Culinary God in Wilderness

"A bite?!"

The discovery brought a look of delight to his face. He quickly plucked a few blueberry sprigs and went over to investigate.

Getting closer, he saw that there were indeed quite a few tracks at the cliff’s edge, though he couldn’t tell if they were from a rabbit.

"See this, everyone? I stuck this here four days ago. There was no activity for the first few days, so I thought all the nearby rabbits had run off. But it looks like they’re back now."

"Oh, but I can’t be sure it’s a rabbit. Any experts out there who can help me identify these tracks? If it’s not a rabbit, then what? A porcupine? A weasel? A wolverine?"

As Lin Chen spoke to the camera, he lay flat on the ground. He carefully reached out, pulled out the now-bare blueberry sprig, tossed it aside, and replaced it with the freshly picked ones.

After a moment’s thought, he moved the sprigs a few centimeters further out.

"The fact that the blueberries I placed last time were completely eaten means this little guy is more agile than I thought. I’ll place them a bit farther out this time and see if I can catch anything."

He pushed the blueberry sprigs deep into the soil on the outer edge of the cliff, then loosened the surrounding earth.

To guarantee he’d attract the greedy creature, he also scattered a handful of blueberries on the ground between the berry patch and the cliff.

"Hope I get something out of this."

This many blueberries was barely a mouthful for him anyway, so he wouldn’t mind losing them. If he could get an unexpected prize in return... it was worth a shot!

"I know you all probably want to see me hunt with an axe or a bow, but I don’t think that’s a good idea."

"In Great Xia where I’m from, weapons are prohibited. People living in cities, especially, have no chance to even touch these things. At most, they might pay to try archery at a professional range. Forget about fighting beasts up close with a military knife."

"I’m a chef. My specialty is preparing ingredients, not risking my life fighting beasts with knives and bows."

"These tools all have a limited lifespan. Arrows, in particular, wear down with every shot. Drawing the bow too often can injure your fingers and wastes a lot of energy."

"Rather than taking risks, I’d prefer to use safer, less strenuous methods to get food."

He picked an exceptionally large amount of berries today, nearly clearing out the entire patch of blueberries.

Besides increasing the chances of his trap being sprung, he also planned to use these blueberries to make a new dish.

"There’s still plenty of daylight left. I’m going to explore a bit farther out. The food sources around here are getting scarce."

After searching horizontally along the mountainside for a while, he actually found something new.

On the branches of a short tree with leaves somewhat resembling parsley, hung many purplish-red fruits that looked a lot like cherry tomatoes.

But both regular tomatoes and cherry tomatoes grow on vines on the ground. Something like this growing on a tree was definitely not a member of the tomato family.

As he approached, Lin Chen’s mind raced, searching his internal knowledge base for relevant information. He didn’t forget to interact with the audience behind the camera either.

"Anyone see those fruits that look so much like cherry tomatoes? Why don’t you all take a guess at what they really are? No prize for guessing correctly, though~"

After saying that, he couldn’t help but laugh at his own silliness.

Once he was closer, he could finally make out the appearance of the fruits.

They looked just like purplish-red lanterns—the kind that used to hang in corridors or in front of halls in ancient times. The resemblance was ninety percent, and they also had circular stripes like a watermelon.

"Watermelon Strawberries!"

The moment he saw these features clearly, a name slipped from his lips.

"Watermelon Strawberry. Look at these stripes; they really do look like a watermelon’s. But their taste has nothing to do with watermelon, and they’re not like other berries either. In fact, they taste a lot like cucumber—a very mild flavor."

He picked about a dozen of the riper Watermelon Strawberries and put them in his basket. When he looked down, he spotted many purplish-red shapes hidden in the bushes.

"Roganberries! They look almost identical to raspberries. Raspberries are pinkish-red, while Roganberries turn a reddish-purple when ripe. There isn’t much difference in taste, though."

Parting the thick weeds blocking the Roganberries, he discovered many bright yellow shapes in the gaps between the dense, purplish-red fruits.

"And there are even Salmonberries! Nice, nice. Alaska really lives up to its name as a berry paradise. It seems the places I was looking before were all relatively too cold for berry bushes to grow."

Salmonberries look just like raspberries and Roganberries, except their color is a striking yellow.

These few types of berries are often eaten mixed together by Alaskans in their daily lives. The main appeal is their rich, beautiful colors. In contrast, the nearly flavorless Watermelon Strawberry is almost completely ignored.

After gathering a full basket of berries and returning to his shelter, he went back to the spot where he had found sunchokes a few days ago and dug up about eight or nine pounds.

Don’t be fooled by its ginger-like appearance; this thing doesn’t taste like ginger at all. The texture is crisp, refreshing, and sweet, but it doesn’t have a particularly distinct flavor.

It also goes by the name Jerusalem artichoke, famous for its chrysanthemum-like flowers. Its reproduction rate and yield are far greater than that of potatoes.

If you find one, it likely means a whole field of them is buried nearby.

It was strange that he had never heard of such a high-yield root vegetable back home.

It wasn’t until four days ago, when he boiled and tasted a piece of Jerusalem artichoke, that he understood the meaning of "ancestral selection."

When boiled, wild sunchokes become translucent, soft, and glutinous—appearing much stickier than a boiled potato. There’s a distinct sweetness upon the first bite, but a hint of bitterness emerges as you savor it.

He didn’t know if it was this hint of bitterness that prevented the Jerusalem artichoke from being cultivated on a large scale back home, or if there was some other reason. For now, he had no way of knowing.

However, in the wilderness where carbs were scarce, the appearance of the Jerusalem artichoke was undoubtedly a solution to his pressing need.

According to the knowledge in his head, Jerusalem artichokes could not only be eaten raw, but also stewed in soup, stir-fried, or pickled. You could even extract starch from them to use as a substitute for potato starch.

Once you have starch, you can make things like glass noodles or jelly noodles. Flatbreads would also be no problem.

You could even mix the starch with minced raw meat to make meatballs. It was extremely versatile.

He washed the heavy sunchokes, along with their stems and leaves. He plucked the tender leaves and piled them up, planning to add them as a green vegetable to his dinner.

Just as he was heading back, shouldering the heavy sunchokes, he suddenly heard a blood-chilling wolf howl from high above and far away.

"AWOOOO~"

Lin Chen froze, every nerve in his body instantly tensing as he looked in the direction of the sound.

"Is that near the shelter?!"