Culinary God in Wilderness

"A leg bone?"

Seeing the thick bone Lin Chen had placed in his pot, Andre silently retracted the hand he had just extended.

"There’s not much meat on this bone. How am I supposed to eat it?"

Lin Chen had already trimmed most of the meat from the lamb shank and put it in the stew, leaving only a thin layer of meat clinging to the bone.

Back home, scraps like this were for the dogs—just a chew toy to gnaw on.

"The meat closest to the bone is the most flavorful. But when you eat a shank bone, you start with the marrow. That’s the best part."

Lin Chen turned the opening of the bone toward Andre, pointing at the translucent, paste-like substance inside.

"This is the marrow. Give it a try."

He had only worked with Lin Chen twice, but he’d already eaten everything from animal blood and intestines to heart, liver, and lungs.

Bone marrow was nothing in comparison.

Without a second thought, he grabbed the bone and used a twig to poke and scrape inside, soon scooping out a strip of marrow that looked like a piece of fat.

SLURP.

"Doesn’t this just taste like fat?"

"You could say that, yes. The excess has been boiled out, leaving only the fat."

Andre nodded thoughtfully. He quickly realized Lin Chen was showing him a way to supplement his fat intake when it was scarce.

It didn’t look like much, but just a few grams could be enough to sustain a person’s life for an entire day.

The potatoes in the pot were soon cooked through. Before Lin Chen even had to say anything, the moment he moved the pot off the fire, Andre’s chopsticks were already reaching for it.

For someone as skilled in wilderness survival as him, adapting to a dexterous tool like chopsticks was no big deal. After their last encounter, he had picked up two twigs and mastered them in about two days of practice.

The potatoes, boiled in the lamb broth, were exceptionally delicious. Paired with a generous amount of lamb meat, offal, and chili oil, the pleasure of carbs, protein, and fat exploded in his mouth, reigniting his appetite.

He single-handedly devoured a staggering six servings from the large pot of lamb stew before finally stopping.

Although the small skillet didn’t hold much liquid, it was more than enough for the meat. In this one meal, he had eaten at least three pounds of meat and had also drunk nearly a liter of lamb broth on the side.

"Whew~ I’m stuffed, so stuffed. That was satisfying!"

Andre patted his bulging stomach. His face was flushed and radiant, and pea-sized beads of sweat trickled down the wrinkles of his skin.

"Lin, why aren’t you eating?"

"Mine’s right here," Lin Chen said, pointing to another pot. Amidst the BUBBLE BUBBLE of boiling lamb broth, two short, pointed horns poked into the air.

He grabbed the horns, inserted his small knife to test it, and nodded. "Cooked just right."

To Andre’s horror, a complete sheep’s head emerged from beneath the water, revealing its true form. Its features, shrunken and warped from boiling, were grotesquely twisted, and it was still giving off clouds of steam.

Lin Chen glanced at him, smiled, and placed the pot of lamb chili oil in front of himself.

He inserted his sharp combat knife into the sheepskin and made a light slice. The tender skin split open instantly. After a few casual tugs, it peeled off completely, revealing the stark white skull underneath.

He picked up a small dollop of the lamb chili oil with the tip of his knife, spread it evenly over the surface of the skin, sprinkled it with a little salt, then cut off a small strip and offered it to Andre.

"Want a taste?"

"..."

Andre stared at the piece of skin on the gleaming knife tip. It looked incredibly soft and was slathered in lamb chili oil. He couldn’t help but swallow.

’It’s just a piece of sheepskin, isn’t it?’

’No matter where it grew, it’s still just sheepskin, right?’

’I’ve eaten a dozen pieces of skin from the lamb ribs already. What’s so scary about this piece?’

In the space of just a few breaths, he repeated this mantra to himself countless times.

But even so, an image remained stubbornly fixed in his mind.

It was as if he were holding a sheep that had died with its eyes open, frantically gnawing on its scalp!

While Andre was waging this internal war, Lin Chen’s eyes narrowed. He switched the knife to his left hand, and with his right hand, he used his chopsticks to abruptly shove the piece of skin into the old coot’s mouth.

"Just eat it, you. You’re almost forty, yet you’re as fussy as an old lady."

"?!"

Startled, Andre instinctively moved his tongue. The skin instantly melted, filling his mouth with a rich, gelatinous texture.

But he had to admit, it was really just an ordinary piece of sheepskin, albeit more gelatinous than the skin on the ribs.

While Andre was savoring the taste of the skin, Lin Chen had already tilted his head back, bringing the entire remaining piece of skin to his lips.

"SLURP."

With a gentle suck, the whole thing slid into his mouth like a piece of Jell-O.

His movements were remarkably skilled. After clearing the skin from the surface, he inserted his combat knife into a fissure at the top of the skull and gave it a hard twist, splitting the skull in two.

With a light flick of the knife’s tip, the entire brain tumbled out. He then scraped the remaining lean meat off the cheeks, and finally, he pried out the two lychee-sized eyes.

"Try a sheep’s eye. This stuff is really popular—"

Before he could finish, Andre snatched it and popped it into his mouth.

Based on his last two experiences, he’d discovered something: no matter how strange the body part, the best approach was to not overthink it, just close your eyes and eat!

The texture of the sheep’s eye was also different from what he’d imagined. It wasn’t one of those things that burst with juice; it was just a very firm ball of meat.

"The sheep’s brain..."

"That’s a no for me!"

"Really? Haha, well, more for me then~"

Seeing Lin Chen casually break the brain in half, dip it in some chili oil, and stuff the whole thing in his mouth to chew heartily, Andre wiped the sweat from his forehead and gave him a thumbs-up.

"I really have to admire you Da Xia People. Not only can you turn these unwanted scraps into delicacies, but you can also actually stomach them. How do you get over the mental hurdle?"

"Have you ever eaten live insects?"

"I have. They’re a valuable source of protein in the wild."

"I find that stuff pretty disgusting."

"...So that’s how it is."

After finishing the entire sheep’s head, Lin Chen felt he was more or less full. He combined the remaining broth into one pot and cleaned the other pots with snow.

The residual grease in the pots had already congealed in the cold wind, and the moisture quickly froze. A quick scrub with the dry, powdery snow easily removed it all.

"Lin, what are you planning to do with the remaining ingredients?"

Andre pointed to the large chunks of lamb leg meat that had been taken out of the stew pot, as well as the various organs piled on a wooden board, their surfaces already frozen.

"The offal is basically for making soup or stir-frying. But since our seasonings are limited, I plan to stir-fry the leg meat and save the offal for the soup. Otherwise, plain lamb broth would be too boring."

After briefly revealing the menu for dinner, Lin Chen turned his head to look outside the fence.

"By the way, you don’t think something happened to Connor, do you? He’s been gone for a long time."

"Probably not. He has that wolf with him, so most animals would catch its scent and stay far away. He probably couldn’t find any prey of a suitable size and was too embarrassed to come back, so maybe he just went home?"