The fishing baskets used for going out to sea are particularly long, buying one almost costs hundreds of yuan, stones are tied at the bottom, and foam is used as floats at the top to easily remember the location.
She didn’t set too many each day, about twenty was suffice because the fishing nets were easily torn by marine creatures, so they could be considered consumables. That’s why she bought tens of thousands of yuan worth all at once last time. Of course, if the holes weren’t too big, she could mend them with discarded nets and continue to use them.
Since the area where she fished was a shallow sea zone of about twenty meters, the nets could sink to the bottom. She would set them at dawn and then retrieve them in the evening. This way, her daily catch was always different, and she thoroughly enjoyed this feeling of harvesting.
However, for sea urchins, sea cucumbers, abalones, and various shellfish and snails, she had to dive to collect them. Shrimp, crabs, and fish, on the other hand, could be caught with fishing baskets.
If she encountered stormy weather, she would not go out, and she had to find something to do. So, during such times, eating sea snails to pass the time was the best form of entertainment.
Every day after fishing, she would pick through the shells and snails she collected, tossing aside the empty shells and gathering the meaty ones into buckets. Over time, her home’s buckets were always full of snails and shellfish, and since they were kept in seawater to expel sand, they wouldn’t die anytime soon.
Today, she was feeling a bit greedy and decided to make a mixed sea snail dish. This dish could be fried, stewed, or blanched and eaten.
Since she had time, she simply decided to make both. Blanching was just putting them in boiling water with segments of scallion and slices of ginger. Once cooked, they were taken out.
Then, chopped scallions, ginger, garlic, and chili were stir-fried, served alongside the sauce. When eating, one just needed to dip the meat in the sauce.
To stir-fry and stew, first scallions, ginger, garlic, and chili were put into the pot and fried until aromatic. The sea snails were then added to the pot with various seasonings and stewed. Once cooked, they were ready to eat.
There were many types of snails available today; she recognized green mussels, dogwhelk, white clam, clam, striped snail, ark clam, blood clam, cornu aspersum, conch, spiny dye-murex, sea snail, and hairy snail, among others.
The flesh of these snails was mostly crisp and firm, but each species had a different flavor. The sea snail, in particular, was incredibly fragrant when eaten; that particular scent was difficult to describe but utterly delicious.
Essential tools for eating snail meat were a nail and a toothpick. Some would come out with just a pick with the toothpick, but others required the use of a nail to pry open the lid before digging in.
So, eating these foods required patience and time. The spicy, fresh, and savory flavors were especially worth savoring. Sitting at her own doorstep, gazing at the sea waves, listening to the sounds of the wind, she felt almost as if in a Robinson Crusoe adventure.
But she was luckier than Robinson, at least she had personal space and could still taste food from the land. Alas, she did not have a dog for company, nor the means to tame sheep, and she certainly didn’t have a native like Friday for companionship; well, everyone has their own advantages!
In the evening, she would dig a few holes in the sand, bury the buckets, and smear shrimp sauce around them. The next day, she could harvest a lot of sand crabs.
Sand crabs were usually used to make Crab Sauce. She had bought many sealed glass jars from her personal space, and every few days she had to make a jar and set it aside to mature; all were for her personal space’s provision storage. Of course, the Shrimp Sauce was also made in the same way, the daily catch of shrimp from sea was enough for her to fuss over. Chapters first released on novel·fıre·net