Leo sat down next to Eric. The little one had been craving this soft, white thing for a long time. Unable to wait for Max and the others, he popped a piece of tofu into his mouth first.
The soft, smooth piece of tofu was soaked in broth. The rich flavor of the beans blended with the taste of the meat, along with the fresh deliciousness of mushrooms and wild vegetables. It was incredibly tasty.
Leo's eyes lit up as he ate. Seeing Leo eat with such relish, Michael and the others didn't stand on ceremony and sat down to start eating. Not knowing how to use chopsticks, they used them like forks to spear the food, though it didn't look as convenient as when Leo did it.
Even Max, smelling the aroma, couldn't resist trying it. After the first bite, he couldn't stop. Whether it was that small white square or the unfamiliar brown fruit-like things, they were all delicacies he had never tasted before.
The beastmen quickly finished their full bowls of stewed vegetables. Seeing this, Eric hurriedly refilled their bowls, and ate a bowl himself as well.
The meat of the animals in this world was truly delicious. It might be because they were magical beasts. Whether it was the rabbit he ate today or the Thunder-Fire Beast meat from yesterday, the flavor was excellent. Even the wild chicken he had caught himself had a meat quality far superior to that of chickens in modern times.
The rabbit today was intact. When cleaning it at the riverbank, he was really reluctant to throw away its organs. Unfortunately, he had no spices on hand, and stewing the offal plain would result in a very gamey smell. After much thought, Eric still had to discard them with a heavy heart.
But now, thinking back, he regretted it a little. He should have kept them; the offal could be used as bait for fishing. The magical beasts and animals here were so large, so the river seafood like fish, shrimp, and crabs must not be small either. Just thinking about it made his mouth water.
It was useless to regret it after throwing it away. The Snow Wolves didn't eat offal. When they divided the beast meat later, he could just ask them for some.
With the size of those magical beasts, one set of organs was already very large.
The thick-fleshed mushrooms were both tender and sweet; their flavor would surely be even better after being dried.
As for the tofu he particularly wanted to try, although his limited skill made it less firm than the tofu he ate in modern times, it had a very strong bean flavor and absorbed the broth more easily, making its taste rich. It was a great success.
Indeed, when pushed into a corner, a person could do anything—except for advanced matrix algebra problems.
Leo quickly finished two large bowls of stewed vegetables and was now holding a piece of thorn beast honey-roasted rabbit meat, gnawing on it with relish.
Eric gave Michael and the others each a rabbit meat skewer that was over a meter long, then divided the rack of rabbit ribs, giving each person a large piece. Max accepted his silently, but his eating movements were very fast.
Because it was brushed many times with thorn beast honey water and the rabbit meat was quite fatty, both the meat skewers and the ribs were grilled until the outside was charred, fragrant, and crispy, while the inside was tender and juicy. With one bite, meat juices dripped from the corners of the mouth, both sweet and savory.
Each Snow Wolf was given about 30 catties of skewered meat and ribs. For an adult Snow Wolf, this was just enough to line their stomachs.
In their beast form, a Snow Wolf ate at least three or four such large rabbits per meal. In human form, they still had to eat a whole one, which saved two-thirds of the food compared to their beast form. And the stronger the warrior, the more food they needed to maintain their energy consumption. After all, their body size was a given.
Eric stuck his tongue out in his mind. Wasn't this the same principle as being able to afford a car but not the gas in modern times?
Thinking about it, the pressure on the chieftains of beastmen tribes must be immense, having to feed so many bottomless pits. With each meal requiring so much food, how much firewood must be needed to roast the meat? No wonder they hauled back entire giant trees when they gathered firewood.
Fortunately, this world was rich in magical energy, and both plants and animals grew to enormous sizes.
If their entire Snow Wolf tribe were transported to his hometown, they could eat a whole county bankrupt in less than a month.
The Snow Wolves finished the food in their hands but still wanted more. They didn't even spare the bones on the rabbit ribs, gnawing them clean before swallowing them.
They stood up, started a large fire, and dragged over the prey they had brought themselves. Then, several pairs of eyes stared intently at Eric, and Max was no exception.
Sam scratched his head and said, "Eric, how do you make the roasted meat taste like that? We don't need the thorn beast honey; just the smell we caught last night was fragrant enough."
They were too embarrassed to fight with the cubs over the thorn beast honey. One must know that thorn beast honey was very scarce in the tribe and was always given to the cubs first. They had this benefit when they were young, too. Now that they were adults, they wouldn't fight with the cubs for snacks, even though the thorn beast honey-roasted meat was truly delicious beyond compare.
Eric looked at the large, embarrassed men in front of him and couldn't help but smile. Indeed, good food knows no borders.
He instructed them to divide the cow-like prey into several pieces.
When Max and the others had arrived, the prey had already been skinned and its organs cleaned. He then told Kevin to use water to wash the blood out of the meat pieces before placing them on the fire to grill slowly.
When the fat rendered, the fire would flare up. Eric would then sprinkle a little water into the fire to reduce it, so the roasted meat wouldn't get burnt.
"For a large piece of meat like this, it's best to grill one layer until it's cooked, carve it off to eat, and then continue grilling slowly. Otherwise, it's easy to end up eating raw meat," Eric advised.
The beastmen's way of life was very primitive. Apart from some beast tribes that had established the Golden Kingdom, they used to basically eat their prey raw to fill their stomachs on hunts, which was why other races felt the beastmen were extremely barbaric.
After that great war, the Golden Lion tribe had led several other tribes to establish a kingdom, ruling the western border of the Illusory Dream Continent.
Merchant caravans from the human kingdoms wanting to come to the Illusory Dream Continent for trade had to pay taxes or supplies to them. Gradually, they also learned many of the human ways of life, including indulgence, which slowly spread into the depths of the continent. Other beastmen also began to change some of their living habits.
Like roasting and cooking meat. Although the dishes they made weren't delicious, they were, after all, much better than raw meat.