Chapter 19 The construction site canteen
After walking around for a while, Luo Cheng didn't buy anything. He felt like he was done wandering around, and then he came to the braised vegetable shop.
"Boss, how much does your pork head cost per pound?"
"Sixteen pounds, do you want some?"
At sixteen one pound, Luo Cheng felt pretty good, at least fat enough. And the meat seller over there sells raw meat for more than ten yuan a pound.
"Boss, do you have a whole pig's head, the braised kind?"
"A whole pig's head? How big of a pig's head do you want?"
When the boss saw Luo Cheng's inquiry, he didn't sell whole pig heads here. It wasn't that he didn't want to sell them, but how could anyone buy them whole? But he didn't mind doing this business, because he originally bought the whole pig head, divided it into parts, marinated it and sold it.
"How big is a pig's head?"
"About twelve to fifteen pounds."
"Boss, how much does it cost per pound to buy a whole pig head?"
Hearing this question, the owner of the braised vegetables made some mental calculations and found that the cost of buying the pig head was about seven yuan. But the meat will shrink after marinating it, and the ready-made pork head meat he sells does not have bones. A twelve-pound pig head can produce up to seven pounds of meat. Seven pounds of meat and pig ears are slightly more expensive, that is, one hundred and twenty yuan.
A whole pig's head actually costs ten yuan per pound of meat, but even if Luo Cheng wants a pig's head, the boss doesn't want to pay less than ten yuan per pound. Because stewing the whole pig head is more laborious than cutting it into pieces, and it takes more time to get the flavor.
"If you want the whole thing, it's ten yuan a pound, but it's not available today. You have to make a reservation. If you want it, you can pay a deposit and you can get it tomorrow."
After hearing the price, Luo Cheng thought for a while. Naturally, he knew that if he bought a whole pig head, there would be a lot of bones. His father had hunted wild boars before, so he probably had an idea of how much meat a pig head had.
It was a bit more expensive than meat, but it was braised and could be eaten directly. In his time, no one in the town could make it taste like this. At least it needs to be a master chef in the restaurant.
In the end, Luo paid a deposit of fifty yuan, saying that he would only need it the day after tomorrow, and the boss naturally said that it was no problem. Anyway, the marinated stuff won't go bad in a few days. He has to marinate stuff every day anyway, and he will marinate it for Luo Cheng the day after tomorrow or tomorrow.
After finishing the hard dishes for a banquet, the basic dishes for the banquet are ready. The standard is already very high, including pig head meat, stewed pheasant, some wild mushrooms collected from the mountains, scrambled eggs or sliced meat with mushrooms, and stir-fried Chinese cabbage. Even if Accountant Zhao invites the leaders of the town to eat, he will not lose his reputation.
The matter at this meeting is finally settled, and Luo Chengde can implement his plan to make money in his own time. As for rice, if you don’t get enough rice, you won’t make much money. If you get too much, it will be troublesome to carry it to the black market. Meat and eggs are the most convenient, and one thing is that in our own time, the prices of meat and eggs were actually about the same.
Eggs cost five cents each, which is about fifty cents per pound. Meat is a little more expensive, but meat stamps are much harder to get than non-staple food stamps. Overall, two pounds of meat is worth more than three pounds of eggs.
But this time, Luo Cheng asked about the price of raw meat. It is definitely cost-effective for him to get meat. One pound of lean meat can be worth the price of more than two pounds of eggs, but fat meat is cheaper than lean meat. The fatter it is, the cheaper it is. Pure fat meat boiled in oil only costs less than seven yuan, while eggs now cost six yuan here.
Luo Cheng was also confused about the price of meat, which was completely contrary to his own times.
The most popular fat meat is the cheapest in this future time and space. Bones that don't require meat tickets are more expensive than fat meat. The price of these pork ribs with some meat is ridiculously high. But this was exactly what Luo Cheng wanted, what he wanted was fat.
"Boss, here are twenty pounds of fat meat."
"Hey, little brother, you need a lot. What's the point of buying so much?"
"This~~ boils lard for use in our construction site canteen."
"It's from the construction site canteen, which construction site is it?"
Hearing the inquiry, Luo Cheng became a little cautious. He was buying some fat meat. Why did he ask after he bought too much? The first time they met, I made a casual conversation, but the other party continued to interrogate me.
"It's the construction site in front of you. You, a meat seller, don't care where you buy it."
"No, little brother, you misunderstood. I don't hear you using it at the construction site. If you use it a lot and buy from me often in the future, I will give you a discount."
"Oh, how much do you think you are fat?"
"This meat is better. If you pay six to eight yuan, it will count as six yuan and five cents to you. If you come back next time, we can discuss the price. But your construction site uses this kind of meat to boil oil. I have meat here that is specially boiled in oil. Big restaurants use this kind of meat to boil oil. Do you want it?"
"It's available now. Let me see what the price is."
"Look at the suet pork, it's absolutely superb when cooked in oil."
The butcher's boss showed Luo Cheng a bag of cut suet meat. In fact, it was just fat meat from other parts. It was absolutely fine to boil it in oil or even eat it with oil residue. But it is difficult to cook this kind of meat when it is used as fat and fried meat.
"How much does this cost per pound?"
"I won't give you an arbitrary price, four yuan a pound."
"Then give me five kilograms. I'll take it back first and try to see how much oil I can get out of it."
"Don't worry, boiling it in oil is definitely more cost-effective than fat meat like yours. The oil yield is not as good as fat meat, but for the price of one pound of fat, you can buy one and a half pounds of this."
Luo Cheng nodded. It's just that it's not easy to take this thing to the black market. It's all in small strips, not like fat, which comes in big chunks. The plastic bags of this era are not easy to be found in his time. Can't explain it at all.
The deposit of fifty yuan for the pig's head, twenty kilograms of fat meat and five kilograms of suet meat here, and another hundred and fifty yuan are gone. Two pieces of Mao Zedong disappeared. The roast duck in the market was very fragrant, but he was reluctant to buy it because it cost thirty-eight. It was enough for him to eat a box lunch for two days.
After shopping and shopping, I also bought the things I wanted to buy. Time passed quickly, and it was already past eleven o'clock. Luo Cheng planned to go back for something to eat, and thought it would be nice to go buy a box lunch as he happened to come out without having to come out deliberately.
But it rained today, and it rained a little harder on the way back. When I returned to the entrance of the construction site, I found that there were no stalls selling boxed lunches near the entrance of the construction site today. The rain is getting heavier and lighter sometimes, it's so damn annoying.
"Damn it, let's be extravagant for a while and try some beef ramen. A bowl of noodles costs fifteen, I can still afford it."
I put the meat back where I lived, hoping to bear the burden of hunger. I was often hungry before the family was separated, and even more so after the family was separated. Now I eat four meals a day, and I feel as if I am missing a meal. But as soon as it’s time to eat, my stomach sends out a signal that I’m hungry.
I thought that instead of working in the afternoon, I could go to a mobile phone repair shop in the afternoon. There are many decent shops there. Luo Cheng is no longer as blind and cautious as when he first came to this time and space, and it is time to speed up to integrate and understand this era.