He ignored the audience’s questions, instead grabbing and opening two coconuts. He chugged the water from one to soothe his throat.

After pouring the water from the other coconut into a bamboo tube, he took out his combat knife. Flipping it over, he used the rough spine of the blade to scrape out all the fresh meat from inside the shell.

Fresh coconut meat is quite easy to scrape off. It doesn’t require much force—any relatively hard tool will do the job.

However, the meat scraped out this way often has small bits of the shell mixed in, which affect the texture and must be patiently picked out.

Once that was done, the coconut meat needed to be finely chopped—the finer, the better.

But he had a simpler, cruder method in mind.

With a flick of his fingers, he sent the blade into a couple of flashy spins before gripping the handle and pounding the piled-up coconut shreds inside the shell.

With each strike, the shredded coconut meat visibly compressed.

Gradually, a milky-white liquid began to well up from the bottom.

The longer he pounded, the more coconut milk pooled in the coconut-shell bowl, and a rich, fragrant aroma of coconut began to fill the air.

"I’m sure most of you have had a coconut milk beverage before, right? It’s actually made from coconut meat. You pound it, press it to extract the juice, and what you get is pure coconut milk. After it’s boiled and processed, it can be canned and sold."

"That’s the good stuff. The cheaper versions are made by mixing coconut milk powder with water to keep raw material costs as low as possible, but you can definitely taste a powdery texture in those drinks."

"As for coconut oil, you get that by heating the coconut milk to a boil. You stir continuously to separate the oil from the water, and then after cooling and filtering, you can extract the coconut oil."

However, this small amount of coconut milk wasn’t nearly enough to extract oil; he would need several times this quantity to get a decent yield.

He used his hand to cover the opening of the coconut shell, straining out the precious milk.

It looked like a substantial amount, but once poured out, it was just a shallow pool. He felt like he could probably finish it in a single gulp.

With the prep work done, he unearthed the embers from the ashes to relight the fire. He then poured the coconut water back into the shell and set it over the flames to boil.

He pinched a bit of sea salt and sprinkled it in for a base flavor. Once the water was boiling, he submerged the entire jellyfish to blanch it for ten seconds.

"Jellyfish like this one are a specific variety of medusa. They look very similar, but jellyfish in general tend to have larger bodies and longer tentacles. Also, while you can find jellyfish throughout the ocean, this particular kind usually lives in warmer, coastal waters."

"This type isn’t as venomous as other jellyfish. Its toxins can be removed through processes like salting. The ones you find washed up on a beach are usually edible, as the seawater salt naturally cures them as they dry out, but they need to be thoroughly washed first."

"To be on the safe side, blanching it for ten seconds kills most bacteria while also preserving the jellyfish’s unique, crisp texture. Plus, they’re quite nutritious."

He picked up the jellyfish and shook it in the air a dozen times to cool it down. Then, he laid it out on a banana leaf and used his combat knife to slice it into chopstick-thick strips, which he piled to one side.

He took a stalk of lemongrass, gripped it by the stem, and struck it forcefully against the unopened coconut beside him.

CRACK!

The tough root end of the lemongrass stalk instantly split open, releasing a very faint lemony aroma.

He wasn’t done yet. He placed the stalk on the banana leaf and smacked it a few more times with the spine of his knife, completely bruising it to expose its bamboo-like fibrous structure.

He didn’t need much, just a single fiber the thickness of a strand of yarn. He tore it in half lengthwise, then cut it into knuckle-length segments.

He squeezed the juice from a quarter of an orange, added a little sea salt, some crushed allspice, and a small handful of wild garlic leaves. He gently tossed everything together with the jellyfish, then piled it into a bamboo tube, shaping it like a small mound.

Marinated in the orange juice, the jellyfish took on a pale orange hue. The act of tossing it had fully released the fragrance of the lemongrass and wild garlic, filling the air with a sweet, sour, fruity, and spicy aroma.

"It’s best to let the jellyfish marinate for at least ten minutes before eating, but don’t let it sit for too long. The salt will eventually cause it to dehydrate."

"As I said earlier, this is a type of jellyfish, and its body is almost entirely water. In the ocean, the salinity inside its body matches the water outside, so there’s no issue. But once it’s prepared as a cold dish, its internal fluid is essentially freshwater, so soaking it in a salty marinade will cause it to slowly lose water."

While the jellyfish marinated, he dropped the clams into the boiling coconut water and cooked them for five minutes. He then stuffed them, shells and all, into another bamboo tube in a rustic arrangement.

About half a shell of water remained in the coconut. Having cooked two types of seafood, the broth had already turned a pale white.

He poured the coconut milk he had extracted earlier into the shell to heat it up, adding the rest of the lemongrass, a fresh bay leaf, and two crushed allspice berries to simmer.

The coconut milk came to a boil, BUBBLING with large air pockets. The billowing steam began to carry the rich aroma of the spices.

Over the high heat, the coconut milk thickened considerably in just two or three minutes.

He sprinkled in some salt, stirred it evenly, and used a spoon he’d carved from bark in his spare time to taste it.

The coconut milk’s texture was noticeably thicker. Its rich, milky aroma was mixed with the fresh scent of lemongrass and the distinct, peppery spiciness of the allspice.

The fresh bay leaf, however, was barely noticeable. He wasn’t sure if it was because it hadn’t cooked long enough or if its flavor was simply overpowered by the other two spices.

The sauce was salty and sweet, with a lingering hint of spice in the aftertaste, somewhat reminiscent of a Thai curry.