[Enjoyed handmade smoked Red Salmon in the North American wilderness. Happiness +1]
The moment he swallowed the fish, Lin Chen received a system notification.
'Only one Happiness Point? It seems eating Red Salmon for three days straight is having an effect. If I keep eating it this way, I probably won't get any more points unless I come up with a new recipe.'
Besides, he was getting a little tired of it anyway. The recent discovery of new food sources, especially the sunchokes, had given him a lot of new ideas.
But to ensure he had enough daily protein and fat, he still needed to catch Red Salmon.
'Oh, right. I can smoke the fish to preserve it. The temperature at night is below freezing, so it's basically like a freezer. If I pile the frozen fish together, they'll act like a giant ice pack and won't thaw too quickly during the day, which means they won't rot.'
'I can use the leftover parts like the heads and bones to render oil. The water-rendering method should work fine. I'll just boil a pot before bed. The oil will congeal overnight in the cold, and I can scoop it out in the morning.'
He was sick of eating those parts anyway, but it would be a shame to throw them out. Better to put them to good use.
Normally, scraps like fish heads could be used as bait for fishing or catching crabs, but the Yukon River was currently teeming with salmon, with no sign of any other aquatic life.
Once November arrived, after most of the salmon had spawned and died off, other species would have their chance to thrive.
He ran back to the riverbank, washed the sunchokes, chives, and mountain leeks, and caught several more fish. After cleaning them, he skewered them on a branch and hoisted it onto his shoulder.
On the way back, he foraged for wild mushrooms and chopped down a few wild apple branches before contentedly returning to his shelter to begin another round of work.
The water-rendering method, to put it simply, was just boiling fish soup. You just keep boiling it, letting the heads and scraps break down completely until all the fat is released.
The fish soup simmered in the pot on one side, and he would occasionally skim off the bones that floated to the surface. Beside it, fresh salmon steaks were smoking. The entire rock crevice filled with the rich aroma of fish and smoke.
For the next few days, Lin Chen didn't try anything new. He just made the same few dishes over and over again.
He cooked the sunchokes he had gathered in the simplest ways: boiling, steaming in an earth oven, and pan-frying.
As for the mountain leeks and chives, he just stir-fried them with fish and mushrooms. Since they were new ingredients, he managed to get another two Happiness Points.
He was doing this on purpose.
When dealing with unfamiliar ingredients, a chef first needs to taste them on their own to determine how best to incorporate them into a dish.
Plus, to maximize his Happiness Points, he needed to stick to a simple diet for a while. Only by letting his palate grow accustomed to the blandness would he be able to experience a bigger thrill later.
His deliberate slacking caused his livestream's popularity to drop significantly. Viewers who found it boring gradually drifted over to other contestants' streams. Still, a number of die-hard fans would check back in around mealtimes or search for keywords online, hoping to see if any new "jungle cuisine" had appeared.
What he didn't know was that the jungle cuisine he'd whipped up on a whim had inspired a wave of restaurants to start selling similar dishes. Some bars even dedicated a few of their sports screens to broadcasting footage from `Wild Survival`.
For many Westerners with quiet evenings, drinking at a bar and watching a game was practically the only form of entertainment.
Ordering some french fries and chicken wings, paired with a plate of smoked salmon with sour cream and baguette, while watching fifteen contestants fight for survival in the wilderness, was slowly becoming a new trend.
...
"It's day eight of `Wild Survival`. Good morning."
Looking revitalized, Lin Chen greeted the camera, then picked up the pot from beside the extinguished campfire and took several large, satisfying gulps of the ice-cold wild apple water.
"GULP... GULP... Ahhh~!"
He had refined his recipe, adding a handful of wild berries to the wild apple water. This gave the originally sour drink a faint sweetness and a light, fruity flavor.
It was just a small change, but it made the fruit tea taste several times better.
Through repeated experimentation, he'd found that if he boiled a pot before bed, covered it, and left it by the campfire overnight, the fruit tea would be perfectly chilled to around 0 degrees Celsius by morning.
The residual heat from the embers not only kept the rock crevice warm but also slowed the cooling rate of the fruit tea.
One time, he'd gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and when he took a few sips to quench his thirst, it was still slightly warm.
"I wonder how many viewers watching have tried milk tea from our Great Xia. Fruit tea is just as popular, and this tastes kind of like a lemonade with 30% sugar, but with a spoonful of sugar-free blueberry jam mixed in. It's fantastic."
As was his routine, he would finish the entire pot of fruit tea over the next half hour.
Such was life with limited containers. If he didn't drink it all, he wouldn't have anything to carry water in.
He started to ponder as he walked up the hill.
After reviewing the past few days, Lin Chen realized that his most urgent need wasn't food, but tools.
As a modern man, life without convenient tools was incredibly difficult.
Bathing required water, washing his hair required water, washing his hands required water, and cooking required water. His daily life revolved around it.
Relying on a single two-liter pot was simply not enough to manage everything.
Bamboo, the most suitable material for making water containers, wasn't native to North America. Trying to craft a watertight vessel here would be exceedingly difficult.
'At a time like this, all those survival shows I've watched and all that knowledge I've accumulated are completely useless. It's like I've never seen any of it; I'm drawing a complete blank on what I could use to make a water bottle or another pot.'
'The only thing I can think of is to cut a section of a log and hollow it out.'
'But wood is naturally porous and can't hold water for long. Besides, hollowing out a log is precision work, and I don't even have a knife long enough to do it.'
After wracking his brain to no avail, he subconsciously pulled up the system's exchange page. His eyes fell on the `Complete Collection of Outdoor Tools`, which cost 15 Happiness Points.
It was the most expensive knowledge in the first tier, a full fifty percent more than any other category.
But there was no doubt it would be incredibly useful.
When food wasn't an issue, tools were clearly the top priority.
'I have 8 Happiness Points right now, so I'm still 7 short. How can I use these limited ingredients to create a dish that will give me a huge burst of Happiness?'
As he pondered, he reached the top of the cliff and skillfully began gathering berries.
His gaze swept over the blueberry cuttings he had planted near the cliff's edge a few days ago, only to see that the berries that had been on the branches had vanished.