Chapter 5 Catching Crabs
The next morning, the sounds of birds and insects woke Jiang Xuan from his sleep.
He opened his sleepy eyes and found that others had also woken up, so he greeted them and went to the stream to wash his face.
The stream water is very clear and shallow, and some finger-sized fish are swimming around in the water.
After sleeping for a night, Jiang Xuan was starving and everything he saw looked like food.
However, these little fish are very slippery, and it is not easy to catch them unless you spend a long time making a fish cage.
“Clatter…”
Jiang Xuan washed his face with the cold stream water, and he immediately felt much more awake.
It suddenly occurred to him that there were not only fish in the stream, but also some animals that were easier to catch.
For example, crabs.
It is autumn now, the time when crab roe is plump and delicious.
Thinking of the deliciousness of crabs, Jiang Xuan's eyes lit up and he immediately picked up a wooden stick and began searching among the rocks beside the stream.
These stones are very large and scattered on both sides of the stream. Jiang Xuan knows that crabs like to hide under the stones. If you see crabs, you can poke them out with a wooden stick.
Chishao came over curiously and asked, "Xuan, what are you doing?"
"Looking for crabs."
"What are crabs?"
Chishao was a little confused. The people of the Deer Tribe mainly hunted in the forest and occasionally ate fish, but they usually only did so by the stream, stabbing fish with spears and never going into the water easily, so naturally they didn't know what crabs were.
At this moment, Jiang Xuan's wooden stick poked a big crab under a big rock. The big crab immediately ran out from under the rock, trying to escape in panic.
Jiang Xuan quickly pressed down its shell with a wooden stick, reached out from behind the crab, grabbed its four legs on the side, and then lifted up the big crab.
There is a skill to catching crabs.
Its two big pincers are very powerful, but they can only clamp things in front of it. It has no power on the left, right sides, and back.
“That’s it!”
Jiang Xuan felt very surprised because this crab was as big as a soup bowl and very filling. In his previous life, such a big crab would have been a rare sight.
"Is this a crab? It looks fierce. Can we eat it?"
Chishao picked up a wooden stick and put it on the crab's claws. With a "click", the stick was broken cleanly.
"Of course I can eat it. When I was in the tribe, an uncle took me to the waterside to catch crabs, which I could grill and eat."
In order to make Chishao believe that crabs are edible, Jiang Xuan had to lie.
Chishao nodded. She did not doubt Jiang Xuan's words, nor did she ask who took him there.
Uncaria, Stone Loach and Nanxing also came over. They looked at Jiang Xuan holding such a big crab with one hand, with expressions of admiration on their faces.
Uncaria said: "Xuan, you are so amazing!"
The stone loach nodded vigorously. This prey called crab looked very ferocious, but Jiang Xuan caught it so easily.
Nan Xing was even more eager to try: "Xuan, can you give it to me?"
"Of course you can, but you have to be careful not to get caught by it!"
Nanxing took a look at the stick that was broken into two pieces, and immediately nodded like a chick pecking at rice.
"When catching a crab, never reach out in front of it. Catch it from the back or the side. That's it."
Nanxing picked up the crab according to Jiang Xuan's instructions. He saw the crab's huge claws waving left and right, but it couldn't pinch his hand. Nanxing smiled happily.
"Give it to me."
"I want one too."
Uncaria and Gnaphalium took turns trying to catch the big crab, and it felt really fresh.
Jiang Xuan said: "Crabs like to hide under rocks in streams. You can go look for them, but it's best to take a stick and use it to press down on the crabs when you see them, so that your hands don't get caught."
"If we catch a few more, we can have a good meal and then have the strength to build a house."
"Okay, we'll go too."
Red Peony Root, Uncaria Rhynchophylla, Stone Eel, and Arisaema each found a wooden stick, and then imitated Jiang Xuan to poke the big rock beside the stream.
This place is sparsely populated, and these crabs have never been caught before. Not only are they large in size, but their number is also astonishingly large.
Before long, they caught more than a dozen big crabs.
Jiang Xuan tied up the crabs with flexible vines and connected them into a long bunch.
What’s interesting is that when there are two or more crabs together, they will use their claws to clamp each other’s claws or legs, and will not let go easily.
This makes it extremely difficult for them to escape.
Jiang Xuan and others happily returned to the bamboo shed with the big crabs.
Chishao pointed at the big crab and asked, "Xuan, how do you eat crabs?"
Gou Teng and the other two also looked at Jiang Xuan. This crab was covered with a hard shell, giving people a feeling of not knowing where to start.
"It's simple. Just throw them into the fire and roast them until cooked." Jiang Xuan was very confident about roasting crabs because he had roasted them many times in his previous life.
Jiang Xuan first made the fire burn brightly, then he cleared a space in the middle of the fire, threw all the big crabs in, and continued to add firewood.
The flames burned fiercely, and before long, under the high temperature, the shell of the big crab gradually changed from blue-gray to an appetizing red.
However, crabs may have parasites in their bodies and are large in size, so Jiang Xuan must make sure they are fully roasted before eating them.
Jiang Xuan used a wooden stick to move the charcoal fire onto the crabs, covering them.
After a long time, the shell of the big crab was burnt black, but it did not turn into charcoal, and the crab meat inside was still intact.
Jiang Xuan made sure they were cooked, so he picked all the big crabs out of the charcoal fire.
Jiang Xuan said: "Sister, lend me your stone knife."
Chishao pulled the stone knife from his waist and handed it to Jiang Xuan.
Jiang Xuan first pushed the largest crab aside. After it cooled down a little, he broke off its claws and legs one by one and put them aside.
Then he used a stone knife to pry open the curled abdomen of the crab and cut it off. This part cannot be eaten.
Then he used a stone knife to pry open the crab shell, removed the crab stomach, crab heart, crab gills, and crab intestines one by one, and took them out one by one, telling them that they were not to be eaten and that eating them might cause poisoning.
When they heard that it would be poisonous, the four of them became nervous and memorized the parts of the crab that could not be eaten.
"Okay, you can eat the rest."
The big crab was steaming, with plump crab roe, white crab meat and a fragrant aroma.
Jiang Xuan scraped all the crab roe into the crab shell, cut a bamboo stick, and handed it to Chi Shao: "Sister, try it first."
Chishao took the crab shell, picked up some crab roe with a bamboo stick and put it into her mouth. The delicious taste bloomed on the taste buds on the tip of her tongue, and her eyes lit up.
"tasty!"
Chishao praised and then started eating, which made Gou Teng and others drool.
Jiang Xuan smiled and said, "This meat is also delicious."
He cut the big crab open and shared the crab meat with the Uncaria rhynchophylla, the stone loach and the Arisaema confusa who were drooling beside him.
After the three of them ate the crab meat, they couldn't wait to swallow it. They had never tasted such a delicious flavor before.
Then, Jiang Xuan used a stone to smash the crab's claws and legs, and took out the crab meat inside to eat.
As for the crabs at the back, Jiang Xuan let Chishao, Uncaria and others take turns to deal with them, while he gave them instructions from the side.
After Chishao and the three teenagers dissected several crabs, they completely memorized the steps for dissecting crabs and could accurately pick out the inedible parts.
After cutting up the big crab, they didn't care about the crab roe or the crab meat, they just put them close to their mouths and started to eat them. If they couldn't get to the part, they would smash it with stones. They ate very quickly.
Before long, more than a dozen big crabs were eaten.
Uncaria smashed the last crab claw open and stuffed the crab meat into his mouth, still not satisfied: "It's delicious, but there's too much shell and too little meat. It's gone before I'm full."
Everyone nodded, saying that there was indeed too little crab meat.
Jiang Xuan smiled and said, "This thing can't be used as a staple food. Eat something else. If you eat too much crab in one day, you will have a stomachache."
Uncaria and others felt it was a pity. Why couldn’t they eat more of such delicious food?
However, they did not dare to continue catching and eating them and risk getting a stomachache, so they had to wait for the next time.
At that moment, several people ate some wild fruits and plant roots, and after filling their stomachs, they began to build a house.
The bamboo shed is too simple. If you want to live here for a long time, you must build a house that can truly shelter you from the wind and rain.
Thanks to the book friend "Finchlin" for the reward of 5,000 book coins, and congratulations to Finchlin for becoming the first deacon of this book.
Thanks to the book friend "Kui96" for the reward.
(End of this chapter)
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