Chapter 24: [Wu De][y201]'s New Task (Part 2)
“Well,” Wu De said, “I think you should stick to bioengineering. It would be more beneficial to the great cause of transmigration.”
“Just say you don’t like my smoked fish,” Hu Yicheng grumbled. “Fine. I just dissected a rabbit…”
“A rabbit?” Wu De’s ears perked up.
“Caught it yesterday,” Hu Yicheng said with a sly grin. “I’m planning to roast it for lunch.”
“Lunch?” Wu De’s heart sank. He would be on guard duty at the construction site. No roast rabbit for him.
“But I could save a leg for you…”
Wu De was about to thank him when he remembered the old saying: to be courteous for no reason is to be either treacherous or thievish. He didn’t know this Little Hu. Why the sudden generosity?
As expected, the fox’s tail appeared. “Yesterday,” Hu Yicheng said, “I saw you making seafood rice. I was wondering… could I join you for meals?”
“Sure,” Wu De said readily. “But you have to bring your own rice.” A larger pot of seafood rice would only be more delicious.
“Great! I can learn from you,” he said, and pointed towards the back kitchen. “Team Leader Wu just came back. He caught more than ten baskets of fish this morning and is trying to figure out what to do with them.”
“Process them? I’d better go and see, before they’re ruined.” This new world was certainly rich in resources.
“I’ll take you,” Hu Yicheng said, clearly a great admirer of Wu De’s culinary skills.
The “kitchen” was a canvas shed with tree trunks for pillars, steamy and bustling with activity. A row of large pots sat over roaring fires, and people were busy chopping firewood and carrying water. There were even a few women inside. Wu De was glad he’d had the foresight to wear underwear.
He spotted a man hunched over a laptop. “Nanhai,” Little Hu called out, “Nanhai, someone’s here to cook fish for us!”
Wu Nanhai looked up. “Ah De? You fisherman, I haven’t seen you on the boats recently.” He looked him up and down. “You look like a native.”
“I’m on guard duty. I used to be a sailor; now I’m a marine.” Wu De looked at himself. He was shirtless, thin, and his skin, already dark, was now tanned a deeper brown. He wore only a pair of small shorts. He did look rather rustic.
“Nanhai, aren’t you in the agriculture group? Shouldn’t you be building greenhouses and raising chickens?”
“It was Xiao Zishan’s idea,” Wu Nanhai said with a sigh. “He wanted to get rid of the hassle of managing the canteen, so he insisted that since agriculture is about food, it was only natural for me to be the director of the food office. I’d rather be taking care of the rabbits and chickens. The chickens haven’t laid a single egg since we arrived. I think they’re stressed. And the pigs aren’t eating well…” The deep affection in his voice as he spoke of the livestock sent a shiver down Wu De’s spine.
“The food office has a lot of women. You’re in luck.”
“What luck? They’re all married,” Wu Nanhai said dismissively. “Besides, I’m not interested in modern women. If I’m going to raise one, I’ll start with a loli. Speaking of which, the Executive Committee should send someone to Guangzhou to buy some, don’t you think?”
As they were delving into a detailed discussion on the optimal age for loli maturation and the relative merits of tsundere, kuudere, natural-born moe, and meganekko cultivation, a fat man stormed in. Wu Nanhai’s face fell. He tried to hide, but the man grabbed him.
“Where is my ‘Blue Lightning’?”
“Well…” Wu Nanhai said, his face a mask of sorrow. “Please accept my condolences… we buried him. You know, the weather here is so hot…”
The man’s face went pale, his eyes filling with tears. He shook his head and stumbled out, leaving them speechless.
“Who was that?”
“Nikcha,” Wu Nanhai explained. “He came from Australia. Brought two racehorses and some carrier pigeons.”
The two retired racehorses, Aranchi and Blue Lightning, had both been registered with the Australian Jockey Club. Nikcha, an expert in his field, had envisioned forming a cavalry. But the harsh reality of their new world had shattered his dreams. Horses were sensitive animals. The noise of the landing had frightened Blue Lightning. Though restrained, it had repeatedly slammed its head against a wooden beam. There were no clean stables in the camp, no proper feed. Even the clean water the horses needed was in short supply.
“He went to the Executive Committee, demanding a daily supply of beans and wheat for his horses, ‘at least a five-person portion’.”
“And?”
“Needless to say, he was rejected. We don’t have soybeans, black beans, or barley. I only have a few seeds. We brought grain, but it’s all rice.”
“So, he was turned down?”
“Politely rejected,” Wu Nanhai said with a scowl. “That bastard Xiao Zishan kicked the ball to me again. Insisted I had the most love for animals. I love animals for the products they provide, not for their own sake. Now, anything that involves a living creature is my problem.”
As if on cue, a chorus of barking, neighing, mooing, and grunting erupted from a nearby enclosure. A cat with a bow on its neck rubbed against Wu Nanhai’s leg.
“That’s Yang Baogui’s dog. He brought five. Future military and police dogs, he says.”
“What about the horse?”
“It’s embarrassing, really. He brought the horse and pigeons to me himself, and told me to take good care of his ‘friends who can’t speak’,” Wu Nanhai said, tossing a small fish to the kitten. “I don’t know the first thing about raising horses. The horse wouldn’t eat.”
Hu Yicheng nodded. “That horse was a picky eater. Wouldn’t touch the grass we cut. Went on a hunger strike.”
“It was restless, agitated,” Wu Nanhai continued. “Nikcha tried everything, but he couldn’t calm it down. After a few days of not eating, with the heat and the flies, it just collapsed yesterday. I had Yang Baogui, the vet, take a look. He said it was incurable. It died last night. I didn’t have the heart to tell Old Ni.”
“A real pity. Racehorses have great bloodlines.”
“Not really,” Hu Yicheng said dismissively. “They were both geldings. What’s the use of an eighteen-year-old gelding?”
“I don’t think it’s a big deal either,” Wu Nanhai agreed. “Racehorses can’t do farm work. They’re not as useful as draft horses.”
“So, where are the fish?”
“In the baskets over there,” Wu Nanhai said, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know what to do with them. We’ve had boiled fish every day.”
“Tomorrow, we can have…”
“Shh!” Wu Nanhai nudged his head towards the women in the shed. “Do you want to be drowned in saliva? If this gets out, I don’t know anything.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Rabbit meat?”
“First, help me figure out what to do with this pile of fish,” Wu Nanhai said, leading him to the baskets. The salty, fishy smell of the sea was a welcome, familiar scent to Wu De.
The baskets were filled with a motley assortment of fish, large and small, even a few small sharks, which were inedible without proper treatment due to their strong ammonia smell.
“Boiling seafood in plain water is the best way to appreciate its natural flavor,” Wu De said. “But when you’re eating it every day for protein, it gets bland. My method is simple: seafood rice or barbecue.”
“Grilled fish? We don’t have any spices.”
“You can do it without spices. And seafood rice is even simpler.” He checked his watch. It was almost 10:00. He was on guard duty at noon, so he had time to eat first. “I’ll show you.”
“How many people can the field cooker feed?”
“A hundred, at four liang of rice per person.”
“Okay, I’ll make one pot, and you can make more.”
With a willing volunteer, Wu Nanhai quickly assembled the food office staff to assist.
Wu De instructed them to clean the fish, sorting them by size and species, separating red-fleshed from white, oily from lean.
“There are many kinds of sea fish, and they should be used in different ways. Sorting them as soon as they’re brought ashore makes processing much easier.”
He then led a group to the river to gather wild vegetables: plantain, sow thistle, wild onion, and wild perilla. They returned with two bundles, which they washed and tied with thatch.
A large fire was built, and a bellows was used to fan the flames. The water was soon boiling, and the rice was added. While the rice cooked, Wu De demonstrated how to clean the fish.
The heads, tails, and guts were set aside. The fish was chopped into small pieces, the shellfish were shucked, and the kelp and wild vegetables were chopped. When the rice had expanded into a soupy porridge, he added the fish, shellfish, and kelp, stirring to combine. After a few minutes, he added the wild vegetables and onions, simmered for another minute, and then sprinkled in some salt. A pot of seafood rice was ready.
The fish offal and small, miscellaneous fish were used to make fish sauce. Lacking a cement pool, they used large water vats from the inspection department’s kitchen. Wu De showed them how to mix the fish with salt, cover it with a bamboo mat, and press it with a large stone. The vats were placed outdoors to facilitate fermentation.
“It will take a year to be ready,” Wu De said, “but the taste will be delicious.”
He also taught them how to salt and dry fish. Soon, the back of the kitchen was filled with a foul, fishy smell. Flies swarmed, and the stench was almost unbearable. One of the girls ran outside to vomit. She would not be enjoying the seafood rice for lunch.