章 9: Roasting Fish and Digging a Pool
編集者: Atlas Studios
"Pop!"
Jiang Xuan picked up a suitable piece of black gravel from the stream and threw it at a large rock. The gravel cracked, and Jiang Xuan picked up a thin piece of rock fragment. The cut was very sharp.
Then he untied a big fish from the rattan and used a stone piece to remove the scales and cut its stomach.
"There's so much fish oil!"
The fish in autumn were very fat, and there was a lot of fish oil in their stomachs.
Jiang Xuan was amused. Most of the wild beasts in the mountain were lean and had very little oil. To the tribesmen, meat oil was a good thing and was more popular than lean meat.
He tore off the fish oil bit by bit and stored it in a bamboo tube. He kept the gills and threw the rest aside.
The gill was a fish bubble. After drying it in the sun and boiling it, one could obtain gill glue. It was sticky glue.
Chi Shao and the Hook Vine also found sharp rocks and helped kill the fish. After all the fish were done, Jiang Xuan obtained about a kilogram of fish oil and more than 10 fish gills of different sizes.
As for the fish scraps, Jiang Xuan got Chi Shao to put them in bamboo tubes and then pour them into the pool that they had dug previously. This way, they could attract more fish.
After that, Jiang Xuan and the others rinsed all the fish and brought them back to the bamboo house to roast.
Actually, they couldn't eat so many fish in one meal because these dozen or so fish weighed at least 50 to 60 pounds.
But he had no choice. With the autumn weather, if he did not roast all the fish, they would stink in a day and night at most.
In the bamboo house, above the fire pit, there was a thick bamboo beam. It was not very high. One could stand up and reach it with one's hand.
Hanging from the bamboo beam were a dozen or so woven ropes. The ends of these ropes could be connected to other ropes for hanging endless amounts of meat.
The flames in the fire pit burned day and night. The high temperature and smoke constantly roasted the meat hanging from the beams. Mosquitoes would not approach, bacteria could not breed, and the meat would dry up as it was smoked. This method could prolong the preservation of the meat.
This method was not thought of by Jiang Xuan, but a common practice of the Deer Tribe. It was the survival experience and wisdom of the tribe.
If not for this method, raw meat would not be preserved for long without salt.
"Leave two for later. Hang up the rest."
Jiang Xuan, Hook Vine, and the others tied the fish to ropes hanging from the beams and hung them high above the fire pit to be roasted by the smoke and fire.
There were two fish that were being roasted on wooden skewers beside the fire pit.
Jiang Xuan found a thin vine and hung the rest of the fish by the wall of the bamboo house for future use.
Jiang Xuan added some firewood to the fire pit, and the fire quickly burned brightly. The light of the fire shone on the fish and the faces of the five people.
There was a circle of large rocks by the fire pit. Jiang Xuan placed the wooden rod with the fish on it on the two opposite rocks. He just needed to flip the fish from time to time. He did not have to hold the rod in his hand all the time.
Although the fish had been washed, there was still a faint fishy smell.
"Smell…" Jiang Xuan seemed to have remembered something.
"Don't roast the fish yet. I'm going out for a while."
Jiang Xuan moved the fish to the side and stood up. He picked up the bone plow and walked out. Chi Shao followed hurriedly, afraid that Jiang Xuan would be in danger if he went far.
"Xuan, where are you going?"
"I'll go look for a little spice."
"What's spice?" asked a confused Chi Shao.
"You'll see."
Jiang Xuan walked to the forest on the right of the bamboo forest. Before long, he saw a plant with yellowed leaves.
He walked over and tried to pull it out. He couldn't, so he used the bone plow to dig out the plant along with the roots underground. The plant's thin roots broke, and a pungent smell immediately filled the air.
This was a wild ginger. It could be seen everywhere in the Southern Wilderness. There were several more ginger plants in the area, but Jiang Xuan did not dig them up.
Chi Shao looked at the wild ginger that Jiang Xuan had dug up. "This is a herb that has a detoxifying effect. Why are you digging this?"
The tribesmen used many herbs. The more common wild ginger in the mountains was one of them.
"I heard from the tribe that this herb can not only detoxify, but also remove fishy smells and make roasted meat more fragrant. I want to see if it can be used to roast fish."
Jiang Xuan calmly pointed to the Deer Tribe as the source of his knowledge. After all, there was no way of knowing that he was not telling the truth.
"Really? Why haven't I heard of it?"
Chi Shao was skeptical, but she didn't pursue the matter. It wasn't like her to probe.
"We'll find out when we get back."
Jiang Xuan walked back with the bone plow and wild ginger. Chi Shao thought about it and agreed. There was no harm in trying anyway.
Jiang Xuan returned to the bamboo house and put away the bone plow. He went to the stream to wash the wild ginger and removed the stems and leaves. Then he cut the wild ginger into several slices with a sharp stone.
After returning to the bamboo house, Jiang Xuan split the wild ginger into halves and stuffed them into the stomachs of the two roasted fish. Then he used thin vines to sew up the fish's stomachs to prevent the wild ginger slices from falling out.
Jiang Xuan placed another large rock at the edge of the fire pit and placed the two fish on it. Then he pulled the smoldering charcoal from the center of the fire pit and roasted the fish with it.
Fish would get charred over an open fire. The charcoal fire was relatively mild, so the grilled fish would not be easily charred.
Time passed, bit by bit. As it roasted over the charcoal, the grilled fish gradually emitted the fragrance of meat and a faint smell of wild ginger.
The surface of the fish was gradually roasted until it was golden, and the fragrance filled the entire bamboo house.
-- 贈り物
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