Hey, that's important, but why don't we get some lunch?　You're going to try crab and shrimp, right?　I've been looking forward to it all morning.

　Toya, who had been impatiently watching our magic bag experiment, seemed to have reached the end of his patience and complained while holding his stomach.

　It was true that I was also getting very hungry.
　Breakfast was good, but the portions were a bit small, and dinner was a bit early last night.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you mind if I grill it for now?
"Yes. Let's cook them without spices. Let's cook them one by one. The prawns are small, so we'll take two.

　Quickly build a fire and set the net on it.
　The prawns are split lengthwise and placed on the net.
　Salt was sprinkled on top. That seemed to be the only seasoning.

　The shrimps and crabs gradually turned red with the sound of cooking.
　Every time the liquid falls, smoke rises and a delicious smell wafts around.

"Hey, hey, can't we eat them yet?
"Well, are the prawns ready?　Let's cut them up.

　Haruka took the prawns out of the net, placed them on the cutting board, removed the shells, and cut them into two or three pieces.

The larger ones are for Toya and Nao. Here you go.
I've put some salt on this plate for you to use.
Bon appétit!

　I grabbed a shrimp from the cutting board that was offered to me, dipped it in salt and put it in my mouth.

...... Ooh, delicious.

　It's not as tight as black tiger, but soft enough to fall apart. The meat is not tight like black tiger, but soft and crumbly.

It's even better than I expected. I didn't remove the back gut, but I hardly notice it.
It can be used in all kinds of dishes. --Except for sashimi.
Oh, maybe not for sashimi?
You can't eat raw fish from the river. Probably not in this world either.
I'm afraid of parasites.

　Sashimi of river fish is not unheard of, but it is not a recommended way of eating.
　Salmon, which is used as a sushi ingredient these days, is originally a fish that is not good to eat raw.

　It can be eaten because it is raised in a special environment, and it is forbidden to eat salmon caught in the river as sashimi.

　It is dangerous to eat salmon caught in the river as sashimi unless you freeze it at a low temperature or use salt and vinegar to kill the parasites. If you want to be safe, you should cook it.

"But this is so good, one bite is not enough. Can we cook more?
"No, no, no, Toya, we still have shrimp and crab. Let's eat them first.
The crustaceans look good. Poke them with your chopsticks.
Sure I will!
Sure!

　As soon as Haruka gave his permission, Toya reached out with her chopsticks and gouged out the tail.

It's delicious!
"d*mn it!　No thanks, no thanks!

　With half of the tail meat gone, there was hardly any room to eat.
　The meat on the tail was gone, so there was little room to eat it. The meat on the tail might be good, too, but that's about it.

Shall I cut the ......?

　Haruka sighed when she saw what Toya had done.
　Natsuki picked up a knife and cut the other half of the tail into four equal pieces.

Sorry.
No, no, no.

　After thanking Natsuki, he picks up a piece of shrimp meat, twists it around the meat and eats it.
　This taste is ...... lobster?　I don't remember eating more than a few, but it tastes like that.
　The taste is a little muddy, but I think it will go away after a while of removing the mud.

"Crustaceans are delicious, too!
"The shells were very hard, though.

　According to Natsuki, the shells were much harder than those of lobsters, and an ordinary knife would probably not be able to cut through them.

Thanks to this knife, I was able to break it vertically, but it's impossible to do that normally.

　I heard that he used the sharpness of the knife and his strengthened arm power to smash the shell.

　By the way, if you just want to eat it normally, you can just insert the blade from the belly, so if you don't mind the appearance, there seems to be no problem.

The head part has a slight odor, but you can remove it, remove the mud, or use spices. ......

　Natsuki tasted some of the miso that I put on the head, and nodded and said something like that.

I'm not sure what to say.　I'm not even sure I can eat this much.

　It's a good idea to have a good idea of what you're going to be doing.

　This is a ...... food resentment is terrible, you know?　I would like to say that, but my anger subsides when I see a barrel full of crustacean shrimp.

　If this were a barbecue in Japan and the crustacean was a lobster, we would be talking with our fists.

The last one is crab. It will be difficult to eat, so I will cut it into pieces.



　Natsuki places the crab on the cutting board, removes all the legs, and opens the shell.
　After dividing the body into four equal parts, she cut the legs into pieces so that they could be easily eaten.

　This is a very impressive move that I could never do. I've never cooked a crab in my life.

　After a while of waiting, Natsuki put down the knife and held out the cutting board.

"Here you go. Please take it as you like.

　With Toya quickly securing a quarter of the body, I picked up the legs.

　There were no legs like the fins of a blue crab, just normal legs, but the scissors were a little small.
　The legs are not that thick, but they have a good amount of meat.

　They are not as long as snow crab legs, but it seems that you can get enough meat from each leg to fill two crab cages, so they are quite filling.

　The meat from each leg is sprinkled with salt and eaten.

Hmmm, ...... is better than crab cakes.
"In my opinion, it's better than canned snow crab.
For me, snow crab is better.

Maybe the snow crab Natsuki is eating is better. I think it's better than the crab from the conveyor belt sushi at least.

　Are we somewhat divided in our opinions?

　Or should I exclude Natsuki, who seems to be eating the best food? It's natural for the same food to taste different depending on its quality.

　At least, there is no opinion that it is bad.

Nao said crabapples, but that's a strange thing to say. It's easy to use because it has no peculiarities.
It's not really crabapples, but it doesn't seem to have the richness of crab.
Oh, really?　I don't think so. ......

　The one person who had a different opinion was Toya.

　I'm not sure what you're talking about.

　I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but I think it's a good idea.

"I wonder if it tastes different from the legs?

　But this crab, like the blue crab, has a lot of meat on its body.

"No!　It's totally different!
"Seriously?

　I also took a bite of the body.

　It's ...... totally different from the texture. It's a little sticky and rich in flavor. It's like the flavor of the crab is condensed, which may be to some people's taste.

　I also picked up some of the crabmeat left in the shell, but it too had a strong flavor. Those who like it will like it very much, but those who don't like it may not like it.

If you mix the legs, the body, and the crabmeat, it might be just right.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea for everyone.　For me, it's good enough to be served separately.

I want to eat crab fried rice. Don't they sell rice?

　Since yesterday, I've been eating a lot of meals that make me want to eat rice, such as grilled fish and fish soup, and I'm starting to miss rice.

　Bread is a little different, after all. If you fry fish, it goes well with bread, but if it's grilled, you want white rice.

At least they don't sell it in Laffan. At least they don't sell it in Laffan. There's wheat, so I'm sure there's rice somewhere. ......

I'm sure you can find it in subtropical and temperate areas.　I don't know if it's a short-grain variety suitable for cooking rice, though.

Climatic issues.

　In the original world, historically, long-grained rice was more common, and those who ate it as rice, like the Japanese, were in the minority. In the original world, long grains were more common, and eating them as rice was less common.

Yuki made udon noodles for me, so I guess it's not so bad.　If all we had was bread, I'm sure I'd get bored.

"Udon. Udon is good because it's made from wheat and can be used to finish off a hot pot.

It's a good idea to use wheat.

I'm embarrassed to hear you say that. When we get a house, I'll make something better, so keep your eyes peeled!

　Yuki smiled and scratched her head at our words.

　The udon we had in the morning was tasty enough, except for its shortness, so we were looking forward to it. If I were to be extravagant, I'd like some kombu dashi.

Well, let's put aside the fact that we can't do anything about it right away, and at least secure some crabs and shrimps.
Absolutely!
We'll get them all!

　Of course that was impossible, and we should leave some for later, but that was the mood I was in.

Well, we'll set another trap in the afternoon and keep fishing.

"Right. If we set the baskets today and tomorrow, we will have enough to eat for a while.

"If it's this good, it's worth staying overnight to catch it, and we'll have to come back when it's gone.

　No one raised an objection to my words, and we all nodded in agreement.


　In the end, our four-day, three-night fishing trip ended with us spending all our time fishing and trapping in the river.

　Thanks to the fact that we moved our fishing spot a little upstream on the way, we were able to secure char in addition to landlocked salmon, and incidentally, we were not even attacked by a demon once, probably because we had hunted all the orcs the other day.

　Thanks to this, we were able to secure a large number of fish, crabs, shrimps, and about five Great Salamanders.

　That's a lot of food for the five of us, but we'll probably last about six months.

　We returned to Laffan, vowing to visit again.