From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 113: Poison Testing Fried Prawns
Although he disliked the small size of the shrimps on the beach near the sea, Chen Zhou honestly picked up the longer and larger ones and put them into the plastic bag.

To prevent the shrimps from dying of thirst, he also poured a shallow layer of sea water into the bag.

The translucent shrimp is about 8mm in size and difficult to catch.

The shrimps that Chen Zhou catches are mainly 5-10 cm long shrimps with yellow, black, white and brown stripes.

This kind of shrimp is nearly three or two pounds in size and looks relatively friendly. It does not have the large claws of a lobster at the front of its body, but has two long whiskers. The shell on its back is thin and smooth.

Although it looks ordinary, it has a lot of meat. If it is not poisonous, it should be a good food.

However, this shrimp has a disadvantage - it cannot survive in a water-deficient environment for a long time and its life is relatively fragile.

Chen Zhou walked along the coast and caught more than 30 shrimps and put them into a plastic bag. He saw that the shrimps in the top layer of the bag that were not exposed to sea water had lost their vitality. Their antennae stopped moving and their calves stopped kicking. They looked like they were about to die.

They can't even last more than ten minutes, and by the time they're done catching the shrimp, they're probably no longer fresh.

He had no choice but to go back to the wooden and stone wall, get a homemade clay pot, fill it halfway with sea water, and pour the caught shrimps into it.

He didn't expect the shrimps to last until he returned home with his harvest, he just hoped they wouldn't die too early, as that would make them unpalatable.

In fact, Chen Zhou already had another goal for this seafood trip to the sea, namely shrimp.

It is a giant lobster with a red body, which can be over 30cm in size. It is covered with a thick shell, and looks majestic and ferocious, and has plenty of meat.

However, this shrimp does not live in shallow waters most of the time.

Around January this year, he saw several carcasses of these red lobsters on the beach. Some of them seemed to have died not long ago and were still very fresh, attracting a scramble for them by seabirds.

By February, the lobsters were increasingly less common on the beach.

In March and April, there was no trace of this kind of shrimp, not even its corpses were seen.

Before, Chen Zhou was not a "tester" who had the courage to test poison. He saw red lobsters several times, but although he was very curious, he did not dare to pick them up or taste them.

Now that he has "Brave Rat" to help with the testing, he can't find those red lobsters, which makes him feel really regretful.

He estimated that the next time he would see the red lobster would probably be in January or February next year.

Of course, if he really wants to eat it, he can find a calm day to take a boat out to sea and dive into the shallow seabed to catch lobsters, or collect precious sea cucumbers such as large clams, conchs, sea cucumbers or seahorses.

But he doesn't have the skills, let alone the courage.

……

In addition to shrimps, there are also many types of crabs on the beach. They are usually not large in size, and the "biggest" one is only half the size of a palm.

Like lobsters, true giant crabs should also live on the shallow seabed and will not appear on shore except during the breeding season or due to storms.

If you want to eat them, you have to be lucky.

Crabs themselves are a type of seafood with relatively few edible parts. This small crab has less than one or two pounds of meat after removing the shell. Chen Zhou picked and chose and only caught a few large yellow-shell crabs.

After returning home, he would cook the crabs and feed them to poison-testing rats. After making sure they were non-toxic, he would taste one or two.

The little crabs don't seek to fill you up, but are enough to add a little special flavor to the table.

……

The best shrimps and crabs are all in the sea water, but the truly abundant seafood on the beach are shellfish and echinoderms.

The small shell attached to the stone, about the size of a thumb nail, with ink-like patterns on its surface, is the focus of Chen Zhou's attention.

In order to deal with these stubborn little things, he took out his dagger, squatted beside the rock and cut it down bit by bit.

There are a large number of these small clams on the dark reefs, densely packed and stacked from bottom to top. Collecting them is very efficient and half a bag can be filled in just a few minutes.

Xiaobei may have a unique taste and tender meat, but it can only be eaten as a snack like "melon seeds" and enjoyed slowly.

For an impatient person like Chen Zhou, besides the basic taste, there is another standard when eating seafood - portion.

If you want to find shellfish that are plump and thick enough, you can't rely on the small shells attached to the reefs, you have to dig on the beach.

When watching videos about hunting at the beach, Chen Zhou often imagined what the "cat's eye snails", "moon scallops", razor clams and king clams dug up by the bloggers would taste like when cooked.

But those people only care about digging and not doing anything. There are thousands of videos of people going to the sea to catch seafood.

He couldn't find any videos on how to cook it, how to eat it, and what it tasted like, which made him feel itchy.

Now he finally has the opportunity to go fishing himself. Although he can't see familiar shellfish like cat's-eye snails, Chen Zhou is still full of anticipation.

Dig the bulges or holes on the beach one by one, increasing the weight of the plastic bag little by little.

It took about two hours, and all the pottery jars and plastic bags brought by Chen Zhou were filled to the brim. It can be said that this trip to the sea was a rare bumper harvest.

Taking inventory of the harvest, in addition to shrimps and crabs, there were small clams, large clams and unknown species of clams.

Chen Zhou also picked up two relatively fresh sea fish, four sea urchins covered with thorns, and a sea cucumber that was already a bit sticky and probably inedible.

These things together weigh nearly twenty kilograms, and the containers Chen Zhou brought are simply not enough.

So while he was going to the beach, he took some time to go to the camp and get a wooden barrel.

Without this wooden barrel, he would not be able to bring back all the fishy seafood unless he stuffed them into his backpack.

……

The sea-hunting activity ended successfully. Chen Zhou, carrying his backpack and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, set off on his return journey.

The wood and stone wall on the beach has not been built yet. He plans to find a large container after returning home tonight, pour all the shellfish into it and spit out the sand, and then go down the mountain to deal with the wood and stone wall tomorrow.

There are still more than ten days left, no need to rush.

And if we go down the mountain again tomorrow, we can continue to go fishing. If we are lucky, we may be able to pick up big lobsters or crabs.

……

Going to the beach makes people feel relaxed and comfortable.

Especially in such a "paradise" with abundant natural resources and extremely easy to obtain seafood.

Chen Zhou heard that in the primitive society, men were responsible for hunting and women were responsible for picking.

Therefore, modern men are full of yearning for adventure, are keen on firearms and weapons, and love fighting in games.

Women mostly prefer quiet and relaxing work and dream of working in industries related to art and music.

But this does not mean that men cannot get pleasure from collecting - the joy of harvest belongs to all mankind.

Pour the shellfish from the plastic bag into a wooden bucket filled with clean water.

Watching the little shells with ink patterns spinning in the water like tiny ballerinas descending from the sky, he deeply felt the beauty of the harvest and prepared to paint this scene on a white clay board as a souvenir.

……

That night, after processing the seafood and feeding the cats, dogs, and rats, Chen Zhou separated all the rats in the rat pen.

Six female mice that had given birth were kept alone in a "single room".

The rest of the mice that are just one month old are kept together, and the "poison testers" who are willing to sacrifice themselves will be selected from among them.

The two breeding male mice continued to stay in the old mouse pen.

In order to prevent genetic diseases from affecting the results of poison tests, Chen Zhou must ensure that the new batch of mice do not mate with female mice.

Strictly speaking, though, these mice were also the product of inbreeding—they were all born from the same mother.

Chen Zhou didn't know whether his separation behavior was effective or not. He just felt that it would be more conducive to the healthy and orderly reproduction of the poison-testing rats, even if this method was just a cover-up.

If conditions allowed, he really wanted to catch two young and strong male mice.

Unfortunately, catching mice alive is much more difficult than catching rabbits or chinchillas alive. Now that he doesn't have enough time, he can't put down his other work and go catch mice.

……

After separating the rats, Chen Zhou first made a simple classification of the seafood, including shrimps, crabs, marine fish, shellfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. He named and coded each of them.

Worried that he might encounter similar seafood when going to the sea in the future and mistakenly take two similar-looking seafood as the same one, leading to poisoning, he also drew relatively detailed realistic sketches of each type of seafood under the light.

It’s no wonder that the rigorous attitude really brought unexpected benefits.

After careful observation, he found that there were several "spies" among the larger shrimps.

Their whiskers are shorter and thicker, and look like they are broken off. The patterns on their bodies are based on white, yellow, black and brown, with a few light blue stripes.

If you don't pick them up and check them under the light, they will really be confused with another kind of shrimp.

"Damn shrimp! If one of these two shrimps is poisonous, I'm doomed."

Secretly thanking himself for not being lazy, Chen Zhou carefully compared all the shrimps, quickly laid them all out flat, picked out the shrimps with blue stripes and put them aside, then he breathed a sigh of relief.

……

The vitality of shellfish is stronger than that of crabs, and the vitality of crabs is stronger than that of shrimps.

After a day of tossing and turning in plastic bags, wooden barrels and ceramic jars, most of the shellfish were half-dead, barely clinging to life; a few crabs were still able to spit bubbles, but all the shrimps were wiped out.

During the selection process, Chen Zhou felt that the number of shrimps seemed to be a bit too many, so he removed some shrimps that were not incomplete and had lost their whiskers and legs.

He plans to feed these incomplete shrimps to the poison-testing rats later.

For the same shrimp, he would divide the shrimp head, shrimp body and shrimp viscera into three parts, feed them raw to three poison-testing rats, and then feed them to another three poison-testing rats after cooking to observe their reactions.

The same is true for crabs, marine fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and other shellfish.

The number of poison-testing rats at home is more than enough. If all else fails, he can sacrifice three female rats. Rats reproduce quickly anyway, and the loss can be replenished in more than two months.

……

On the evening of the 26th, Chen Zhou was busy until late at night before he fell asleep.

He placed the poison-testing rats in "special rooms" and carved the names of the seafood they ate on their doors, and marked the raw, cooked and edible parts.

Rats are more receptive to cooked seafood and will eat it on their own if it is placed in front of them.

When faced with raw seafood, they are not very interested and usually just sniff and turn away.

But trapped in Chen Zhou's "prison", they have nowhere to escape.

This ignorant rat can only be captured and "violently fed" by Chen Zhou. It has to stuff the seafood into its stomach whether it wants to eat it or not, otherwise it would be disrespecting the "warden" as he is not giving face to him.

……

September 9th is three days away from the one-year anniversary of the start of the challenge.

At about ten o'clock, Chen Zhou got up from the bed, washed hurriedly, made a fire and cooked, then went straight to the storage room to check on the condition of the mice.

Perhaps because the seafood selected when going to the sea looked normal, most of the mice were safe and sound and showed no signs of poisoning.

Chen Zhou lit the oil lamp and conducted a detailed inspection of the inside of the mouse pen. There was neither unformed feces nor blood in the cells of healthy mice. Their eyes were clear, they walked steadily, and they were able to eat and drink, without any abnormalities.

But there are exceptions. For example, three mice that ate raw shrimp heads, raw shrimp bodies, and raw shrimp viscera with blue stripes last night were unfortunately infected and all died.

When Chen Zhou grabbed their bodies, he found that they were soft, as if they were injected with a lot of water.

Later dissection proved this: the mouse's muscle tissue and internal organs were obviously affected by the toxin, with large areas of dissolution occurring and turning into a yellow and red liquid.

A few mice that ate the normal shrimp offal also had some diarrhea symptoms, as if they were mildly poisoned.

Another mouse that ate the spoiled sea cucumber became a little lethargic but did not have diarrhea.

……

After burying the three brave rat poison testers in a deep pit, Chen Zhou immediately picked out the shrimps with blue stripes and threw them into the stove to destroy them all.

Last night, in order to prevent the curious kitten from stealing the seafood, he covered the wooden barrel with heavy wooden boards and stones.

Facts have proved that his action was extremely prescient. Otherwise, if the kitten, Grape, or Little Gray had died accidentally after eating the shrimps out of greed, he would have regretted it for a long time.

The death of the three mice was insignificant, and Chen Zhou was very satisfied with the results of the test.

The clams, which were the largest in number, the palm-sized shellfish with the most delicious meat, and the two sea fish refrigerated in the "saltpeter refrigerator" were all non-toxic.

……

The "poison rat testing" project was successfully completed, and from today on, his diet will continue to expand.

At the banquet on September 9, the dishes on the table will surely achieve a leap in quality and quantity, evolving from four dishes and one soup during the Chinese New Year to the Hai Tian Banquet.

But after three days, the seafood is no longer fresh.

Now that he was aware of the toxicity and felt at ease, he decided to eliminate waste and taste the fish and shellfish in advance to select which ones would be the "main dish" for the feast.

……

Among all seafood, shrimp, crab and fish have the shortest shelf life.

Most of the shellfish were still alive, clinging to the walls of the barrel. They had already excreted a lot of sand last night, so they could still be considered "fresh".

Chen Zhou planned to make a fried shrimp dish first, then cook the dead small and large clams, and finally grill the two fish.

Nowadays, there are abundant seasonings available at home, including oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, garlic, fennel and wine.

Although it lacks the all-important spicy spices, it is still more than enough to make a fried shrimp dish.

Remove the heads and whiskers of the prepared shrimps, gut them, wash them, and marinate them with rum.

Chop the garlic into minced garlic - due to the insufficient supply of garlic and the need to keep the newly grown garlic for seeds, Chen Zhou was very restrained and only used one head of garlic, and also cut some garlic sprouts and mixed them into the minced garlic.

Then he made some paste with flour and coated the marinated shrimps to prevent them from sticking together after being put into the pan.

Pour seal oil into a frying pan, heat the oil over high heat, add the shrimps directly, and stir-fry with a homemade wooden spatula until the shrimps turn yellow.

The fire in the stove was too strong, and Chen Zhou failed to control the heat well, so he over-fried a few shrimps, making them dark in color.

The slight effect on the appearance of the dishes did not stop him from continuing to cook.

After removing the shrimp from the pot, pour out the excess oil and sprinkle in minced garlic and chopped garlic sprouts.

This time Chen Zhou learned his lesson. He picked up the frying pan, hung it above the stove, and tried to lower the fire as much as possible.

Pour in the fried shrimp, soy sauce, salt and sugar.

In the pan, the aroma of the shrimp and the seasoning blended together and filled the entire kitchen.

The human's "magic" attracted all the greedy ghosts in the house.

Lai Fu stayed by Chen Zhou's side the whole time, sitting upright at the door, staring at the frying pan without blinking, with a "crystal pendant" already hanging at the corner of his mouth.

Xiao Huihui jumped down from the wooden shelf in the storage room in a hurry, and in a panic he knocked over something, making a crackling sound, and ran over.

Tizi was not willing to be outdone, and she sat on the other side with her three kittens in a righteous manner. The four mother and her kittens lined up neatly, meowing for food.

Not to mention them, even Chen Zhou himself was drooling at the smell.

But the dish isn't done yet.

After a simple stir-fry, he sprinkled a little bit of homemade vinegar into the pot - this is the soul of this dish.

The vinegar flavor added a harmonious blend of sour, sweet, salty and fresh. He stirred the golden fried shrimps in the pot again and then poured them into the plate.

Steaming hot and fragrant, this fried prawn dish only lacks red pepper and green onion, so it looks a bit monotonous and the flavor is not rich enough.

Despite this, it is still the dish that Chen Zhou is most satisfied with since he arrived on the island.

What made him even more proud was that he had hardly cooked any proper dishes in the past year on the island. He usually fried the prawns with salt or stewed them in an iron kettle. This time, he did not make any mistakes in frying the complicated prawns, and the saltiness, sugar and vinegar were all just right.

(End of this chapter)