Capítulo 10: THE CULTIVATION OF THE INVISIBLE
As Zoya stated the question, I pulled out a chair from the wooden desk and sat down. I sat in a relaxed posture and offered her to sit in the other chair.
"Zoya. Tell me what have you eaten in one year of your stay?" My sight didn't hinder from her while I asked this question. I know what she was going to answer.
"Umm… well there was roti, some fruits and vegetables and well nuts and legumes… that's all."
"And would you agree that the things you ate here were better and more filling than what you ate earlier?"
"Yes, earlier we had to eat mostly raw meat and the fruits or natural resources were enough only on selective time of the year." I could hear the confusion growing in her voice. "But Joy, where are you going wit- "
With a jolt I got up from the seat and held the side handles of the chair where Zoya sat. our faces now barely away. "What if I tell you that we have not even scratched the surface of what farming potential we have?" with this her eyes lit up and he seemed astonished.
"What do you mean we not even the surface? We are not hungry anymore, are we?"
"This is just not about filling up the stomach, this is about exploring our senses. This goes beyond the grains and spices or salts. Its about the union of these elements that makes us explore the limits of our sense of taste." With this I let go of the handles while I my smile stretched in my face.
I held her hand and directed her towards my study which I don't allow anyone to enter, but now her foot will the first ones apart from mine to cross the boundaries of this room.
When we entered, her eyes examined every part of the room. The walls of my rooms were filled with scientific constants and the mechanics of different machines and tools. After examining the walls her eyes fell to the floor of the room. Numerous jars laid before all her, she couldn't help but ask the question.
"Joy, what are all this?"
"Our next job." I answered as soon as the question ended. "These are the seed and other parts of the edible plants which we will plant."
Her eyes glittered as she took the steps towards the jars. She sat down and took the smallest jar among the collection, observing it with all her might.
"I am really excited." She grinned but the grin soon vanished as she turned back to me. "But to use even a small number of them would require a big chunk of land. It will take all of our time to look after them. And this is the hot season how are we to plant this now? We will have to wait for cold."
"Zoya, first of all, not all crops grow in the same weather. Why do you think we don't grow on summer, I mean hot season?" she pondered on that question. I continued, "Its because we were never needed to, we always had more than enough, that's why we took rest on hot days."
She now had understanding look and so I didn't hesitate if I should stop, "You see, there are two types of crops- rabi and kharif, rabi grows on cold days and kharif grows on hot days."
"So… the crops you're planning to soil are kharif?" she asked.
"Exactly!"
"But this still doesn't explain how you are planning to look after them, it will be a huge work, bigger than the leader job."
"I have you for that don't I?"
"Putting a weak girl to look over your big farm I see." He sounded annoyed and lowered her eyes. " I mean that's why you hired me right?"
"Nah, I have something big plan for you, right now I would need the two months wheat supply of yours."
"Huh… what am I supposed to eat then?"
"In the meantime, I'll feed you. You don't have to worry about that." Her face lit up as if I gifted something really precious to her.
"But, why do you need the wheat for?"
"You know what? You ask a lot of question." With that I gave a finger flick to her forehead, and she flinched playfully. "Now, go and bring it."
The next few hours weren't anything special, after Zoya brought the wheat, we grinded the wheat till we got a good amount of flour. One month worth of wheat was still left but we were tired enough to let them be.
After we had our share of rest, we started to make a dough out of the flour. It was simple all we had to do was add the water to twice the amount of flour and just blend it with our hands. Zoya had seen this several times, what she didn't expected was how I would cover the dough up and keep it in some warm place.
The sun almost was almost down, and I asked Zoya if she wanted to have her dinner as both of us didn't have our lunch yet, her growling stomach gave me the answer to that question. During our dinner or lunch or whatever that was, she asked me questions on why I left the dough like that, and I just let out a laugh to her innocence and began to explain her.
It all starts with a single cell organism called- yeast. This creature is very small and cannot be seen with naked eyes. With the emergence of this topic I had to explain a whole different set of explanation on bacteria.
Basically, I told her that these bacteria are present everywhere currently. This yeast love to feast on the dough, I didn't explain further on how this yeast actually consumes the sugar present in the dough in the presence of Oxygen and release carbon dioxide which when gets trapped by the gluten allows the dough to rise and form bread. I will let her taste this bread later. I had to save my breath right now
The next morning just after I woke up, I opened the lid to see the dough. There were bubbles in the dough. Hehe, it didn't take the yeast a lot of time to colonise the dough. I have a live yeast culture in front of me right now. This is going to be interesting, as we just found fermentation.
I threw half of the culture and added another fresh dough to the culture, this provided the yeast with enough food to pressurise them to complete it soon and reproduce quick. I showed Zoya and the kids this culture, while the kids weren't as excited, when I taught the mechanism, several questions filled my ears. I just responded with, "You'll find soon enough."
Tahari too surprisingly visited me, he apologised for not being able to visit me yesterday but I had no complains, although he had to go pretty quick, I was still able to lay down my request in front of him. He accepted it and now I had now worries for the progress of my plans.
For the next week or so I just observed the yeast waiting for its next step. The kids and Zoya have memorised the alphabets, and continued on to writing simple words. We didn't have any paper for now so we just had to write it on ground with a stick.
After the week passed, I suddenly heard Zoya calling for me from the other side of the house. When I reached at the place, she looked disappointed and told me to check the yeast culture. Some kind of bubbly froth was generating in the dough, on looking this I smiled and let Zoya see my smile. We were successful. We have gained something very important towards the development of civilization. However it was a different task to explain how we succeeded.
[Yeast Farm gained]
I asked Zoya to heat some water and place it in a container. She did so as I asked her to do. I added the wheat in the hot water and left them to soak for some time while also added a chunk of yeast into it and closed the lid of the container. We just have to relax while the bacteria do its job.
Looking back, I explained the mechanism of how yeast works but it was under the assumption that oxygen was present. What if there is no oxygen? Simple, the yeast will completely break down sugar leaving behind alcohol and carbon dioxide.
[Congratulations for inventing BREWING]
In brewing, instead of cooking the grains we ferment it, hence we acquire beer.
[Beer gained]
Hope fully, this can turn to a staple diet in our civilization. Beer is insanely high in nutrition and already contain a good deal of vitamin b family. There was a reason why beer was the third most consumed drink.
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