43 – Seafood Feast in the Castle
After returning to the castle with the seafood, Liszt did not immediately let it be cooked.
The seafood was indeed very similar to the one from his memories, yet it still had to be verified whether it could be eaten or had any poison. The verification was very simple. Marcus took several of the town"s few hunters and went to lay traps in the surroundings of the Thorn"s Ridge. Consequently, several wolves, feral cats, and other carnivorous beasts were caught.
The wolves, feral cats, and other carnivorous beasts trapped in cages were hungry.
Raw seafood was thrown into cages before being immediately wolfed down by the beasts. Then, cooked seafood was given to another batch of beasts. After waiting for one day, apart from two beasts that had suddenly died from eating some kind of sea urchin, the other beasts were still lively, showing no signs of poisoning.
“This proves that apart from the sea urchin, this seafood is not much different from that of Earth. Then after discarding the sea urchin, samples of the remaining edible seafood should be provided to beachcombing serfs for reference.”
After musing, Liszt was not anxious to have people beachcomb.
He had to first make others realize that seafood was delicious and not something unpalatable.
A lot of seafood could be eaten raw, but Liszt did not recommend this. He was of the thought that eating too much raw seafood could lead to one being easily infected by parasites inside it.
Without the appropriate medical care, those afflicted with parasites could only wait to die.
Therefore, he called for the cook, Abby Ladle: “Mrs. Abby, let me tell you how to cook seafood. Have you seen this crab? Brush it clean with a brush and then steam it. This pippi shrimp has also to be brushed clean and then boiled. Use boiled water.”
“Now look at this shrimp, you can use it in a soup or stir-fry it. There is still the oyster flesh. It can actually be eaten raw, but I do not eat raw seafood. You have to boil or stir-fry it. There is quite a lot of oyster flesh, let"s just call it oyster. The oyster that is not eaten can be dried in the sun. By decocting the sun dried oyster, its fat can be extracted.
Oyster, scientific name ostreidae, was a type of mollusc.
It was a precious food ingredient.
In his birthplace, Liszt liked very much like to eat oyster because of it being rich in zinc. Zinc had a major effect on the human body"s secondary s.e.x characteristics. People with a trace of zinc in their bloodstream would be full of vigor…
Therefore.
Oyster, as an indispensable delicacy, would inevitably become part of the baron"s diet.
Fortunately, the Flower Town faced the coast. And without overfishing, the sea was densely packed with oyster, so there was no need to worry about a lack of zinc.
Liszt, who was sixteen years old, was still in a period of rapid growth and development.
Liszt instructed Abby Ladle on how to prepare seafood. He was not looking forward to eating seafood in this world for the first time, or rather, in the Longtaro Castle, he had already eaten rock lobster caught by the fishermen in the sea.
As an archipelago state, there were many fishermen in the Sapphire Grand Duchy.
Serfs who lived in extreme poverty wanted to have a better life. It was normal for them to go to the sea to look for food, thus discovering that seafood was delicious. Just that the transportation was not convenient and the flux of information was blocked, so the way to consume seafood was unable to be transmitted to the various islands. In the Coral Island, the Tulip Family had yet to finish reclaiming the uncultivated land, which was why there was no motivation to turn to the sea.
Therefore, the Flower Town"s residents had never thought about catching seafood.
“Mrs. Abby is preparing seafood for the first time, I am afraid that even the crabs might not be steamed well. I can only let her continue to explore ways to bring out the flavor and slowly improve her cooking.”
Sure enough.
At noon, Liszt found the familiar seafood on the castle"s dining table, yet he could not find the familiar flavor.
The crab was steamed too tough, the pippi shrimp was boiled too mushy, the oyster was fried too hard, and the clam soup had sand. However, he still ate a lot with relish. Compared to the bread and roasted meat he commonly ate, this was more delicious.
Marcus, Gort, Isaiah, and Blair accompanied Liszt in the seafood feast.
“Tasty!” Marcus gave a simple evaluation and then immersed himself in the pippi shrimp and crab.
Isaiah smiled: “Delicious!”
Blair expressed his approval: “This is a rare delicacy!”
The one who was the most over the top was Gort. He initially avoided the oyster flesh because of its ugly appearance, but when he finally tasted it, he could not stop himself from emptying the plate in front of him and then having two more servings.
After drinking a mouthful of hops beer and eating a piece of oyster, his face full of wrinkles had an expression of bliss: “I remembered, I remembered.”
“What have you remembered?” Liszt skillfully opened the sh.e.l.l of the crab.
“When I was young, I traveled through a small island called the Flyingfish Island. There, in the home of an islander, I have eaten this… oyster. I was drunk and ate a lot of oyster at the time, and then had a wonderful night. I left Flyingfish Island the following day. Since then, I never managed to find this delicacy again, yet unexpectedly, here it is before me.”
“Then have some more. Perhaps something wonderful will also happen tonight.” Liszt gave a smile that was not a smile.
He already knew that Gort had found a young girl of only sixteen or seventeen years of age in the town. If the other had not voluntarily followed Gort, then Liszt would definitely prevent this behavior of robbing the cradle.
Gort laughed: “Who knows. Anyway, I have fallen in love with oyster.”
Isaiah and Blair issued laughs of tacit understanding.
They were all adults and knew what was implied.
Even Marcus had a look of expectation in his eyes as he shifted his attention towards the oyster.
Aristocrats and knights were happily enjoying tasty seafood in the living room upstairs, while servants were also cheerfully enjoying seafood in the kitchen downstairs.
“The pippi shrimp is tasty. Without eating it for oneself, one would never imagine such an ugly bug to be this tasty.” Irene Fourfingers gorged herself on the pippi shrimp.
Abby said in discontentment: “Girls must not eat so crudely. You eat like a boy.”
“I am just a kitchen maid, so why can I not eat this way? I used to eat like this at home. Also, Mr. Carter had not said anything.”
Carter elegantly cut the oyster. As a butler, he always strove to conduct himself in line with the temperament a butler of the aristocracy should posses, which also included table manners.
The other servants were also required to follow the aristocratic etiquette as closely as possible.
Having heard what was said, he said a few words: “Irene, you have seen Lady Lvera"s lady"s maid. Perhaps you should learn table manners from her.”
“I do not want to learn from her. The way she held the knife between her fingers, unknowingly, I have believed her to be an aristocratic gentlewoman. Maisie"s manners have been praised by the lord, yet her table manners are far cry from those of Lady Lvera"s lady"s maid.”
Maisie smiled and said: “I grew up in a settlement and had no one teaching me how to eat elegantly. However, I am learning from Mrs. Mawson. She had worked in the Tulip Castle. There, the maids understood aristocratic etiquette better than a lot of aristocratic gentlewomen.”
Mawson Paddyfield held a pippi shrimp"s head between her fingers before exerting strengths and squeezing out the flesh: “That is because the aristocrats have the right to break the rules, while we the servants must strictly abide by them. Otherwise, harsh criticism and punishment would follow.”
Irene suddenly made an uproar: “The lord would not punish servants. Tom broke yesterday a flower vase in the castle, but the lord did not scold him.”
“The lord is benevolent. I will not break anything again.” A respectful expression adorned Tom"s face.
Eating the oyster he had dug out himself, Thomas sneered in disdain: “Not necessarily. Clumsy Tom, breaking the flower vase is just the beginning. You will break many more things in the future. The lord should just ban you from going upstairs.”