Wasteland Echoer

"Cooking skills?" Dak curled his lips and pretended to be "disdainful":

"It won't be some dark cuisine, right? I remember that all the skills you showed me for the first time will not be good. Remember last time, you said you could fish, right in the ice cave in the middle of the Volga River I put a steel line in it for fishing. Good guy, I did catch the fish, and it was quite big, but it was a 'different monster', called a 'giant sturgeon on the bottom of the ice', and it took us a long time to fight to kill it. But it was In the end, its meat and fins were sold for some new rubles."

"It's different this time." Wulfya said with an apologetic smile as she fumbled for the keyhole in the old iron kitchen door:

"We have been really busy in the past few years since we met, so I don't have time to let you try my cooking. In fact, cooking was one of my strengths as early as twenty years ago. By the way, do you remember when Molun asked me about it in Xinfeng Town? The scientists we mentioned who work for the Evolution Platform?"

"Let me think about it...well, you should remember that it is...Igor, right?" Dak scratched his head and asked.

"Yes, that's him." Wulfya bent down and nodded hard:

"It is said that he is a master of cooking. Luo Nie told me a few days ago that Mr. Igor once cooked him a Khitan-style meal. It must be said that the oriental people's accomplishments in food are unparalleled in the world. It is beyond the reach of other countries. No matter how strange the taste of the ingredients is, in the dexterous hands of the Orientals, it can always turn into a delicacy that you will never forget.

"But the Putua people are different. Apart from boiling some vegetables and grilling some pieces of meat, they really don't know how to cook. But in the final analysis, when it comes to dark cuisine, we Krusted people did invent it after the New Year. A lot. But that's all because of the shortage of food. We have to develop more cooking methods and it's also a necessity for survival.

"But even so, in my opinion, Igor, who has oriental cooking skills, can't make anything that tastes much better than mine."

"What's there, Wulfya, I'm really curious." Dak asked with expectation on his face, patting Wulfya on the shoulder.

At this moment, after tinkering for a long time, Wofya finally opened the iron door of the kitchen that had been abandoned for a long time.

"Cough, cough. Why...is there such big dust?" Dak beat the dust in the air, covering his mouth and coughing.

Simply, Wulfya quickly took out two black masks from his pocket and handed one to Dak, which barely relieved his discomfort.

Picking up the broom she got from the manager of the accommodation area, Wulfya swept the dust and explained to Duck:

"In the original plan, this was indeed a place for us to cook and process ingredients. About a few months ago, the Federal Council's understanding of the scale of this 'Suffering War' battle was limited to small local conflicts. .

"In the beginning, the 'man-made lake' was just an auxiliary stronghold built to cooperate with the 'City of Five Great Men', and at most it became a satellite city of a large stronghold. Therefore, the initially established military camps and residences were equipped with independent kitchens."

"But what about now? What about when it gets bigger?" Dak asked, wiping off the dust on a chair behind him with a rag, jumping up and sitting on it, and asked.

"Then let's just concentrate on eating." Wofya explained:

"If there is no shortage of food and basic supplies, then eat in the large canteen. Anyway, the system of centralized dining in the army existed during the old empire. If there is a shortage of supplies, just find a way and cook by yourself. But today, I I said I wanted to show you my 'cooking skills', and this time I came to the 'Man-made Lake' camp with a few of my old comrades, who brought me some hard-to-get ingredients, which happened to be good for making some cruise A classic German dish.”

"It's your old comrade again, haha." Dak complained in a low voice, then looked at the bag beside Wulfya with curious eyes, and asked:

"What ingredients are there? It's so mysterious and wrapped so tightly."

"Don't move yet." Wulfya quickly warned:

"Some of these ingredients are air-dried, some are air-vacuum-packed, and some are fresh vegetables and meat, wrapped in several layers of plastic film. It's not a long journey to deliver these things from Kanosk. , but the road conditions are complicated and the air is filled with many viruses that are difficult to remove.

"Only by going through complex sterilization and packaging work can we ensure the food safety of people like us. However, even if we do this, we cannot guarantee that they are 100% free of 'viruses'. To a large extent, this will reduce the risk of infection." The number of infections is just to save the consumption of 'Federal Agent No. 0'."

"I'm not afraid. We are all superpowers anyway. Re-infection will only enhance my strength. After all, my spirit will not collapse because of this thing and I will degenerate into a 'careless person'." Dak drummed. Mouth, muttered.

After barely sweeping up the dust on the kitchen floor, Wofya poured the last dustpan into the tin trash can, walked up to Dak, pressed Dak's shoulder heavily with his right hand, and said in an extremely solemn and helpless tone:

"But I'm afraid."

After saying that, he shook his head pretending to be sad and opened the ingredients in the package.

In order to ease the embarrassing situation, Duck, who knew he had said the wrong thing, took the initiative to help Wovya clean the dusty stove, kitchen utensils, and the gas tank that had not been used for a long time and had some rust on the surface.

A few minutes later, after bagging the last bucket of garbage and leaving it at the kitchen door, Duck finally saw the food contained in the package.

Indeed, these foods are not common in this wasteland continent, and they are definitely not the daily diet of frontline personnel.

The package does not contain those disgusting "artificial meats" or black legba, nor is it some high-protein powder or nutrient solution as sticky as snot, but some very rare real meat and vegetables. .

First of all, what caught his eye was a sturgeon. It seemed that in order to make up for the bad memory caused by the last fishing, Wovya deliberately caught this fish from the Volga River a few days ago.

After all, although the fish in the "man-made lake" are also abundant, the Federal Council and Commander-in-Chief Yaroslav know that they cannot hunt any creature here even if they are about to starve to death.

As the old empire's "Artificial Fire of Punishment" experimental site, all living things here are exposed to excessive amounts of radiation. Once eaten by mistake, the skin will ulcerate and may not recover for several years. At worst, they will immediately go crazy and degenerate into a "careless person". They will either activate the "Killing Core" to kill themselves, or they will be killed by their comrades.

Mutations caused by wrong food are often not discovered until a day later, and by that time, no medicine can have any effect.

Among the other meat ingredients is an "Iceland Rooster", which is grown on a large farm in the northern part of the Icefield Province. Because that area is close to the Far North Forest and there are rivers nearby, it effectively blocks the intrusion of "unintentional people".

Therefore, the chickens grown there have access to natural flowers, trees, forests, fields, lakes and seas, as well as sunlight. Compared with chickens living in underground farms, the meat is more tender and not too dry.

As far as packaged air-dried food is concerned, there are only a few large pieces of "bear meat sausage." The Crusaders generally do not eat bears. On the one hand, it is difficult to obtain their meat. The size and strength of bears are more difficult to capture than other small animals.

On the other hand, they are still considered to be in the middle and upper levels of the food chain. They are more likely to accumulate "unintentional viruses" in their bodies. Their processing is complicated, but the taste of meat is not consistent with the Krusted tradition.

But in an era of scarcity, the development of one more kind of meat is indeed one more possibility of survival.

Holding the "Bear Meat Sausage" that had not yet been completely opened, Dak still murmured in his heart and asked Wofya:

"Um...Wulfya, are you sure you can eat the 'bear sausage'?"

"Of course." Wulfya nodded and pointed at the ingredients in Duck's hand:

"Although it does seem strange to make this thing, in fact, it was invented as early as the early days of the Crusad Empire to solve the problem of food shortage. After thousands of years of development, now a series of seasonings The ingredients and processing procedures have long been able to remove the indescribable unpleasant smell on the surface of bear meat.

"I heard that there was once a man who was a palace chef under Ivan XXII. He once had the idea of ​​canning bear meat and wanted to use it as a 'creative army ration'. As a result, he made a few samples and asked Ivan to Fan 22 tastes it. Good guy, the moment the can was opened, a superposition of salty, stench, rotten, sour and other spoiled food smells penetrated into the noses of the army generals who were waiting to taste it. .

"It actually made these strong [soldiers] who had been on the battlefield and worked with the dead almost have a mental breakdown. They covered their mouths and retched."

"Hahaha, what happened next?" Dak asked curiously.

"Later? That kitchen was abandoned, and the 'Emperor's Kitchen' was moved to the 'Yongchi Back Hall'. The palace chef and the old room were destroyed by artillery shells. It is said that not even the dregs were left in the end, but he was The 'creativity' is so creative, hahaha." Wulfya smiled heartily, and suddenly the expression on his face froze, then became serious, sighed, and continued:

"But then again, let alone bear meat, if many people can have a mouthful of clean water to drink, they will not become 'unintentional people', or become lost people, standing in the camp hostile to us. I I have served the Federal Council and the army for more than 30 years, and there are hundreds of comrades who have died standing in front of me. However, no matter how short the food is, how brutal the war is, and how short of manpower, we are still in arduous circumstances time after time. We got through it. But, perhaps indeed, the 'restart era' described by Vasily will not lead to a bright future."

"We humans... will definitely survive until the day when the long night ends." Dak stood behind Wofya and comforted:

"No matter how weak, humble, or helpless human beings are, they all have a belief worth firming. With it, they can support countless weak bodies to move forward, to move forward indomitably, to persevere to the end, and to move towards the other side of the existence of 'light'." (End of chapter)