Chapter 9 Grilling Fish and Digging Ponds
“Bang!”
Jiang Xuan picked up a suitable black gravel from the stream, aimed it at a large rock and threw it hard. The gravel cracked, and Jiang Xuan picked up a thin piece of stone with a very sharp break.
Then he untied a large fish from the vines, removed the scales and gills with stones, and gutted the fish.
“That’s a lot of fish oil!”
Fish in autumn are very fat and have a lot of fish oil in their stomachs.
Jiang Xuan was happy. The wild animals in the mountains were mostly lean meat with very little fat. For the tribesmen, animal oil was a good thing and was more popular than lean meat.
He tore off the fish oil bit by bit, put it in a bamboo tube, kept the fish bladder, and threw the rest aside.
Fish bladder is fish bubble. After drying and boiling, you can get fish bladder glue, which is a highly sticky adhesive.
Chishao and Uncaria also found sharp stones and helped kill the fish. After all the fish were caught, Jiang Xuan got about a pound of fish oil and a dozen fish bladders of different sizes.
As for the fish offal, Jiang Xuan asked Chishao to put them in a bamboo tube and pour them all into the pond dug earlier, so as to attract more fish.
After finishing, Jiang Xuan and others rinsed all the fish and took them back to the bamboo house to grill.
In fact, they couldn't eat so much fish in one meal, because these dozen fish weighed at least fifty or sixty kilograms in total.
But there is no other way. If all the fish are not dried, they will become smelly in just one day and one night in the autumn weather.
In the bamboo house, above the fire pit, there is a thick bamboo beam. It is not very high and you can reach it by standing up and stretching your hand.
There are more than a dozen two-string braided ropes hanging on the bamboo beams. Each rope has a loop at the end, which can be connected to other ropes to hang the leftover meat.
The flames in the fire pit burn day and night, and the high temperature and smoke continuously smoke the meat hanging on the beams. Mosquitoes cannot get close, bacteria find it difficult to breed, and the meat becomes drier and drier. This method can extend the shelf life of the meat.
This method was not thought up by Jiang Xuan, but was the usual practice of the Deer Tribe and the survival experience and wisdom of the tribesmen.
If it were not for this method, raw meat would not be preserved for long without salt.
"Leave two for later, and hang the rest up."
Jiang Xuan and Gou Teng and a few others tied the fish one by one to the noose hanging from the beam and hung them high above the fire pit to be smoked by the smoke.
There were two fish, which were skewered on wooden sticks and roasted next to the fire.
Jiang Xuan found a thin rattan and hung the dozen or so fish maws on the wall of the bamboo house for future use.
Jiang Xuan added some firewood into the fire pit, and the fire soon burned very vigorously. The firelight illuminated the fish and the faces of the five people.
There was a circle of large stones beside the fire pond. Jiang Xuan placed the wooden stick with the fish on two large stones facing each other. He only had to turn the fish over from time to time without having to hold it in his hands all the time.
Although the fish has been cleaned, it still has a faint fishy smell.
"Fishy smell..." Jiang Xuan seemed to remember something.
"Don't grill the fish yet. I'm going to go out for a while."
Jiang Xuan moved the fish aside, then stood up, picked up the bone hoe and walked outside. Chi Shao hurriedly followed him, fearing that Jiang Xuan would go too far and get into danger.
"Xuan, where are you going?"
"I'll go find some spices."
"What are spices?" Chishao was puzzled.
"You'll know in a moment."
Jiang Xuan walked into the forest to the right of the bamboo forest. Not far away, he saw a plant with yellowing leaves at the edges.
He walked over and tried to pull it up, but failed. So he used a bone hoe to dig out the plant along with the underground rhizomes. The fine roots of the plant broke and a pungent smell immediately filled the air.
This is a wild ginger plant, which can be seen everywhere in the southern wilderness forests. There are several more in nearby places, but Jiang Xuan did not dig them up.
Chishao looked at the wild ginger that Jiang Xuan had dug: "This is a herb that can detoxify. Why are you digging this?"
The tribesmen use many herbs, and wild ginger, which is common in the mountains, is one of them.
"I heard from people in the tribe that this herb can not only detoxify, but also remove the fishy smell and make the barbecue more fragrant. I want to try whether it can be used to grill fish."
Jiang Xuan pushed the matter onto the people of the Deer Tribe without blushing or getting nervous, since there would be no evidence anyway.
"Really? Why haven't I heard of it?"
Chishao was skeptical, but she didn't ask any further questions. It was not her character to get to the bottom of things.
"You'll know when you go back and try it."
Jiang Xuan walked back with the bone hoe and wild ginger. Chishao thought so too, there was no harm anyway, so let's give it a try.
Jiang Xuan returned to the bamboo house, put down the bone hoe, went to the stream to wash the wild ginger, broke off the stems and leaves, and cut the wild ginger into several slices with a sharp stone.
After returning to the bamboo house, Jiang Xuan cut the wild ginger into two halves and stuffed them into the stomachs of two grilled fish. He then used thin rattan to simply sew the fish stomachs together to prevent the wild ginger slices from falling out.
Jiang Xuan placed another large stone on the edge of the fire pit, placed the two fish on it, then pulled the red-hot charcoal fire from the center of the fire pit over and grilled the fish directly on the charcoal fire.
Grilling fish over an open flame will cause it to burn, whereas charcoal fire is more gentle and the fish grilled over it is less likely to burn.
Time passed bit by bit, and under the scorching charcoal fire, the grilled fish gradually exuded the aroma of meat, as well as a faint smell of wild ginger.
The surface of the fish gradually became roasted until it turned golden brown, and the fragrance filled the entire bamboo house.
“You can eat now!”
Jiang Xuan placed the two grilled fish on a clean stone slab, then picked up a piece of fish meat from the back of the grilled fish with chopsticks, blew on it, and put it into his mouth.
When building the bamboo house, he used bamboo to grind several pairs of chopsticks. Unfortunately, except for himself, Chishao, Uncaria and others, they preferred to eat directly with their hands.
The fish was roasted for a long time and became drier, with a rich meaty flavor and the fragrance of wild ginger.
This original freshwater fish has excellent texture and flavor. It tastes delicious even if only two slices of wild ginger are added.
"It tastes good, everyone come and try it."
Jiang Xuan continued eating while greeting them.
Chishao also picked up a pair of chopsticks. She was not used to using chopsticks, but Jiang Xuan liked it, so she tried hard to get used to it so that Jiang Xuan would not be lonely.
Chishao clumsily picked up a piece of fish with chopsticks and held it in his hand, afraid that it would fall.
After she put the fish into her mouth, she chewed it for a few times, nodded with satisfaction, and her eyes were slightly narrowed because of her smile, like crescent moons.
"After adding that herb, it really tastes much better than before."
Chishao fully affirmed Jiang Xuan's method of stuffing wild ginger into the fish's stomach and roasting the fish.
“Hot, hot, hot…”
Uncaria, Stone Eel and Nanxing tore the fish meat with their hands, blew on it while saying it was hot, and stuffed it into their mouths.
“It’s delicious!”
"Xuan, your grilled fish is amazing!"
"I want to eat more."
The three of them quickly finished a big fish. Big fish didn't have many small fish bones, and Jiang Xuan had roasted it dry, so even though they ate quickly, no one was choked by fish bones.
After eating the two big fish, the five people were still not satisfied, so they strung the fish oil on small wooden sticks, grilled them over charcoal fire, and then ate them.
Fish oil doesn’t actually taste that great, but no one cares as long as it’s edible.
After eating the fish, Jiang Xuan thought, it would be nice to make a pot of fish soup. It would be boring to eat grilled food all the time.
However, you need a pot to make soup. If you don’t have a pot, at least you need a clay pot.
"crock……"
Jiang Xuan muttered in a low voice, his eyes lit up: "Why not make some pottery?"
Chishao, who was standing by, heard what he said and asked in surprise, "Xuan, you can also make pottery? How much did you learn in the tribe?"
Chishao always had a feeling of unreality. Her own brother was so powerful, why didn't she realize it before? There were indeed people in the Deer Tribe who could make pottery. Although it was only the most primitive and simplest earthenware, it was still pottery and had the basic functions and characteristics of pottery.
Jiang Xuan said embarrassedly: "I just watched them do it. As for whether it can be fired successfully, we have to try it to know."
Chishao nodded and said, "Then give it a try, Xuan, I believe in you."
This place is rich in resources. Now that we have ways to fish, plus hunting and digging plant tubers, as long as we are diligent, it is not particularly difficult to save enough food for five people to survive the winter.
There are fewer people and more resources, so the pressure of survival is much less than when we were in the Deer Tribe.
"Okay, I'll try my best!"
In order to drink the broth, Jiang Xuan decided to try making pottery.
In fact, the manufacture of pottery is not complicated. You only need to choose the right clay, pat, knead and shape it repeatedly, dry it in the shade and then fire it at high temperature.
As long as you try a few more times and summarize your experience, you should be able to succeed.
There is clay by the stream, which is the kind of white and very fine soil. It is the best material for making pottery pots.
However, before making pottery, there was a more urgent matter, which was to dig a pond.
Since the fish traps were effective, they would definitely be able to catch a lot of fish in the future. They couldn't just hang them up and smoke them, right? That would require a huge fire pit! The best way was to dig a pond and raise the fish. Whenever they wanted to eat, they could just go and catch them. They didn't have to worry about preserving them, and the small fish could grow up.
Early the next morning, Jiang Xuan got up, took down two half-smoked fish from above the fire pit, roasted them for everyone to have a good meal, and then began to prepare tools for digging the pond.
As the saying goes, if you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools.
Good tools can greatly improve work efficiency.
With the help of Chishao and others, Jiang Xuan spent a whole day making three more bone hoes. Together with the previous two, they now had five bone hoes, and everyone could have one.
Then, they spent another day weaving three rattan baskets of different sizes to transport the excavated soil.
On the third day, they finally started digging the pond.
Jiang Xuan chose a place in front of the bamboo forest that was close to the stream and had relatively flat terrain. After clearing the weeds and shrubs, five people used bone hoes to dig the soil at the same time. The excavated soil was piled in rattan baskets around the pond to build a embankment.
Because of their backward tools, it took them eight full days to dig a pond that was six meters long, four meters wide and half a meter deep. The amount of hard work involved is beyond imagination.
Jiang Xuan spent another day using the mixed wet mud to paste the embankments on all four sides of the pond to prevent water leaks from occurring.
After building the pond embankment, Jiang Xuan inserted a small fence woven with branches at the water outlet, making it difficult for the fish to escape.
After everything was done, Jiang Xuan dug a water channel to divert stream water into the pond.
“Clatter…”
The stream flowed, filling the pond little by little.
Jiang Xuan and four other people stood by the pond, watching the water level rise little by little, and their hearts were filled with a sense of accomplishment.
"Xuan, after digging the pond, will we have endless fish to eat in the future?" Nanxing asked longingly.
Jiang Xuan smiled and said, "Yes, one day, we will have more fish than we can eat."
"Very good!"
Nanxing immediately laughed happily, and Uncaria and Stone Eel also laughed.
Chishao looked at Jiang Xuan and said, "I really hope this day will come soon, so that everyone won't have to worry about going hungry anymore."
Jiang Xuan nodded. He believed that as long as he worked hard, that day would come sooner or later.
After the pond was dug, fish caught in the traps were no longer shot to death.
They used rattan baskets to scoop the fish from the pond, and then put the live fish back into the pond in animal skin bags.
After a few days, the newly dug pond was no longer empty, and many fish were swimming around in the water.
However, they soon discovered new problems.
Carnivorous fish often bite herbivorous fish. Even if the herbivorous fish are larger, they will be bitten all over or even killed.
Helplessly, Jiang Xuan could only drain the water from the pond and rebuild a pond embankment in the middle of the pond to raise the carnivorous fish and herbivorous fish separately.
Although carnivorous fish will still bite each other, at least the herbivorous fish can survive. You just need to throw some aquatic plants to them as food every day.
(End of this chapter)
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