1983 Small Island, Starting From a Large Farmer

 Chapter 252 Mullet Roe

 Around two o'clock in the afternoon.

The tide had almost reached its highest point. Li Duoyu drove a sampan and took his uncle Chen Dongqing to the sea area where the nets were set.

 After arriving at the place.

Li Duoyu put on his gloves and fished out the buoy with the little red flag on it first.

These buoys are used to remind passing fishing boats that there are fishing nets here, but the nets are all sunken and sticky, so there is no need to worry about being caught by the propellers of fishing boats.

If the floating net is released, if the fishermen do not watch in the nearby sea area, once the powered fishing boat mistakenly enters the net setting area, the propeller can easily get caught in the fishing net.

 Small fishing boats are easy to solve, just cut the fishing nets. If it is a big boat, it will be very troublesome, and you may have to find a water ghost to cut the fishing nets.

 If the weather is bad and the waves are big, the fishing boat will lose power and it will become very dangerous.

 Generally, sticky nets are used to catch pelagic fish, and Li Duoyu is almost always there. For example, last year when catching shad at the estuary of the river, he and his cousin always stayed by the sticky nets, fearing that passing fishing boats would get caught in the sticky nets.

 After lifting the buoy.

Li Duoyurang started to pull the net. Since the sticky net sank to the bottom of the sea at least more than 20 meters deep, it was quite laborious to pull the net up.

 When Li Duo fished, the fishing boat also moved forward slowly due to the force.

 My brother-in-law is responsible for unpacking the fish.

Since this area has a muddy bottom and is not a reef area, there are almost no reef fish such as groupers and minnows.

 What is caught in the net are mostly swimming crabs and half-finned fish, and occasionally conchs are caught.

 For fishermen of this era, these are relatively common seafood, and even if they are caught, they will not be particularly excited.

 After pulling almost a hundred meters.

 A large yellow snail hung from the sticky net.

 After seeing the big snail.

Chen Dongqing’s eyes lit up and she said excitedly: “Not bad, we even made a papaya snail.”

 After hearing this call, Li Duoyu was stunned for a moment before he could react.

 In this era, there was no such thing as coconut snail, and local fishermen generally called it papaya snail.

In fact, when Li Duoyu heard about coconut snails for the first time, he was speechless. This thing obviously looks like a papaya and not like a coconut at all. Why is it called a coconut snail?

Papaya snails are really not that delicious. If the previous Big Snail was the ceiling of the conch world, the current papaya snail is the younger brother in the conch world.

 The snail meat is hard and woody, and should not be cooked for too long, otherwise it will be like eating rubber. The locals usually boil it in hot water, slice it, and stir-fry it with red wine lees.

 In this era, papaya snails are the same as abalone, and their shells are more valuable.

 The shells of abalone are used to make medicinal materials, while the shells of papaya snails are used to make handicrafts. Some craftsmen on the beach will make snail horns out of the shells of papaya snails.

There are also many pig butchers who buy the shells of this kind of conch. Once the pork is not sold out, they will carry the pork to the village to sell.

Selling pork does not rely on shouting, but blowing conches. Once the villagers hear the sound of "du~du~", they will know that the pork seller is coming.

When he was a child, Li Duoyu once asked an old man in the village why the pork seller used conch blowing as a signal to attract customers.

The old man didn’t know much about it. He simply told him some superstitious things, saying that butchers killed too many animals, so they imitated the master (Taoist priest) of blowing horns to drive away ghosts and evil spirits. Since there were few horns, they blew conch shells.

Since conch comes from the sea, every time the butcher blows the conch horn, he will silently say: "Get out of the sea of ​​suffering as soon as possible and reincarnate."

Looking at the papaya snail in front of him, which weighed at least three kilograms, Li Duoyu was more concerned about whether the large snail was "pregnant".

 Because there is a probability of a kind of orb called "Melo Pearl" appearing in the papaya snail's body, and the larger it is, the higher the probability of the orb appearing.

However, Li Duoyu only heard the name "Meilezhu" in the years when sea food became popular.

 In the past, people in our village also made beads from papaya snails, but most of the beads were not particularly round.

In addition, the luster is not very bright, it is not as beautiful as pearls, so most fishermen don’t care much about it.

After Li Duoyu returned to Dandan Island from the island country, the old Tang who loved fishing once said that when he was young, he once opened a Merlot bead with a diameter of more than two centimeters and a weight of more than 50 carats.

At that time, no one wanted it at all, so they kept it in the bottom of the box. Until later, Meloder became inexplicably popular, and one carat could be sold for 5,000 yuan. Old Tang rummaged through his home and couldn't find the bead. He later found out about it when he asked his son.

When his son was a child, he had stolen the Melo bead and used it as a marble to play with, but lost it to a big boy in the village.

Lao Tang was so angry that he wanted to beat his son up, but unfortunately he was already too old and couldn't win at all.

Li Duoyu thinks that the probability of finding Melo beads from the papaya snail is very small. If you are lucky, you may also win the lottery.

 That's the thing about Keren. Once an opportunity is presented to you, you can't help but want to give it a try.

Li Duoyu continues to pull the fishing net. So far, the catch is not good, but not particularly bad either.

 Because it is a muddy bottom, there are quite a lot of crabs, boss fish and lobster fish.

 It hasn’t been done for a while yet.

Li Duoyu found that it was very difficult to pull, as if he was hanging from the earth.

 But fortunately, I can still pull it.

When encountering this situation, fishermen will be very excited, because it is very likely that they have caught a school of fish and a big fish, otherwise it would not be so difficult to pull.

Uncle Chen Dongqing saw that Li Duoyu was struggling to pull the fish, so he also came up to help pull the net.

 After a while.

A mullet weighing six or seven kilograms came out of the sea with the sticky net. After seeing this fish, my uncle was a little disgusted.

This kind of fish is notoriously unpalatable. The meat is very woody and often smells like mud. Even if the fish is very large, most of the time it cannot be sold at a high price.

To be exaggerated, fishermen really don’t like to catch mullet in the net, because this kind of fish usually appears in groups. When one fish appears, a second one will appear. If a school of fish is caught in the net, the net will stick to it. It may be destroyed.

Although everyone dislikes the mullet fish, Li Duoyu regards this thing as a treasure, especially when he sees the round belly of the mullet fish, his face is full of smiles.

 After untangling the blackhead fish from under the sticky net.

Li Duoyu took out the mallet from the sampan boat and struck it accurately on the flat head of the mullet, causing it to straighten its body.

Li Duoyu used a fish-killing knife to insert it from the lower end of the belly of the mullet fish, and then performed a caesarean section on "it".

 Immediately afterwards, I saw two symmetrical yellow ovaries in the belly of the blackhead fish.

"Forehead"

Chen Dongqing was a little surprised: "This aconite actually has fish roe, which is quite valuable. Some people like to eat fish roe."

Li Duoyu smiled and said: "Holly, do you remember that when we were in Nagasaki, there was an ingredient that was grilled on a charcoal fire?"

　 Being reminded by Li Duoyu, the memory of Chen Dongqing’s death came back to life.

“That hard, manly dish that tastes weird?”

Li Duoyu nodded and smiled: "Yes, it's that thing. That thing is called mullet roe, and it's made of this thing."

Chen Dongqing looked surprised: "That's not right, how do you know so clearly."

"You're a nerd, don't you understand? When I first ate that thing, I recognized it at a glance. I also asked the president about the recipe for making mullet roe. Do you want me to make some for you to eat, so that you can learn from it? Try to come twice a month.”

"roll."

There is definitely no market for this "delicacy" like mullet roe in Rongcheng. The main reason is that the way to eat it is too finicky and troublesome, and people may not be able to accept the taste.

However, after Li Duoyu’s mullet roe is made, there is one person who will definitely accept the mullet roe, and that is Chen Yuanyou, who runs a Japanese food shop.

Just like grilled eel, mullet roe is one of the three delicacies of Japanese cuisine and an unavoidable ingredient. It can be cooked and sold to her at a high price.

Just as Li Duoyu expected, he encountered a school of mullet fish, and one after another, the big-bellied mullet fish were pulled up by Li Duoyu.

After pulling up the thousand-meter fishing net, Li Duoyu sat on the board of the boat with sweat all over his body, and behind him, there were densely packed silvery atolls.

 For Li Duoyu, this trip was a big profit. The fish eggs were used to make mullet roe and sold to Chen Yuanyou. The mullet meat that the fishermen didn't like was used to make fish meal and fed to the eels.

 (End of this chapter)