Hunting Wilderness: Starting with the Butcher

Chapter 17 Refining Sea Salt and Making Dumplings

While the early withdrawal was regrettable, it also put the celebrity contestants who stayed on to continue the challenge in a difficult position. After several days of trying, these usually pampered artists also experienced the hardships of outdoor survival.

If they quit without any reason, how will netizens view them?

If people were to give up because they couldn't find food, perhaps they could understand. The point is, even when stranded on a deserted island, as long as you're willing to spend time gathering food, you can eventually find something to eat. If there's no meat, surely you can find wild vegetables and seafood!

Even after eating so much wild vegetables and seafood like snails and shellfish, the food still felt unpalatable. With over twenty days left until the challenge ended, these celebrity contestants felt that every remaining day would be torture!

On the tenth day of their arrival on the island, seeing that the salt provided by the production team was running low, Yuan Linghan thought for a moment and said, "Dudu, the temperature is nice today, let's go to the beach for a day! We don't have much salt, so we need to refine some sea salt."

Upon hearing this, Chen Duling asked with slight surprise, "Brother Yuan, you know how to refine sea salt?"

"I know a little, but I've never tried it. We don't have much salt, and it will be essential if we manage to hunt some more. The refined sea salt can be used to preserve food. We'll have lunch by the sea, and dinner will be served after we finish fishing."

"good!"

"We can dress lightly today and give ourselves a break."

"Um!"

As the most popular challenge group for desert island survival right now, Yuan Linghan and Chen Duling's live stream undoubtedly had the largest number of viewers. When netizens learned that the two weren't collecting ingredients today, but instead planned to go on a beach vacation, they were naturally quite surprised.

Netizens quickly posted comments like, "Is this desert island survival or a desert island vacation?!"

"While other contestants are still worrying about what to eat today, they're already thinking about going on vacation."

"Comparison is the thief of joy. If the other contestants knew that some people eat meat every day, they'd be green with envy!"

Unaware of all this, Yuan Linghan looked at Chen Duling, who had changed to a refreshing style, and thought the girl was indeed exquisite and beautiful. The only slight disappointment was perhaps that her chest didn't have much of a curve!

To Chen Duling's surprise, Yuan Linghan had carried a large amount of fresh water. Seemingly noticing her confusion, Yuan Linghan explained with a smile, "We'll need fresh water for salt production later, so I brought it over in advance to avoid having to search for it later."

Although she wanted to offer to help, seeing the weight of the bucket of fresh water, Chen Duling ultimately gave up the idea and could only help carry the other tools. Afterwards, the two of them went one after the other to the beach where they had been before.

After putting everything away, Yuan Linghan found some stones and built a few makeshift stoves. He even went to the garbage dump and found some dry wood and floats. He cleaned the floats, filled them with water, and set them aside for later use.

Chen Duling asked with a face full of curiosity, "Can salt be made from this seawater?"

"Yes! In ancient times, sea salt was mostly made by boiling it in a pot over a fire. However, the boiled sea salt still contained many impurities and had a bitter taste. What we need to do next is to first boil the brine, then filter it, and then boil it again."

The sea salt produced that way, while not as high quality as commercially available table salt, is perfectly fine for use as a seasoning or for pickling food. We'll use the sea salt we make today for pickling food from now on.

After explaining their true purpose for coming to boil salt today, Chen Duling started to help. Although the soup pots provided by the production team did not look very big, boiling salt water in two pots at the same time still allowed them to quickly collect brine.

After boiling more than half a bucket of brine, Yuan Linghan said at the opportune moment, "Dudu, this brine is about enough. We won't be able to use up any more. What we need to do next is filter out the impurities."

Unaware of what was going on, Chen Duling soon saw Yuan Linghan add fresh water and wood ash to the boiled brine. After stirring it well, he continued to boil it. Once the brine boiled, Yuan Linghan then used a cotton cloth to filter it.

Seeing the impurities trapped by the cotton cloth, Chen Duling cleverly asked, "Brother Yuan, is adding wood ash to neutralize the harmful impurities in the brine?"

"Hmm, no wonder you're a top student! The main component of wood ash is potassium carbonate, which can react chemically with calcium and magnesium ions in brine to produce calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide precipitates, thereby removing impurities."

However, for safety reasons, this initially filtered brine will be filtered again using charcoal. After being filtered through charcoal, the brine will be boiled again, and the resulting sea salt will be safe to eat.

"Wow, I never imagined there were so many intricacies involved in boiling seawater for salt."

"In fact, the salt provided by the production team is enough to meet our needs for a month if we use it normally. But we used salt to cook bamboo shoots and marinate smoked meat, so we have to find a way to get some more salt."

Even though the process of boiling salt was tedious, Yuan Linghan used both soup pots and a wok to boil salt. Chen Duling found it quite magical to see the fine salt particles slowly condensing in the wok at the end.

Especially when Yuan Linghan dipped some grains in his mouth and then said with a satisfied look, "Hmm, this salt is good. Apart from being a bit salty, it doesn't have any other extra flavors. If the impurities aren't removed properly, sea salt will have a bitter taste."

"Really? May I try some?"

After personally dipping her finger in the salt and putting it in her mouth, Chen Duling did indeed find it a bit salty. This saltiness wasn't much different from the table salt provided by the production team. She felt a great sense of accomplishment as pots of steaming salt were cooked.

The sea salt, boiled by hand, was thoroughly dried and then stored in a bamboo container. Once all the brine had been boiled, the bamboo tube, which could hold four or five pounds of salt, was filled with salt grains.

Seeing that she had cooked so much salt herself, Chen Duling was very happy. Seeing that it was getting late, Yuan Linghan took out the prepared ingredients and began to prepare lunch for the two of them.

Taking out the fillings prepared last night, as well as the dried tapioca flour, Yuan Linghan asked with a smile, "Dudu, can you make dumplings?"

"Yes! Brother Yuan, shall we have dumplings for lunch?"

"Hmm! We'll use the leftover shrimp from yesterday, along with wild scallions and wild vegetables, to make the filling. We'll also make dumpling wrappers from tapioca flour, and have dumplings for lunch. You're probably tired of eating tapioca as your staple food every day, so let's try something different today."

"Okay! I can make dumplings, but I'm not very good at it."

Hearing Chen Duling's words, Yuan Linghan didn't see anything wrong with them. They slowly stirred the tapioca flour with boiling water to form a dough, then rolled it out into dumpling wrappers. Yuan Linghan was in charge of rolling out the wrappers, while Chen Duling was in charge of filling the dumplings.

In the end, they made more than forty dumplings, which were all cooked in two soup pots. Paired with drinks made from fresh coconut and wild lemons, Chen Duling felt that this kind of outdoor picnic was indeed a unique experience.

Most importantly, the dumplings they made themselves seemed to taste especially good. Viewers watching the live stream felt that the two seemed less like they were on a survival challenge on a deserted island and more like a couple on a vacation.

However, the process of the two making sea salt in the morning still impressed many netizens, who exclaimed that they learned something. If they were ever stranded on a desert island, mastering this skill would at least ensure they wouldn't have to worry about running out of salt.

After all, everyone knows that salt is just as important as fresh water; both are necessities for survival. If you don't replenish salt for a long time, your body will quickly experience symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, and even nausea—which could have fatal consequences!