Culinary God in Wilderness

But it’s made from real beef without any strange ingredients—just a few seasonings. It’s perfect for fooling picky eaters.

"How long can this meat floss be stored?"

"At the ambient temperature here, as long as it doesn’t get wet, it will last until things warm up. If you were making it at home, it would probably last about a week at a room temperature of twenty degrees Celsius. The hotter it gets, the shorter the storage time, unless you have a desiccant."

"Can I freeze it?"

"I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s still meat, after all. Freezing will ruin the texture and also make it absorb moisture."

Andre was clearly very curious about the meat floss. After a few tastes, he even tried his hand at stir-frying a batch himself.

"This stuff is great. When I get home, I’ll make some for my daughter to try."

"How old is your daughter?"

This was the first time Lin Chen had heard him talk about his family after knowing him for so long, so he couldn’t help but ask.

"My older daughter is five, and my younger one is three months old. She’s right at that picky-eater age."

"By the way, Lin, do you have any tricks? Or maybe a dish that can get a picky kid to eat without a fuss?"

"They’re both picky? What foods are they picky about specifically? And what do they usually like to eat?"

"The little one is still on milk, so we don’t have to worry about her for now. Neither my wife nor I are very good cooks. I can’t really say what she’s picky about specifically. She’s been picky with most things, but sometimes she’ll eat them. She’s least picky when we eat at a restaurant. Normally, she prefers desserts, snacks, and fried food."

"...Sounds like it’s not that your kid is a picky eater. It’s that you and your wife need to learn how to cook."

A look of sympathy filled Lin Chen’s eyes as he thought about the simple, bland meals common in North America.

You couldn’t really blame the kid for being picky. The menu in a typical North American household is basically cereal in cold milk for breakfast, a sandwich or salad for lunch, and pizza or maybe some beans and rice for dinner. You’d lose your appetite too if you ate that all the time.

Just as he was pondering what kind of food he could make with the ingredients on hand to pique a child’s interest, Andre suddenly asked a question.

"Lin, if you win, what are you planning to do with the prize money?"

"Get my parents a new car. I don’t really have any big material wants for myself. Of course, I’ll definitely buy a car, but just something to get around in is fine. I’d actually love to buy a homestead where I can farm, preferably one not too far from the city, but the price is probably more than I can afford."

Lin Chen had already thought long and hard about what he’d do with the prize money—he figured every contestant had. He asked casually, "What about you?"

"To pay for my wife’s treatment."

"..."

Lin Chen froze.

’Seriously? That’s how we’re playing this? Way to go off-script, old man!’

"It’s all my fault, really," Andre said with a bitter smile and a sigh. "As you know, I grew up in the wild. I’m used to it and don’t like living in the city, so my wife came to live with me in the forest."

"But our home is just too far from town. Her health was already suffering when we had our first. The variety of food you can get in the forest is pretty limited, and the things we plant take too long to mature, so she ended up with some nutritional deficiencies. When we had our second not long ago, she had a major hemorrhage. She almost didn’t make it."

"I feel like my stubbornness is what harmed her. If we lived a little closer to town, we could’ve bought groceries at the supermarket, and she would’ve gotten to a doctor in time. Besides, North America’s bullshit medical system... you know how it is. You have to wait in line for the ER unless you’re literally dying."

"That’s true."

Lin Chen nodded emphatically in agreement.

’Over here, doctors are basically just clock-punchers, to put it bluntly. They clock in and clock out. It’s nothing like the dedication you see in hospitals back in Great Xia. If they don’t get a raise for a while, they’ll even go on strike, completely ignoring whether their patients live or die.’

"Your wife’s condition..."

"It’s not life-threatening," Andre managed a faint smile. "She’s just still in the hospital. If I can get the prize money, I can get her the best doctors, the best medicine, and nutritional supplements. I could also take care of my oldest’s school fees and even find a house on the outskirts of town."

"I really sympathize with your situation, but..."

Andre held up a hand to stop him. "I’m not telling you this to get anything from you. I’m telling you because I think you’re a friend worth having. My animal instincts tell me you’re a good person."

’Well, thanks for that!’

"If I went all out, I could probably catch up to, or even surpass, your score. But this show is about wilderness survival, not a hunting competition. Overhunting would just destroy the local ecosystem."

"Our being here has already forced the surrounding animals into smaller habitats and drastically reduced their food supply. If I were to cause the mass slaughter of innocent lives just for some points, that would violate a Hunter’s code of ethics."

Lin Chen shot him a surprised look. He opened his mouth to speak, but then silently swallowed the words.

’He’d been racking his brain about what dish to teach him, but if this was the kind of man Andre was, there was no need to hold anything back.’

He turned, walked into the storeroom, and pulled out a large, round, white block of beef tallow.

This was beef tallow he had rendered from the Musk Ox’s suet, along with other leftover fatty trimmings. It weighed about twenty kilograms.

A Musk Ox weighing around four hundred kilograms has a meat yield of about 50-60%, which averages out to 220 kilograms.

In the autumn and winter, a Musk Ox’s body fat percentage is around 15-20%, consisting mainly of subcutaneous and visceral fat. The latter refers to suet and intestinal fat, while the rest is marbled throughout the muscles and can’t be separated.

The rendering process boiled off the water and removed the solid tissues, leaving about twenty kilograms of tallow in the end.

This stuff was supposed to be his ace in the hole—a real lifesaver out in the wild.

With this, not only could he solve the constipation problem caused by a lack of fiber, but it would also provide his body with a massive amount of energy and calories.

Even if he used a hundred grams a day, it would be enough to last him for more than half a year.