the sweet potato skin was really not delicious, and even, there were a lot of fibrous roots on the sweet potato skin, which made people lose their appetite.

"At first glance, this distant guest is a very blessed person since he was a child, and he wants to peel sweet potatoes when he eats them, haha!"

The old man spoke.

Li An smiled: "Uncle has a good eye, my family is very wealthy, I have not worried about eating and drinking since I was a child, and it has become a habit to be picky about eating, it is not easy to change!" ”

Catering to others to speak, everyone is happy, and Ang Lee has already learned this.

"By the way, uncle, how many meals do you eat a day!"

Ang Lee asked.

"There is a meal in the morning and a meal in the afternoon, but now there are sweet potatoes, and there is nothing to eat without a meal, and if you feel hungry, you can take it and eat it at any time, and every household has sweet potatoes that you can't eat, and you don't have to worry about being hungry after eating."

The old man spoke.

Since ancient times, many people in rural areas have two meals a day, one meal in the morning and one meal in the afternoon, one meal at about eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and four or five o'clock in the afternoon, which can basically meet the needs of a person for a day.

If you need to get up early in the morning and go to the field, you will turn your breakfast directly into dry food, take it to the field, and then eat breakfast for an hour, or eat a little in the morning, bring more dry food to the field, and eat it again at noon when it is hot, so that you can eat three meals a day.

Therefore, three meals and two meals are coexisting, in many rural areas, you can eat three meals when you need to, but if you don't need to work, you will only eat two meals a day, which is more reasonable, after all, people are more tired when working, and eating one more meal can better replenish physical strength, and when you don't work, you really don't need to eat three meals a day, and one meal in the morning and afternoon is enough.

In addition, the cause of two meals a day is also related to the backward productivity, in the era of gas and electricity popularization, cooking a meal is a very simple thing, it does not take much energy at all, but in the countryside where the productivity is backward, it takes a lot of effort to cook a meal, often it takes an hour or two to make a meal, or even longer, so if you eat three meals a day, it will not be to exhaust the cook.

Li An had such an experience in his previous life, before his relatives in his hometown cooked, he needed to go to the puddle a few miles away to fetch water, and he had to go to the vegetable garden to pull vegetables, and after picking water, he could wash the vegetables, and then, he had to prepare firewood, grass and firewood, and then he could start cooking, and at least a few more side dishes should be fried for a meal, so after a period of friction, it would take an hour or two to eat a delicious meal.

There is no gas and electricity, and the speed of cooking is greatly limited, which directly leads to the fact that the countryman only eats two meals, gets up at seven o'clock in the morning, and cooks for two hours, it is already nine o'clock, and at nine o'clock, it is almost ten o'clock after eating, and naturally there will be no appetite at noon, and at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, people will feel hungry, so they will eat a second meal.

Rural people generally go to bed very early at night, and it is very common to blow the lamp to sleep at seven or eight o'clock, so people are already asleep before the food is completely digested.

Many urban people in later generations lived very irregularly, and they could eat three or even four meals a day, but many of them only ate two meals, which is the so-called lunch and dinner, or lunch and supper, and they didn't eat breakfast directly.

Because later generations have the Internet to use, the time to go to bed is very late, the next morning will not wake up, just get up about ten o'clock, a little activity, twelve o'clock to eat the first meal is the most suitable.

And because there are not many activities, I will not have an appetite at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and I will forget to eat dinner, and when I wait until eleven or twelve o'clock, I will find that I am hungry, so I order a takeout and eat the second meal of the day, and this meal can only be regarded as a supper.

One meal is lunch, the second meal is supper, this way of life, has great harm to people's bodies, but many young people in later generations, this is how they eat, they eat is so awesome, they don't think about their bodies at all, until the day the body collapses, they will not regret it.

Forget if the meal time is unreasonable, if the food you eat is healthy, it is also good, but many people like to eat heavy food, although these foods are delicious, but the damage to the human body is great, often eat these foods, people's bodies will suffer great damage, or how many years, there will be great problems in the stomach, and even incurable gastrointestinal diseases, and even a person's life.

Therefore, eating is a big problem, and it must not be treated sloppily, if a person does not take care of his body, sooner or later the body will take revenge on himself.

"Uncle! It's not enough to eat two meals a day, one meal in the morning, noon and evening, three meals a day is the best, but also, if you have sweet potatoes, there is no problem of eating several meals a day, but just eating sweet potatoes is not nutritious enough, and you still have to eat some vegetables in the morning, boiled eggs or something. ”

Li An said.