Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 280: Chapter 193: Let Me Be Clear, I’m the One Who Wanted to Dig This

He really wanted to take a few bamboo stalks with him, but his bamboo knife was broken. Making a new one would take an hour or two, and with the round trip, it would be dark by the time he got back. He had to scrap the idea.

’Why is that stingy guy suddenly being so generous? Scallops are second only to Lobster!’

Erica tilted her head, utterly baffled as she watched Lin Chen’s back disappear over the crest of the hill.

From what she’d seen of him over the past day, Lin’s personality was almost identical to what she’d seen on the show. Once he made a decision, he rarely went back on it.

Back in Alaska, even after they’d known each other for over a month, Andre had to pay him a service fee just to get his help with cooking.

’I’ve only known him for a little over a day. There’s no reason for him to suddenly change his mind for me.’

’Why did he give me the Lobster, and leave the scallops for me too?’

"I’m not sure either," Andre said with a shrug, throwing up his hands. "He’s Asian; his way of thinking is different from ours. It’s perfectly normal that we can’t figure him out."

"Instead of dwelling on it, let’s just eat. You’ll find out when he’s ready to tell you."

"You’re right. It would be a shame to overcook the scallops."

Fresh scallop meat isn’t perfectly round, but rather somewhat oval-shaped, like a slanted cylinder. Next to it grows a crescent-shaped, orange-red structure; this is the roe of a female scallop, while a male’s is a paler yellow.

Scallops are most famous for their exceptionally large adductor muscle—that oval-shaped thing in the middle. When dried, this muscle is known as conpoy.

Fresh adductor muscles have a tender, smooth texture and are sweet and delicious. Those harvested from areas with high-quality seawater can be eaten raw and are an indispensable part of Japanese cuisine.

In Western cuisine, the adductor muscle is also a prized ingredient, used as the main component for either an appetizer or a main course.

Besides the adductor muscle and the roe, the wavy, frilly mantle around the edge is also edible. However, the eyelash-like gills hidden between the two layers of the mantle on the side of the adductor muscle, as well as the black, sandy stomach sac, are not edible and must be removed beforehand.

It’s not that they’re poisonous, but they are rather dirty and you might get a mouthful of sand. For the sake of texture, eating them is not recommended.

Andre was about to teach Erica how to prepare the scallops when he saw her grab one that had already opened from the heat. She snapped off the top shell, then slid her combat knife along the bottom shell right under the meat to sever the muscle.

She used chopsticks to lift the two layers of the mantle, exposing the gills and stomach sac, which she skillfully plucked out and tossed aside.

"I thought you said you didn’t know much about the coast. How are you such a pro at cleaning scallops?"

"That’s right," Erica said, picking up a hot scallop with her chopsticks. She blew on it a few times before popping the whole thing into her mouth. "I meant I’m not familiar with the coastal *ecosystem*," she explained while chewing. "I still know how to prepare common foods like scallops, abalone, and Green Mussels."

While the two were leisurely enjoying their delicious meal, Lin Chen had already rushed back to the wooden hut.

He found a nearby rock with a relatively sharp edge and slammed it hard against the side of a bamboo stalk. After creating a crack, he wedged the stone into it to hold it open, then raised the entire bamboo pole and struck it against the ground.

It didn’t take much force; the meter-long bamboo pole split in two along the grain.

Using the same method, he split the bamboo into eight stakes, each about as thick as a finger. He drove them into the ground a short distance from the hut’s four corner posts, leaving a gap between the stakes and the posts equal to the width of a bamboo pole.

The rest was simple. He just needed to stack the bamboo poles one by one into the channel created by the stakes, where they would be neatly wedged in place by the hut’s main posts.

After stacking all the bamboo he had prepared the previous day, he had only managed to build two walls. One wall, a door, and the eaves still remained to be done.

This method was even more time-efficient than he had imagined, taking only half an hour in total.

He wasn’t going to run back and forth anymore; the rest of the walls could wait until tomorrow. Since he still had time, the most important task was to fashion a new bamboo knife.

He took a bamboo pole from the newly made wall, split it in half, and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Carrying it to the stream, he found the coarse stone he’d used before for sharpening and tossed the two bamboo halves into the water to soak.

While waiting for the bamboo to become fully soaked, he fell into thought again.

’The current roof is definitely first-rate at keeping out rain, but it seems like a waste to just let the runoff flow away. Maybe I can use the hollow structure of the bamboo to create a gutter system. That way, I could collect some of the rainwater and save myself trips to the stream whenever I need water.’

The stream wasn’t very deep, only reaching about calf-high. Since it flowed all the way down the mountainside, it likely carried silt and sediment, meaning the water quality wasn’t pure enough.

In comparison, rainwater would probably be cleaner.

Regardless of the source, however, it would be best to let it settle, filter it, and then boil it before drinking to ensure his digestive health wasn’t compromised.

With two knife-making sessions under his belt, he was exceptionally efficient this time. Within three hours, he had managed to grind both bamboo halves into sharp knives.

For the handles, he cut some extremely durable vines from the nearby forest and wrapped them tightly. The grip felt much more comfortable than the one he had made with Mulberry Tree bark.

’Oh, right. If a bamboo piece can be ground into a knife, then if I grind the tip instead, couldn’t I make a bamboo spear?’

’But on second thought, bamboo is less dense than water, so it floats and won’t sink at all. That means it would be useless as a harpoon while diving.’