Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness

The night fell, and Bi Fang turned on his live stream.

An eager audience swarmed to join.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too, a common sense that everyone understands from an early age, and everyone wanted to see what bear paw tasted like.

[Waiting for Boss Fang to review the bear paw]

[I really want to try it]

[Old Fang’s food is getting more high-end]

Bi Fang wandered through Taiji Town like a regular tourist, following the path to a small, yet exceedingly popular restaurant.

He didn’t seek out a fancy restaurant, but instead followed the bathhouse owner’s recommendation to a small eatery with a great reputation among the locals.

The restaurant was full, buzzing with conversation.

At the center’s largest table, a few slightly corpulent diners called over a big group of people, with light green tokkuri bottles and ochoko cups covering the table—a common combination for drinking sake and Japan’s most frequently used sake ware.

The tokkuri, with its wide body and narrow mouth, resembles a small vase. It’s said that the shape of the tokkuri comes from ancient vessels used to offer liquor to deities, and since the Edo period, drinking from small tokkuri bottles of about 1-2 go became fashionable and has remained popular ever since.

Everyone’s cheeks were flushed, tipsy from the alcohol.

The waitress with the ponytail watched everything with a smile, ready to serve each customer, and her eyes lit up instantly when she saw Bi Fang walk in through the cotton curtain.

"Mr. Bi, you’re right on time."

Bi Fang smiled and said, "If I’m not on time, what if the flavor of the ingredients changes? Many things aren’t tasty once they get cold."

The waitress smiled slightly: "Our chef was quite surprised when the ingredients arrived; he said he’d never dealt with this before.

Since cooking bear paw takes a lot of time, Bi Fang decided to deliver it to the restaurant in the afternoon and paid a hefty processing fee for it.

Having money to earn, although the chef had never cooked bear paw before and felt the task was daunting, he took up the challenge.

Bi Fang generously mentioned not to worry too much, just treat it like a thick piece of fatty pork.

Those with rich experience in cooking bear paws on Earth were either in the Polar Bear region, behind bars, or so old they had lost all their teeth.

The expectations couldn’t be too high, or nobody would dare to try cooking it.

The waitress led Bi Fang through the hall to a small private room separated by cotton curtains, confirmed the dishes could be served now, and then stepped back out.

The audience was watching in anticipation.

A bear paw could be turned into many dishes, and everyone wanted to know what it tasted like.

Bi Fang had never imagined that one day he would be eating such a deluxe ingredient.

[I want to try it too]

[Try it? Try it and go to jail]

[Darn it, he’s showing off again]

While waiting for the delicious dishes to arrive, Bi Fang also took the time to chat with his audience in the private room.

"Before hunting, I mentioned that bears are like humans in that they walk with their whole heel touching the ground, which allows them to support their weight and walk forward."

"This is quite different from the walking style of other animals, since horses, sheep, and such hoof-walking animals do not touch the ground with the palm of their extremities, but walk on their ’nails’, while cats and dogs have a digitigrade walking style."

"From this perspective, humans have a more advanced way of walking than other animals. Six million years ago, Australopithecus gradually descended from the trees to live on the ground and slowly learned to walk upright."

"In the course of evolution, humans gradually developed an arch in the foot, which prevents excessive fatigue during long treks."

"Bears also evolved toward being omnivorous, as they can eat both meat and plants. Because they often need to travel long distances in search of food, they retained their five toes and a plantigrade way of walking, which makes walking very efficient."

Bi Fang used chopsticks dipped in water to draw a simple bear paw on the table.

"However, bears did not evolve a human-like arch, so every bear has flat feet; yet this does not affect their speed. Bears in the wild can run as fast as 40 kilometers per hour."

"Bears can also walk efficiently on two legs, for instance, when they spot a beehive high up, they will stand on two feet to reach the food."

"Because they need to trek for a long time in search of various foods, bears have gradually developed thick pads on their paws and accumulated a lot of fat and connective tissue, which is why many ancients coveted bear paws."

Bi Fang brought the discussion full circle.

Fat has always been the best part of meat in history, like fish maw, marbled beef, and fatty lamb.

It is only where there’s fat that the meat doesn’t feel too dry, as if you’re chewing wax.

Lean meat chews like bark residue; it is the fatty meat that has the true taste of eating meat.

Especially in ancient times when oil was scarce, fatty meat seemed particularly luscious in the eyes of laborers and commoners.

Of course, people who could afford bear paws in ancient times did not face a lack of oils, which indicates that bear paws themselves must have their own unique deliciousness to have made it onto the menu of magnificent Manchu Han Imperial Feasts.

"Compared to the hind paw, bear’s front paws are powerful weapons and formidable tools. Like tigers, bears can use paw strikes, standing up to swipe and grab in fights or hunting, their front limbs are incredibly strong."

"Many bears rely on the strength of their front paws when fishing, digging potatoes, and sweet potatoes."

Chewing on his chopsticks, Bi Fang felt quite expectant as well.

Bears are essentially a highly successful evolutionary species, with the combat power of Brown Bears even capable of contending with large felines like the Siberian tiger.

They possess very broad shoulder blades, and their humerus, ulna, and radius are all exceptionally thick, able to withstand impact and tearing—and the muscle mass on their body is very considerable, reaching about 80%.

The shoulders, waist, and limbs are basically covered with thick muscles.

Only someone extraordinary like myself could manage a one-on-one duel; for ordinary Hunters, it’s almost always a life-and-death struggle.

Having said all this, a strong scent of sauce suddenly wafted over, and Bi Fang slightly tilted his head back as a large plate was the first to push through the cotton curtains.

A multi-tiered wooden tray was filled with steaming chunks of meat.

The server placed them one by one in front of Bi Fang’s table,

Teriyaki, stew, charcoal grill, tempura, spicy, steamed—fully six styles of dishes.

It must be said that Japanese cuisine has many similarities with the culinary system of China.

[I don’t quite agree without sashimi (Dog’s head)]

[Hungry]

[Dinner time!]

Bi Fang unwrapped his chopsticks and first dug into the teriyaki.

As an expert in Wilderness Survivalist and hunting, Bi Fang was somewhat unfamiliar with cooking.

Living in the wilderness, he mostly mastered only boiling and grilling, and, at most, he could toss on a handful of salt—getting his hands on condiments with richer layers, such as fermented sauces, was out of the question.

The chopsticks easily penetrated the meat, and with a gentle tug, the meat strands separated clearly; the meat was cooked very tender, looking very translucent, somewhat like a variant of braised pork.

Bi Fang felt that teriyaki and braised both tasted similar, both sweet and salty.

Picked up with his chopsticks, the meat quivered like jelly; as soon as he put it into his mouth, it melted instantly, yet unexpectedly carried a stern toughness, but what followed was a very strong gamey taste...

"Cough cough," Bi Fang suppressed the urge to spit it out and coughed twice, only swallowing after taking a sip of water.

On the barrage, a large crowd was still asking what the taste was really like.

Bi Fang wiped his mouth and, after pondering for a moment, said, "The flavor is not bad, but it’s not delicious..."

The audience slowly typed a question mark.

Bi Fang organized his language, "The sauce is alright, but the meat itself is gamey and greasy, and very oily."

Fat is good, but it’s a bit too greasy, like eating a chunk of pure fat.

At this, a commotion ensued.

Many viewers weren’t buying it.

[Old Fang, you’re not deceiving us, are you?]

[Was what Mencius said about the fish and the bear’s paw not being obtainable at the same time false?]

The barrage was dense, and suddenly, a long message caught everyone’s attention.

Real or not, the professionalism alone was impressive.

[Indeed, it’s not delicious. Freshly cut bear paws shouldn’t be eaten immediately; you have to wait until the second year when they are completely dried out before they can be stewed. Moreover, freshly cut bear paws cannot be exposed to water; you need to wipe the blood away with grass paper, then prepare a large porcelain jar, first lining the bottom with lime.]

[Then lay down a thick layer of roasted rice, place the bear paw on top, stuff tightly with more roasted rice around the sides, and seal the top with lime. After one or two years, you can then take it out, wash it clean, and cook it.]

One or two years, the audience was stunned.

Wouldn’t that rot?

[After cleaning the bear paw, you must coat it with a thick layer of honey, boil it on a low fire for an hour, then wash off the honey, prepare the seasonings, and stew it on a low fire from the start—it’s best to use charcoal fire, stewing for three hours until it turns to mush the moment you open the pot.]

[If you don’t first stew it with honey, you could stew for three days and three nights and still not be able to pick up the chopsticks; the gamey taste is especially strong, and even so, the taste is actually quite ordinary.]

Sss.

The audience gasped, and the Earth warmed up a few degrees again.

Even Bi Fang was surprised. It seemed all sorts of people watched his live streams—there were even those who knew how to cook bear paw?

[May I ask who you are?]

[Ah, me? I can’t cook; it’s all what my grandfather told me. He said that bear paw really isn’t tasty, just a piece of meat with a strong gamey taste. And it’s hard to deal with—if not handled properly, it’s not as good as ordinary chicken, duck, fish, and meat.]

"Who is your grandfather?"

Bi Fang was extremely curious.

[My grandfather is Zhang Zhengxiong.]

[However, there should be very few people who know of him. As for what Mencius said, he wasn’t actually implying that bear paw and fish are delicious, but that bear paw is more rare. Hunting bears was difficult in ancient times, so the bear paw was highly treasured for its rarity.]

So, bear paws really aren’t tasty.

The ancients liked them, perhaps because... the prestige was high enough?