Chapter 270 Boiling, Steaming, Frying Round Fruits, the Symbiotic Relationship Between Round Fruits and Dragonflies…
By the time the dead insects in the city were completely cleared out, more than half a month had passed.
Shu Xin studied the fruit insect fertilizer production method in Bobomo City and regretfully found that this method could not be replicated.
This grayish-white hard-shelled insect only appears on round fruit trees, and it can only fertilize the soil when buried in the soil of round fruit trees. It will not have the same effect on the soil in the forest outside Bobomo City.
Shu Xin tried it, and found that the magic content of the soil outside the city actually decreased after the crushed hard-shelled insects were buried inside.
...Perhaps the round fruit tree and the hard-shelled insects had some kind of symbiotic relationship? That was the only guess Shu Xin could make at the time.
After the first meeting in Popomo City concluded, everyone—whether elf, demon, or flower fairy—diligently began working on their assigned tasks.
Under the supervision of the Affairs Department, twenty new deacons have been selected and officially started their posts. Now, none of the small round fruit houses on the Tree of Life are empty; each round fruit house is inhabited by flower fairies.
Shu Xin soon got to taste the special dishes of Bobomo City provided by the Service Department, such as steamed, boiled, baked, and fried round fruits.
Upon seeing the round fruit on the dining table, Shu Xin understood why Bobomo City was the largest city in Bobomo Territory. It was obviously because the flower fairies there could use the round fruit as their staple food.
Shu Xin asked the Tree of Life, and it said that unless there is an unprecedented drought like the one before, the round fruit tree usually still has a high fruit-bearing rate even if it encounters a natural disaster. With enough food, there will naturally be enough people.
When Shu Xin first came to Bobomo City and saw the round and big fruits hanging on the branches, she wondered if these fruits were edible. She didn't expect that they really were!
Whether you pan-fry, grill, steam, or boil it, it tastes good and smells quite fragrant. Although it doesn't have much flavor, adding some side dishes and seasonings makes it very delicious.
Only when eating round fruit does Shuxin approve of the flower fairy's thick application of moss syrup, especially when the fruit is steamed. How to put it, it feels a bit like the steamed buns dipped in white sugar that I ate when I was a child...
It can be eaten as food and used as a house, no wonder the Tree of Life in Popomo City is shaped like a round fruit tree.
The round fruit also reminded Shu Xin of the bread fruit from her original world. She had never eaten bread fruit, but she had heard that if bread fruit was baked, it would taste like bread, and that baked round fruit had a very rich bread aroma.
The round fruit has a very dense and powdery texture, but it is neither sweet nor salty. Without any side dishes or seasonings, it tastes a bit like a sweet potato that hasn't dried out. It wouldn't be wrong to call it an unsweet sweet potato.
However, Shu Xin learned that round fruits are not as easy to preserve as sweet potatoes. Fully ripe round fruits will rot and become infested with insects in a few days, while half-ripe round fruits will ripen on their own in a few days and then rot and start to grow insects.
The unripe round fruit won't ripen on its own, but there's no edible pulp inside. The fruit membrane and cavity aren't fully formed, and the shell only contains juice with very low magical content. For flower fairies, drinking this juice is no better than eating grass leaves.
If you put a half-ripe or overripe round fruit into a space stone, the round fruit will not rot or get infested with insects. After taking it out of the space stone, its magic content will even increase significantly. However, the flesh will instantly spoil and become highly poisonous—flower fairies cannot eat it at all; if they do, they will die.
The round fruits used by the Service Department for cooking were obtained from Governor Mimi Lan. Shu Xin was very curious about how she stored the round fruits. After asking, she learned that Mimi Lan also used space stones, but she used a very rare green space stone. Only round fruits stored in this kind of space stone will not spoil after being taken out.
The problem is that this kind of green space stone is quite rare. There is only one in the entire city of Bobomo, and the number of round fruits that can be stored in it is not much. It is fine to ask the Flower Fairy to have a taste, but if you want all the flower fairies in the city to have a full stomach, that is just a pipe dream.
Mimi Lan originally planned to wait until Bobomo City was completely out of supplies before cooking this batch of round fruits into a large pot of soup and distributing it to all the citizens of the city. Now that the Flower Fairy has arrived with a large amount of supplies, there is no need to hold onto such a small amount of round fruits. When the officials from the Service Department came to inquire, she gave away the space stone.
A green space stone? Realizing that this kind of space stone was a special kind that could store living things, Shu Xin's feelings suddenly became complicated—could it be that the hard-shelled beetle and the round fruit really had a symbiotic relationship?!
Thinking in this direction, we can find the reason why the round fruit does not keep well. After all, there are insect eggs in the fruit flesh. Once the round fruit is fully ripe and full of magic, insects will hatch quickly. As the insects drill into the fruit flesh and feed on it, the fruit flesh will naturally rot faster.
Considering the likely symbiotic relationship between the hard-shelled insect and the round fruit, the hatching of the insect eggs and even the insect's feeding on the fruit pulp are probably necessary steps for the round fruit to spread its seeds. The reason why the unripe round fruit ripens as it is left to ripen is probably also related to the insect eggs in the fruit pulp. After all, not all fruits can ripen on their own; some can only complete the ripening process on the branch.
As for the round fruit stored in the space stone spoiling and becoming highly poisonous when taken out, it must be due to the contamination caused by the insect eggs inside the fruit being killed. Insect eggs in the space stone, which can store living things, will not be killed, so the round fruit can be stored normally and will not spoil when taken out.
Shu Xin consulted the Tree of Life, and her guess was correct: the hard-shelled insect and the round fruit tree did indeed have a symbiotic relationship.
The fruit of the round fruit tree has a very hard outer shell and an extremely tough inner membrane. Inside the membrane is a thick, plump piece of pulp, and the seed is hidden deep within the pulp. This structure effectively protects the seed because both its outer shell and inner membrane are very difficult to damage.
The tools used by the flower fairies of Popomore City to build the round fruit houses were made from branches of the Tree of Life. No matter how sharp the stone or how sharp the metal, none of them could cut through the shell and membrane of the round fruit.
Even if there are birds or magical beasts that can break open the round fruit, the large clump of fruit flesh full of magic is enough to attract their attention. In contrast, without external interference, the seeds can hardly break through the fruit membrane and shell on their own. The round fruit's shell doesn't even have germination holes!
The hard-shelled insect plays the role of breaking open the seed shell and membrane. Although Shu Xin calls the grayish-white insects that are rampant in Bobomo City "hard-shelled insects", these insects actually undergo metamorphosis during their growth process, and have four forms: extremely small eggs, soft-bodied larvae, nymphs with hard shells, and winged adults. After watching the video materials provided by the Tree of Life, Shu Xin decided to name these insects Round Fruit Dragonflies.
During the flowering and pollination stage of the round fruit tree, the round fruit dragonfly, which resembles a dragonfly but has an extra pair of wings, will be attracted by the fragrance of the flowers and lay its eggs on the tree. They lay large numbers of eggs inside the bark and inside the ovary of the pistil. The eggs inside the bark are killed by the sap secreted by the round fruit tree, but the eggs inside the flowers will survive.
If the round fruit tree fails to secrete enough sap to kill the insect eggs inside the tree, the result will be the insect plague that broke out in Popomore City.
As the ovary develops into a fruit, the insect eggs remain inside the fruit. The round fruit dragonfly's eggs will only begin to hatch when the round fruit is fully ripe. If the round fruit detaches from the branch before it is ripe, some of the insect eggs will spontaneously decompose, providing a lot of magic to the round fruit and helping it ripen as quickly as possible.
After hatching, the larvae will gnaw at the fruit membrane and shell while feeding on the pulp. After biting through the membrane and shell, the larvae will develop into hard-shelled insects. The hard-shelled insects in the nymph stage will crawl to gnaw at the hard fruit stalk that emits an attractive scent, and the round fruit will fall from the branch. The seeds, which are still wrapped in part of the rotten pulp, will fall into the soil and be carried away by scavengers, where they will take root and sprout in different places.
After gnawing on a certain number of fruit stalks, the hard-shelled insects molt and emerge as adults, entering their reproductive period. Mature round-fruited dragonflies feed on the leaves of the round-fruited tree, as well as preying on some insect larvae that are harmful to the tree.
The round fruit placed in the space stone will instantly spoil and become highly poisonous after being taken out. This is because the fruit flesh is full of the dead eggs of the round fruit dragonfly. As for why the round fruit does not spoil when steamed, boiled, fried or fried, the answer given by the Tree of Life is that the former is killed instantly, so the toxins burst out rapidly, while the latter is killed slowly, so the toxins gradually dissipate.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, the flesh of the round fruit has a high starch content and is also rich in high-quality protein.
Shu Xin's feelings were extremely complicated—these are magical plants from a magical world, so why bother with such scientific and logical explanations for such trivial details?!
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Author's Note: The round fruit's characteristics are somewhat inspired by coconuts and breadfruits. As for high-quality protein, I just wash the lychees and eat them. [Slowly closes eyes]
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