Chapter 148: Geoduck Slices

A week passed in the blink of an eye. Feng Xue still had not found any trace of other time-travelers, but he felt no sense of urgency whatsoever. The entire Don't Starve world felt like his personal home court. Unlike those time-travelers who struggled every day just to meet their basic survival needs, he was living comfortably with plenty of delicious food and drinks. The longer it dragged on, the wider the gap would become between his physical condition and that of the remaining time-travelers. When the time came, he would face those starving and exhausted fellows in peak mental and physical condition; there was simply no way he could lose.

Therefore, Feng Xue’s strategy was to "drag it out"! If he could drag it out until everyone else died of starvation, he would win by default.

Before all that, however, Feng Xue dug up the koalaphant trunk he had buried in the root cellar a week ago.

That's right, he hadn't eaten this thing yet.

When it came to precious ingredients, Feng Xue always exercised immense patience. Just like bear paws, rash cooking would only cause the ingredient to lose its inherent deliciousness.

Although he had never handled a koalaphant trunk before, he knew how to prepare a regular elephant trunk, and a koalaphant's trunk was clearly much more elastic than an ordinary one.

For such an ingredient, braising in soy sauce was actually the best method. However, Feng Xue lacked the essential seasonings required for braising, such as soy sauce and white sugar. If he were to start brewing wine now to use for a yellow-wine braise, the time required would simply be too long. Summer was just around the corner, and even with the protection of the blue gemstone, there was no guarantee it would keep for that long.

Consequently, Feng Xue had to settle for the next best thing and chose steaming, the method that best brought out the natural flavor of the ingredient.

However, due to the anatomical location of an elephant trunk, steaming it would produce a distinct "aftertaste," requiring extra effort in preparation.

To this end, Feng Xue specifically went out and raided a beehive.

A week ago, after thoroughly cleaning the trunk, he coated its entire surface with beeswax mixed with sea salt, while filling the interior with honey. After letting it rest for a week, the beeswax had completely permeated the outer skin of the trunk.

Like peeling a banana, Feng Xue stripped away the outer layer, which had completely fused with the beeswax, revealing the tender, white meat inside.

Sealed by the beeswax and honey, the elephant trunk meat, placed in an oxygen-deprived environment, underwent a transformation known in culinary arts as "aging." During this time, the sweetness of the honey had penetrated deep into the tender meat, while the special enzymes within the honey made the texture even softer and more elastic.

At this point, the meat of the trunk was even more delicate than that of a geoduck, having transformed directly from red meat into white meat!

With his spiritual pressure field deployed, an extremely thin blade materialized in Feng Xue's hand. Formed directly by Quincy arrows, the blade could not only change according to his will, but it also absorbed no odors, making it truly ideal for handling delicate ingredients.

That being said, Feng Xue didn't have any other cutting tools available anyway.

The trunk was sliced into pieces as thick as a pinky finger and laid out on a wooden plate like playing cards. He then placed a few ribs taken from the koalaphant alongside them. The plate was made of pine wood, and its unique pine resin aroma would give the trunk a fresher taste.

The vessel used for holding water was an earthen pot, a finished product Feng Xue had fired three days ago. Since he hadn't formally studied pottery-making, he had fired around two hundred pieces at once before finally getting two or three usable earthen pots.

The water inside the pot was no ordinary liquid either; it was morning dew that Feng Xue collected every single day at dawn. Whether due to the magical flora of the Don't Starve world or something else, this dew possessed the miraculous property of restoring sanity simply by being used as drinking water.

Because of this, Feng Xue had resolved to set aside two hours every day, starting at break of day, to gather the dew.

He placed a reed-woven steamer basket atop the earthen pot and covered it with a matching reed lid, completing a full set of steaming apparatus.

After sprinkling some coarse salt onto the sliced trunk, he placed it on the steamer to cook over boiling water. Feng Xue didn't dare to look away for even a second; his culinary senses were stretched taut at that moment, casting his entire focus upon the food within the pot.

After an indeterminate amount of time, a prompt finally surfaced in Feng Xue's culinary intuition. Fully prepared, Feng Xue extinguished the fire almost instantaneously. Ignoring the intense heat, he lifted the wooden plate straight out of the pot. Guided by that ineffable intuition, he knew he had to wait for it to cool down slightly to achieve the ultimate texture. Turning around, he carefully poured the boiling dew into a Bear Grylls-style canteen.

After adding a bit of cool dew to the boiling water, Feng Xue placed the canteen directly back over the fire. Meanwhile, he pulled out a wooden cup, dropped in several dried flower petals, and when the dew in the canteen boiled with bubbles the size of dragon eyes, he poured it swiftly into the cup. He watched the petals slowly unfurl inside, followed immediately by a refreshing aroma.

"Whew..." Feng Xue took a appreciative sniff of the fragrant air and stretched luxuriously.

These petals were gathered along the way while collecting dew and dried into a simple herbal tea. If the dew hadn't been needed primarily for steaming the trunk, he wouldn't have waited until today to enjoy the experience of brewing flower tea with morning dew.

A moment later, the herbal tea had been refilled with water three times, and the temperature of the sliced trunk had dropped to a suitable level for eating. Unable to wait any longer, Feng Xue picked up his chopsticks and picked up a slice as translucent and white as jade.

Though the slice was as thick as a pinky finger, merely holding it with the chopsticks revealed its intense elasticity. Delighted by the discovery, Feng Xue released his chopsticks, only to watch the slice bounce a full five or six centimeters high upon hitting the plate.

Knowing that the optimal temperature had been reached, Feng Xue stopped playing around and popped a slice straight into his mouth. Before he even had time to fully process the flavor, an explosive sensation of texture burst forth within his mouth.

The incredibly elastic slice seemed imbued with some strange magic, making one eager to bite down again and again. With every single bite, that powerful elasticity pushed back against the gourmet's teeth.

Though it was merely a single slice, Feng Xue felt a sense of fatigue as though he had been chewing gum for two days and two nights.

Yet right on the heels of that fatigue came an exquisite, mellow sweetness.

The meat, aged through honey, first released a sweet flavor that did not overpower the inherent freshness of the trunk itself. Accentuated by that tiny touch of salt, the meat reigned like an emperor commanding an army of elasticity; even the twin powers of sweet and savory had to bow and submit before its majesty.

Following the sweetness and saltiness came a rich fragrance—the deliciousness that had seeped out from the koalaphant's bones during the steaming process. Steaming was the cooking method that best reflected the true flavor of the ingredient itself. Ancient people could even taste the diet of the ingredient purely through steaming (he recalled a steamed dish where a lamb was fed medicinal herbs for several weeks, and when steamed with no seasonings other than salt, it produced the flavor of a medicinal broth).

Alongside the aroma of the bones, a fragrance of fresh grass wafted out. As the koalaphant's foraging organ, the trunk had accumulated the essences of countless plants from across the Don't Starve world. As it steamed, this crisp botanic freshness was coaxed out, writing a perfect concluding chapter to this feast of texture and taste.