usatvline Chapter 273 - 270: Weigh-In! Is This Damn Thing a Pumpkin?!
Chapter 273 - 270: Weigh-In! Is This Damn Thing a Pumpkin?!
Returning from Hulunbei’er to Xilingol, Jiang Feng continues his leisurely life at the ranch.
With the grass cutting done and the cattle and sheep orders managed, the ranch now enjoys some downtime.
Every day involves tending to the cattle and sheep, and milking cows, camels, and horses.
In the courtyard, Jiang Feng sets up a two-sided hot pot, simmering mushroom soup and spicy broth, preparing to enjoy a hot pot meal himself.
He asked Old Sun to slice a few plates of beef and lamb for him.
Jiang Feng also gathered some side dishes and went to the management area specifically to buy freshly ground tofu and fresh tofu skin.
Chef Old Sun is very attentive, slicing fresh lamb into rolls and cutting a large plate of beef, including fresh tripe.
Seeing the ingredients laid out beside the hot pot, the viewers in the live stream drooled, suddenly craving hot pot.
"Today’s stream features hot pot."
"Look at this lamb, all authentic Sunite lamb."
"Sunite sheep are the flagship meat sheep breed of Ximeng League, famous nationwide for their tender meat and good taste."
"The lamb chops and lamb we eat here are mostly Sunite sheep and Ujumqin sheep."
"Despite tough grassland conditions, there’s plenty of meat. I grew up eating Sunite lamb, found it the most comforting."
Jiang Feng points at the fresh lamb on the plate, explaining to everyone.
These are freshly hand-cut lamb pieces, evenly marbled and vividly red, looking very exquisite.
Nowadays, hot pot is widespread, and beef and lamb are everywhere, but good quality meat is still rare. A lot of lamb in the market has a strong gamey taste and feels a bit cottony.
The dipping sauce is just somewhat good, which is why hot pot remains enjoyable.
However, truly delicious lamb has to be from this side of Mongolia, or the Tibetan Area.
The taste is truly different!
When Jiang Feng said this, the viewers echoed:
[The host is absolutely right, having eaten lamb once on the grassland, it definitely tasted better than in the city!]
[The lamb over there has barely any gamey smell and the texture is fantastic, almost chewable!]
[Grassland lamb is surely superb; that’s a real treasure!]
[I want to eat meat on the grassland for a month; it must be blissful!]
While Jiang Feng prepares the food, the dogs in the courtyard wait eagerly.
Jiang Feng takes a few bites of refreshing pickles, drinks a sip of sorghum wine, and starts adding ingredients to the boiling pot.
He first pours the hand-cut lamb into the pot, then takes a block of tofu from the bag, placing it on his palm, directly slicing the tofu on his palm with a small knife.
With a few cuts, the tofu gets sliced into chunks, then Jiang Feng sprinkles them into the pot.
Recalling lines from a TV show, he casually says:
"Eat pickles followed by tofu rolling, even the emperor can’t compare!"
A brief boil and the tofu and lamb are ready to eat.
Jiang Feng picks up his chopsticks, scoops up a piece of lamb, swirls it in the oil dish, and takes a bite.
Instantly, the tender dipped lamb bursts with flavor in his mouth.
The lamb remains delicious no matter how it’s chewed.
Seeing Jiang Feng eat, the viewers can’t help but swallow their saliva.
It’s no wonder he’s a streaming foodie; the hot pot scene looks truly enticing!
He eats a slice of lamb, then scoops up a smooth piece of tofu.
The tofu is smooth and tasty, carrying a distinct aroma of soy products.
It’s enjoyable to eat.
In an isolation rating, eating hot pot alone ranks high, representing a high level of solitude.
But that refers to eating hot pot in a restaurant.
Like Jiang Feng, enjoying hot pot alone in the courtyard, with a table full of top-quality ingredients, under a gentle breeze, feels like a vacation.
Moreover, several dogs sit on the grass, watching Jiang Feng with longing eyes.
There are quite a few dogs, but at most, they can only be fed a piece or two of meat.
Even so, they appear very happy.
During the subsequent live stream, Jiang Feng doesn’t say much more.
He simply places raw meat slices into the boiling water. Soon, the vibrant red lamb turns well-cooked, curls up, is scooped out, and tastes great.
There’s a sense of mountain, water, and pastoral tranquility.
In today’s fast-paced society, such calmness is rare.
People face overwhelming pressure, and during scarce leisure, they only seek fast-paced joy.
Thus, it’s challenging for anyone to live relaxed like him, devoid of pressure, enjoying the delightful hot pot.
After the meal, Jiang Feng calls Hadan and Bugude to the greenhouse.
Hadan specifically brings a scale.
The scale is tin-made and very durable.
A drone flies into the plastic greenhouse.
Having not seen the pumpkins for over ten days, the viewers are quite curious.
When everyone sees the three giant pumpkins on the boards, there’s a touch of amazement in their eyes.
After a while, it turns into a deep sigh:
"Holy moly!"
The pumpkins are now so large they resemble a mini car.
The chat box explodes with messages.
[Is this a damn pumpkin?]
[My gosh, they’ve grown that big?]
[Could this be an alien species?]
[Aura revival! Definitely aura revival! The host must be the first to awaken his cultivation!]
[It’s so unbelievable! Previously, it was as small as a fist, now bigger than a person!]
It’s no wonder people are shocked.
Though not as tall as a person, the giant pumpkin’s width far exceeds human capacity.
Two people, hand in hand, can’t embrace it fully.
Hadan and Bugude haven’t been here for a long time either.
The two men looked at the giant pumpkin, utterly shocked.
Hadan immediately ran over, hugged the pumpkin with both hands, and tried to lift it.
But no matter how hard he tried, the pumpkin wouldn’t budge.
Jiang Feng laughed and said, "Hadan, if you can lift it, you might as well be Huaxia’s weightlifting champion, and you’d definitely win the Nadamu wrestling matches without a doubt."
Upon hearing this, Hadan gave up trying to lift the pumpkin.
"Manager, why is this pumpkin so big? I’ve never seen such a huge pumpkin!"
Hadan couldn’t help but exclaim.
Jiang Feng chuckled, "Giant pumpkins grow to this size. They’ve been grown abroad too. I specifically bought premium seeds for this."
"I’ve been watching it for a few days in a row. It’s now fully ripe and won’t gain more weight."
"This pumpkin can be picked now."
"I wonder if it can exceed 2,000 pounds."
Upon hearing this, Bugude was also stunned.
"Two, two thousand pounds? A 2,000-pound pumpkin?" Bugude marveled.
But gradually, he understood.
After all, it was grown by Jiang Feng, so 2,000 pounds isn’t surprising.
"Manager, how do we weigh this?"
The two men inquired further.
The pumpkin could be lifted with a forklift, but it would certainly damage the structure underneath.
The best way would be for five or six people to lift it together.
If we exert force, we can lift it a bit.
So, Jiang Feng asked Hadan to call over Ma He, Yang Maolin, and Zhu Huo.
Since it was something worth watching, all of them came over, including the vet Lin Wansen and the chef Old Sun to join in on the fun.
Since Jiang Feng managed this greenhouse himself, the staff generally didn’t come over.
Old Sun, however, had come in once to see for himself and was very shocked to see the giant pumpkin.
Jiang Feng cut the vine of one pumpkin with scissors.
He only planned to use one pumpkin today.
The other two would stay for a few more days.
Actually, by this time, the pumpkins had reached their limit and wouldn’t grow anymore, so the difference of a few days didn’t matter. In fact, it might lead to a loss of nutrients.
"Can a pumpkin this big taste good?"
At this moment, Old Sun asked.
He had looked up information on giant pumpkins; a 2,000-pound pumpkin would definitely not taste good—the foreign ones don’t.
But Jiang Feng was confident in his pumpkins.
He calmly replied, "Trust me, the pumpkins I grow taste great."
"We’ll make pumpkin pies and cook pumpkin porridge; it’ll be absolutely delicious."
Hearing this, the employees were reassured.
Then, the employees exerted their effort together and lifted the pumpkin onto the iron scale.
"Thunk!"
The base of the weighing scale shook, and the spring mechanism inside clearly bore a lot of pressure.
This iron scale has a limit of 1.5 tons and is typically used to weigh cattle, equipped with four iron wheels so it can be pulled along.
The scale instrument showed that this pumpkin weighed exactly 1 ton.
That’s exactly 2,000 pounds!
"It really is a ton!"
"Wow, a 1-ton pumpkin!"
"Manager, you’re amazing at farming!"
The employees exclaimed in astonishment.
The drone offered a close-up shot of the scale, and the live broadcast viewers were in an uproar.
[A ton-heavy pumpkin? It’s truly an eye-opener!]
[It’s really extraordinary!]
[It’s unbelievably amazing!]
[It’s incredibly impressive!]
[One after another, an astounding spectacle!]
[Epic scale!]
Praise upon praise poured in.
Mischievous netizens posted numerous witty phrases, making the live broadcast atmosphere even more lively.
After weighing, how to deal with the pumpkin was another issue.
A 1-ton pumpkin would be impossible for the farm staff to finish eating.
Such an item is difficult to preserve.
Fortunately, there are lots of piglets in the pen that haven’t been sold yet—the perfect team for eating pumpkins. They could save some for them.
Jiang Feng didn’t hesitate; he recorded the pumpkin on video for a keepsake and planned to process the giant pumpkin to taste it.
Before he started, Jiang Feng received a call from the Kyoto Agricultural Research Institute.
An old professor on the other side was itching to buy Jiang Feng’s giant pumpkin for research.
However, this pumpkin doesn’t produce seeds and won’t leave offspring. Its characteristics are the same as those of foreign giant pumpkins, just with better taste.
For agriculture, such a giant pumpkin isn’t suitable for promotion since so many vines produce only one pumpkin.
But growing to 2,000 pounds, it still has research value.
Because they were from the National Agricultural Research Institute and Jiang Feng thought of the predecessors dedicated to hybrid rice, he greatly admired those working on agricultural research in Huaxia.
These people are constantly solving Huaxia’s food problems.
Thus, Jiang Feng agreed to reserve a giant pumpkin for the agricultural research institute.
And the one picked, still had to be eaten.
The farm staff surrounded Jiang Feng as he processed the pumpkin, watching curiously.
Front-row VIP seats, much better than watching a live broadcast!