Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 288: Chapter 195: Lemongrass Grilled Fish, One Fish, Three Ways

"Sounds like you’re trying to get out of it. Were you just saying you’d grill fish to humor me?"

"Uh... not exactly. I’m just worried about what I’ll do if I can’t catch any fish tomorrow."

"Then you’ll catch them all night."

"What if it rains tonight?"

"Then you’ll catch them all night in the rain."

"Wow, you’re so cruel! You definitely don’t have a girlfriend, do you?"

Lin Chen couldn’t be bothered with her nonsense. He grabbed the grilled fish, scraped out the herbs stuffed inside, and took a huge bite of the rich belly meat.

In the wild, where fat was scarce and hunting wasn’t an option, fish belly was practically the only source of fat. It was also, bar none, the most delicious part of the fish.

While the meat from the fish’s back might have needed a gentle press of the tongue to dissolve, this bite of belly meat melted the instant he bit down, flooding his mouth with a wave of rich, mellow fish oil.

The belly of a tiger grouper wasn’t as fatty as salmon, but to him—a man who hadn’t tasted a drop of oil in eight days—it was the ultimate delicacy.

[Enjoying delicious grilled grouper on the shores of Panama. Happiness +3]

GULP.

He heard a distinct gulp right next to him.

Lin Chen opened his eyes and, amused, offered her the fish again.

Erica didn’t stand on ceremony. She took it and sank her teeth into the belly meat.

"Oh... my God~!"

She offered no further commentary; at this moment, no words could possibly describe her bliss.

Taking turns, the two of them attacked the fish, and in just a few minutes, the grouper, which weighed over two pounds, had been completely devoured.

Thinking the "battle" was over, Erica was about to toss the cleanly-picked fish bones away. She had just raised her hand.

"Wait!"

Lin Chen quickly stopped her. "What a waste! We can still make two more dishes out of that."

"Out of what?"

Erica thought she must have misheard, staring in bewilderment at the fish skeleton she had just picked clean.

She could understand the fish head having some use, but how could you possibly make two dishes from a single fish head?

’You can’t make a dish out of the skeleton, can you?’

As she watched with curiosity, Lin Chen broke the head off the fish skeleton, split it vertically, opened two coconuts, and set them on the coals to boil. He then placed one half of the fish head into each coconut.

The moment the roasted fish head was placed in the boiling coconut water, wisps of white substance visibly began to leach out.

If it weren’t for the need to replenish their oils, he wouldn’t have wanted to use coconut water for fish head soup. But the trip to the stream and back was too much trouble. Exhausted from the day’s work, he didn’t feel like moving, so he decided to just make do.

The soup didn’t require many seasonings: a slice of wild ginger, a fragrant leaf, and a pinch of salt were more than enough.

He took the remaining fish skeleton and propped it up by the fire, just as he had done with the whole fish earlier.

"What are you doing? Roasting the skeleton?"

"That’s right. In the coastal cities of Great Xia, fish bones are also a very popular snack. Normally, they have to be air-dried for a long time and then roasted or deep-fried before they can be eaten. When they’re fresh, you can usually only make soup with them."

Erica scratched her head, unable to imagine what kind of snack could possibly be made from a fish skeleton.

’What kind of person thinks of eating fish bones?’

Perhaps sensing her confusion, and with nothing better to do while they waited, Lin Chen decided to explain.

"You probably know that Great Xia is the most populous country in the world. In times of war, the people’s lives were incredibly difficult. They could almost never get a full meal, and in the worst cases, people would go one or two weeks without finding any food at all."

"To keep from starving, people in the inland regions started eating tree bark and wild grasses. In the coastal areas, after they had scoured the shores of every last shellfish and bit of seaweed, they turned their attention to fish bones."

"Great Xia may be renowned internationally as a culinary paradise now, but in truth, most of our cooking methods were invented out of necessity by commoners who were just trying to fill their stomachs. Their only goal was to stay alive."

"Only after they discovered these things were edible did they begin to figure out how to make them taste good. Through decades, even centuries, of evolution, they eventually became the delicacies we know today."

"So that’s how it was." The usual smile on Erica’s face slowly faded, replaced by a look of solemn respect and admiration.

"That makes sense when you think about it. Bouillabaisse, which is world-famous, was originally just a soup fishermen cobbled together to use up the unwanted fish in their catch. At its core, it was about making a little extra money to support their families. From that perspective, it’s true that most great dishes originate from the common people."

"It’s only ordinary people like us, who know what it’s like to be hungry, who would think to create new foods from our environment. The rich can just wave their hands and get prime steak, lobster, and fine wine. They wouldn’t deign to eat things like this."

"?"

Lin Chen gave her a strange look.

"If I remember correctly, you’re quite the little rich girl yourself, aren’t you? Stop pretending you’re poor. I’m the one who’s actually poor here!"

"Hey! My mom’s money is her money, and my money is my money! I’m a grown woman, I can earn my own living. I refuse to spend her money!"

’Well, look at that. A rich kid with principles.’

He had no desire to get entangled in that topic. It’s best not to meddle in another family’s affairs, after all.

The soup didn’t need to cook for long. A rolling boil for about five minutes was enough; the coconut shells held a limited amount of liquid, and cooking it any longer would boil it all away.

As a forest guide, Erica had clearly eaten fish head before, though she didn’t seem particularly skilled at it. She clumsily used her branch chopsticks and hands to pick the head apart, searching for morsels of meat in the crevices.

Lin Chen, in contrast, was far more adept. He deftly pulled out the large bones, then ate the cheek meat, the meat from the collar, and finally the gelatinous fish lips.

Once he had picked out all the bones and eaten most of the meat, he finally drank the soup.

Erica glanced at the clear broth in his bowl, then at the messy slurry of soup and shredded meat in her own. Her face flushed slightly, and she quickly lifted her coconut shell, downing the rest of it in one go.