readsfreenovel Chapter 324 Seafood
Chapter 324 Seafood
The elder laughed and said, "Let's eat first. After we eat, you can do whatever you want. There are many useful things on the beach. You can go and look for them. But be careful not to go into the sea. You can only look for things on the shore."
The elder's voice turned serious: "The sea is terrifying. It's completely different from lakes and rivers. Even if you can swim and are good swimmers, don't go into the sea lightly, understand?"
"Only aquatic beastmen can stay in the sea; neither sky beastmen nor earth beastmen can enter."
The elder's expression was very serious, and everyone knew he wasn't joking, so they all nodded, indicating that they wouldn't just pick things up on the shore and wouldn't go into the water.
The elder then said, “The sea is still calm now. If you see a large wave coming, run away immediately and never stand on the shore.”
After giving these instructions, the elder had a sky beastman watch over them, and then went to the cave to rest with the other sky beastmen.
*
This beach is rarely visited by people, so there are plenty of things to find. The beastmen are here for the first time, and they don't know what is useful and what is not. They pick up anything that is rare and throw it into the baskets on their backs.
Bai Ling's eyes lit up. There was just so much seafood here. In just a short while, he had seen several crabs crawl past him, as well as shrimp, oysters, clams... Bai Ling saw a lot of edible seafood, and these seafood were generally very large. For example, the shrimp, which were similar to Lugu shrimp on Earth, were longer than Bai Ling's palm.
Bai Ling felt like he had fallen into a seafood farm. He shouted, "Everyone, don't pick up things randomly! There are lots of delicious things on this beach. Let's pick up more, and I'll cook them for everyone when we get back."
Hearing Bai Ling shout that there was something delicious, the beastmen who were wandering around on the beach all rushed over. The little ones' eyes were filled with surprise and joy as they ran and asked, "Ling, what's delicious? Tell us quickly so we can pick up more."
Yue bent down and picked up a shrimp that had crawled past her feet, saying to Bai Ling, "Ling, this thing looks similar to the shrimp we catch in the river. Can we eat it?"
Bai Ling laughed and said, "Of course you can eat it."
Bai Ling introduced the orcs to crabs, shrimps, oysters, and clams, then said, "These are all edible."
There was a crab not far from Bai Ling. He found a thin stick and tapped it on the crab's body. Then he held the stick close to the crab's pincers. The crab immediately grabbed the stick, and the stick was snapped in two by its pincers.
"This is called a crab. It's different from the little things we catch in the river in our tribe. Its pincers can even break an orc's finger. Everyone be careful and don't let it touch you."
Bai Ling pinched the crab's shell with his hand. This crab was as big as the large earthenware bowl used by the orcs and was also very heavy. Bai Ling pinched its shell, and its claws struggled, but it was no use. Bai Ling still threw it into the basket.
“I’ll catch this one, you guys go catch the others,” Bai Ling said.
The beastmen dispersed laughing. Yue wanted to help Bai Ling catch crabs, but Bai Ling laughed and said, "Yue, these crabs are too fierce. Be careful not to touch them."
While Bai Ling was speaking, Yue had already picked up a crab. He held the crab shell steadily with both hands and shook it at Bai Ling: "Ling, my hands are very steady. I've remembered everything you said. I'll just hold the shell and not do anything else."
Yue was stubborn, and since he had already said that, no matter what Bai Ling said, he would catch crabs with Bai Ling. Bai Ling could only nod: "Then remember what I just said, be sure not to touch its claws."
*
There was so much stuff on the beach that it didn't take long for everyone's baskets to be full.
The Sky Orcs led them back to the cave where they would spend the night. The Grand Elder had already led the Sky Orcs to clean the cave and build a fire pit.
Bai Ling first boiled water on the fire pit. The water didn't need to boil; once it was hot, she poured it into an iron basin, which already contained clams.
Clams have a lot of sand inside their shells, so you have to let them open up and spit out the sand before you can eat them.
This time, we didn't bring many basins, so we didn't soak the crabs and oysters in them. Bai Ling led everyone to the stream where we fetched water, dug a pit by the stream, laid clean pebbles at the bottom of the pit, built up the sides of the pit with stones, and then threw the crabs and oysters into it, added water and salt.
To save time, Bai Ling added a little extra salt, letting the crabs and oysters soak for later.
Chen said, "Brother, I'll keep watch here, you don't need to worry about it."
Bai Ling nodded and said, "I'll go back and clean the clams first, and then I'll come back to clean the crabs and oysters later."
*
Seafood, since it has the word "fresh" in its name, means that it tastes very good and naturally has a fresh flavor. Using the simplest cooking methods can actually preserve the most original fresh flavor.
Stewed beast meat, steamed crab, steamed oysters, boiled shrimp, stir-fried clams with scallions and ginger, and cold seaweed salad were all prepared and arranged on large leaves. After Bai Ling sat down, the beastmen still did not start eating.
The elder sniffed and asked, "Ling, we know how to eat clams and cockles—just eat the meat inside their shells. But how do we eat crabs?"
Neither the Central Tribe nor the High Tree Tribe eats crabs. These things look strange, with thick shells all over their bodies, so you can't see any meat at all.
Bai Ling smiled, picked up a large crab, broke off all the legs, then used scissors to cut off the useless parts of the crab legs, and then gently pried open the crab shell on the crab legs with his hands, revealing the white crab meat.
"Crab legs are a bit troublesome to eat, but the meat on them tastes very good." Bai Ling took out two crab legs, handing one to the Grand Elder and the other to Yue.
Then Bai Ling picked up the crab body and gently broke it off with his hand. The shell came off easily, and the yellow crab roe flowed out. Bai Ling ignored it and broke off the shell below, splitting the entire crab body in two. Bai Ling held one in each hand and showed it to the orcs sitting around: "The yellow crab roe and white crab meat inside are all edible."
Bai Ling said, "I brought a pair of scissors with me when I went out. Everyone should eat the meat on the crab body first, and then take turns using the scissors to eat the crab legs."
The orcs were all very curious, they never knew that food could be hidden so deep. The orcs sitting together started to eat, each choosing to take a crab to eat first.