357 Melted
This bamboo tube was equivalent to a mold for making popsicles.
After the solid popsicle was made, the process of removing the mold was to take the popsicle out of the bamboo tube. This was simple. They just had to wash the bamboo tube under the water and the mold would be removed quickly. Then, they just had to hold the popsicle stick and take it out of the bamboo tube.
Of course, there were other methods, but this one would be the simplest!
Jiang Yue walked to Xue Yan’s side and said in a low voice, “Take that knife.”
Now that the knife was next to Yifu, everyone in the family would panic if she held onto such things. She decided that Xue Yan was the most suitable person to hold them.
“Why do you need a knife?” Xue Yan looked at her.
“I’m going to cut some bamboo and make popsicles.”
“Popsicles?”
“Well, it’s something that’s made by mixing water, sugar, fruit juice, and so on, and then freezing them. I’ll make whatever flavor you want. For example, a saltwater popsicle won’t need any fruit juice. There’s no suitable mold here, so I’m thinking of using a bamboo tube. When the time comes, I’ll pour the mixture into the bamboo tube and put it in a large basin of saltpeter. The inside will be frozen. When the frozen thing comes out of the bamboo tube, it will look like a long frozen stick. It’s called a popsicle. It can also be made into other shapes. It doesn’t have to be stick-like, but that would require a lot of effort to create a mold for that shape. It’s better to cut bamboo directly and make a bamboo tube that’s the right side of a popsicle.”
“If it doesn’t melt, how will it come out of the bamboo tube?”
“Yes, just wash the surface of the bamboo tube with water and it will come out very quickly.
“Usually, we don’t pour it. We’ll stick a stick that’s much thinner than the popsicle in front of the popsicle. After washing the surface of the bamboo tube with water, we can take the popsicle out easily with the thin stick. We only touch the thin stick, and our hands won’t touch the popsicle. It’s clean and convenient to eat while walking.”
Xue Yan could imagine what a popsicle looked like, but he was still silent for a while before he said, “I have another question.”
“What’s the problem?”
“If you just leave the popsicle there, it’ll take a short time for it to completely melt. How are you planning to bring it to town before it melts?”
“If you just leave it there, of course, it would melt.” Jiang Yue said. “But if you wrap it in a quilt, it won’t melt. Even if it does, it’ll melt very slowly.”
Although Xue Yan never doubted her words, he was still quite surprised, “Just a quilt? Wouldn’t that make it melt faster?”
He had never heard of people using quilts to cover ice, so naturally, he had never seen one before.
However, he knew that it would be very warm to cover a person with a quilt. If it were to be covered with ice, the ice would probably melt faster, right?
Jiang Yue knew that ancient times were backward in all aspects and there was a limitation in this aspect, so it was normal that he did not know the principle. “The blanket doesn’t produce heat by itself, but it can prevent the heat from the outside from being transmitted in. It can also prevent the cold air emitted by the ice inside from being emitted out so that the ice inside can stay at a low temperature for a long time and won’t melt. It might not last for a few days, but it could last for a few hours. It’s warm when the blanket is on your body because the heat produced by the human body is equivalent to heat dissipation. It’s always there, but the blanket prevents this heat from dissipating, so you feel warm.”
It was really an eye-opening experience for Xue Yan.