A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 104: Food Supplies

After breakfast, Serena headed out to harvest some more vegetables and find more wheat. She wanted to harvest more before the next rains came and destroyed the crops.

They did still need to make the grinder to turn the wheat berries into flour, but since the plant was easy to store and would last for years, it didn’t hurt to keep more around. Besides, she needed enough to do experiments.

Because she doubted she’d get it on her first try.

And the wild birds seemed to enjoy the wheat, so even if her experiments to turn wheat into flour didn’t work, she could also keep it as some kind of food supply for them.

Granted she’d need to find another source of food for the village to use. Jam was great, but it didn’t seem like a food one could just eat by itself. More like it was something you added to meals.

She read a bit more of that farming book last night, curious about keeping bees, and read how there were different types of grains that became a staple food for a city. She already ruled out rice, it needing a wetland environment.

And right now, making that wasn’t possible. Perhaps for the future,when she had the chance to experiment more, but for now she wanted to rely on other plants which would grow without too much effort.

Barley and millet were her other options along with a few others, but she was keen into looking into those two for now. Mainly, so she wouldn’t overwhelm herself with experimentation.

Besides, both barley and millet could be ground into flour and make similar foods made from wheat flour. Additionally, their grains could be eaten whole in things like soups or salads.

That was one of the things she liked about the two grains. If she couldn’t properly grind them into flour, at least they could still be enjoyed whole.

The other thing she liked about them was that they could be given to wild birds as food, mainly millet, but both worked too. Then there was the fact, they could be made into some kind of drink called beer.

They didn’t really have that back in her home world. Well, it did exist, but you had to be incredibly rich to be able to have alcoholic drinks. Mainly because of the resources required to make them.

However, that wasn’t a problem here.

She had the resources and knowledge, sort of, to try her hand at making alcohol. Maybe not her greatest achievement, but she was a little curious as to how alcohol tasted.

Plus, she once heard one of the crew doctors telling her about alcohol being used as some kind of disinfectant before they switched to better alternatives since the alcohol didn’t always work.

Granted it might not be the greatest solution, soap seemed like a better option, but in such a primitive world, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Then again, she was also told drinking had side effects.

"Hey Liz..." Serena called out to the system.

The blue snake on her arm opened its eyes and glanced up at her. With what seemed to be a yawn, it asked, "What do you need?"

"Well, I was thinking of introducing alcohol to this world, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea..." Serena stated. "Do you have any thoughts on it?"

"Well, it does have some bad side effects and isn’t really good for pregnant females." Liz mused. "That being said, wine can become vinegar in the right conditions which can be quite useful. There’s a method of preserving meat using it."

Serena paused at those words. Food preservation was one of the most important things in this world with either smoking or salt being used to preserve meat for long periods of time.

Of course, salt was pretty hard to come by unless you lived in a city, so most stuck to smoking meat. Which was fine for the most part. But it also didn’t hurt to have other methods.

"Really?" Serena asked, gazing at the system.

"Yes. You need to use meat with little to no fat, to prevent it from spoiling and cover it with salt for one hour. From there, you brush the meat with red wine vinegar and then cover with pepper and coriander." Liz explained. "Then you hang it up to dry, typically for three to four days depending on how dry you want the inside. Of course, it’s best to do this during the cold season to prevent the meat from spoiling during the drying process."

"I see..." Serena pursed her lips.

The method itself seemed fine, however, she was lacking ingredients to make it. She could look for pepper and coriander, but she wasn’t sure if she’d find them here. As for the salt part, it could be a little more than normal.

But if they got a way to get more salt through trade, perhaps it was a worthwhile way to preserve food.

Additionally, she needed to make vinegar. And who knew how long that would take because she first needed to get making wine right before she could attempt making vinegar.

"I guess this one’s a bust." Serena sighed, going back to harvesting long, orange squash.

"Well, even if it is, making vinegar might be worthwhile." Liz pointed out. "It’s helpful in making meat tender and sometimes used to give meat flavor when mixed with other things. Oh and you can use it to preserve plants too."

"Could you not have gone with that at the start?" Serena asked, eyeing the blue snake for a second.

"You’re a carnivore, so I thought I’d start with meat." Liz answered sheepishly.

"Okay... Then how do you use vinegar to preserve plants?" Serena asked.

This would indeed be a useful thing living in a herbivore village and perhaps be another thing they could sell to the Horse Clan.

"You need to create a solution of vinegar, water and a bit of salt." Liz explained. "You can add other things to the solution, but that’s the most basic version. From there, you have different ways to pickle the plant, from needing to cook it first to just adding it to a clean jar which needs to be sealed tightly.

Some recipes even have ways to pickle things like eggs and fish, but my knowledge on that is limited. You’ll need to get the food preservation book for that."

"Alright salesman, slow down there." Serena said sarcastically. She then asked, "So, that cookery book has some pickling recipes inside it, right?"

"Yes." Liz nodded its head.

"Well then I’ll start with those." Serea mused. "Though, I’d need to figure out how to make vinegar first."

"To start you’ll need to make wine or maybe even apple cider." Liz stated. "Because vinegar is basically a spoiled version of it. Personally, I recommend going with wine."

"And how long will this all take?" Serena questioned.

"Perhaps a few months." Liz mused. "Depends on the conditions and type of wine."

Serena sighed at its words. Seemed like she had another side project to do. But for now, she was going to put it on the backburner. She wanted to get this grain project and jame project out of the way first.

Then she could move on to making vinegar from wine and then attempting some pickling methods. Perhaps even look into making cotton into cloth because she was going to need that as well as making a kiln for clay jars.

Because those were quickly becoming a necessity and it’d be nice to have tiles in the future.

"Alright. Guess I’ll just ask for help locating-" Serena started.

But before she could finish, Liz suddenly interrupted, "You have completed collecting twenty-five animal furs. Only two requirements are left to fulfill your cold season preparation mission."

"Guess Theo and Jason must’ve returned from hunting." Serena said, glancing up at the sky.

It was mid-morning and they were already back, meaning their hunt must’ve been quite a successful one. She was only halfway done with her tasks, so quickly went to work, finishing her harvesting.

She’d finished up finding wheat this afternoon and maybe some big stones too. Theo and her did have some yesterday to try shaping into her wheat grinder, but it turned out carving stone was harder than it looked.

Especially with the specific design Serena had in mind. They’d probably have a better time with metal tools, but those weren’t available so they had to stick to using claws and other stones.

Her best bet was probably going by the river to see if there were any good stones there.

Once she was done harvesting, Serena headed back to the village, stopping by the village center first. There she exchanged half her harvest with Emma and received her first batch of brown strips.

Her mate would bring the rest later. Kiro came over to her while she was doing the exchange and once Serena was done the pair of siblings headed back to the hut to enjoy some lunch.