The main ingredients of Thai curry are coconut milk and curry powder. Curry is actually a general term for a combination of ground spices, with the primary flavors coming from lemon leaves and lemongrass. The remaining spices can be mixed and matched freely.

Lemongrass itself has a refreshing, citrusy scent. Paired with fresh bay leaves, it created a flavor surprisingly similar to curry.

Drizzling the thick coconut milk sauce over the clams, the once plain and unremarkable boiled seafood was instantly transformed into an impressive-looking dish.

Finally, I plucked three koyote cilantro leaves, rolled them up, chopped them, and scattered them casually on top.

The leaves of koyote cilantro are larger than ordinary cilantro; three of them are about the size of five normal leaves. Once chopped and scattered inside the bamboo tube, the amount was just right. It wasn’t so much that it would overpower the dish, but not so little that it looked sparse.

In no more than twenty minutes, two seafood dishes—one cold, one hot—sat quietly in bamboo tubes. They rested on a bed of vibrant green banana leaves, with a blazing bonfire in the background.

"In Great Xia, cold-tossed jellyfish is typically marinated in soy sauce, vinegar, and chili. I haven’t found any chili here, and there’s no way I’ll find soy sauce or vinegar, so I have to use orange juice as a substitute."

As I explained to the audience, I eagerly picked up a piece with my chopsticks and held it up to the camera.

The translucent, brownish jellyfish glowed with a faint, orange-red luster in the firelight. Its surface was crystal clear, shimmering and trembling like fish skin. It looked incredibly springy.

CRUNCH.

My teeth bit down, and a crisp sound echoed in my mouth.

The first thing I tasted was the sweet and sour orange juice, immediately followed by the sharp, spicy kick of wild garlic. Then, slowly, the fragrance of lemon began to emerge.

Jellyfish itself is flavorless, aside from a hint of seawater and the faint fishiness you’d expect from seafood.

But after marinating in so many ingredients, that trace of an odor was long gone, leaving only a satisfyingly crisp texture.

This fruit-based marinade tasted a bit like the sauce for lemon-marinated chicken feet, just without the chili and light soy sauce. The flavor was surprisingly good—a cold appetizer that would probably suit North American tastes.

Of course, you couldn’t serve this at a proper dinner table as is. It would definitely need some refinement—at the very least, more seasonings. The flavor profile right now is a bit one-dimensional.

But for a dish made in the wild, it was an excellent appetizer.

After just one bite to awaken my palate, I eagerly brought the other bamboo tube closer.

Seafood is best eaten hot, and the same goes for a coconut milk sauce. I wasn’t about to let this rare delicacy go to waste because I was distracted by the cold jellyfish.

I didn’t even need chopsticks. I just picked up a clam by its shell, dipped it into the creamy sauce, scooped it full, and carefully brought it to my lips, slurping the meat and sauce down in one go.

With a gentle scrape of my teeth, the soft, tender clam meat came away from the shell effortlessly.

I’d already had a small taste of the sweet and savory coconut milk sauce, which was about fifty percent similar to a curry, but there’s a world of difference between a mere sample and a hearty mouthful.

The fresh clam meat was firm and sweet, with no fishiness whatsoever. Despite soaking for only a short time, it had already absorbed most of the coconut milk sauce’s flavor.

"This flavor... it’s a bit like a coconut curry version of a seafood risotto, or maybe a French-style chicken stew with coconut milk. Anyone who’s had those dishes can probably imagine the taste, right?"

The aroma of the coconut milk was rich, but the first thing I noticed was the intense fragrance of the koyote cilantro.

The flavor of this stuff was so potent, it was like an upgraded version of cilantro. The steam from the heat had completely activated its fragrance.

As a cilantro lover, I didn’t find the taste unpleasant or overpowering at all. On the contrary, it was a wonderful addition that made the dish even better.

The rich fats in the coconut milk coated every corner of my mouth. That long-missed savory richness wasn’t greasy at all, just unbelievably fragrant.

[Enjoying coconut milk-stewed clams by the sea in Panama. Happiness +2]

"Haaah..."

I exhaled a warm breath and casually tossed the clam shell aside.

Eating them was like shelling sunflower seeds, one after another. In just over ten seconds, I’d devoured all the clams in the bamboo tube.

I was about to drink the leftover coconut milk sauce, but then I saw the eight palm-sized oysters sitting nearby. A sudden idea struck me, and I placed them directly in the fire.

In Western cooking, coconut milk sauce functions almost identically to cream, and clam chowder is one of the most popular cream-based soups.

’These American Oysters grew in clean water, so their meat should be sweet. Stewing them in the coconut milk sauce that’s already been infused with seafood flavor... that shouldn’t taste bad, right?’

As they roasted in the blazing fire, small bubbles slowly began to BUBBLE from the seams of the oyster shells.

A moment later, one of the shells opened with a SNAP, revealing a finger-width gap and the plump, pale, tender oyster meat within.

As the bubbling intensified, the shells opened wider and wider.

I used a spoon made of tree bark to ladle the coconut milk sauce over the oyster meat, one spoonful at a time. There was just enough for all eight oysters, with none to spare.

Feeling that the sauce alone might not be enough, I picked four more koyote cilantro leaves, chopped them, and sprinkled them over the oyster meat.

They don’t need to cook for long. Five minutes after the shells open is enough. That meant I just had to wait another thirty to sixty seconds after sprinkling the cilantro before I could take them out.

"Oysters don’t need to be fully cooked before you take them off the heat. Their shells are the perfect insulators. They’ll stay warm for ten minutes after being removed from the fire, and they’ll be piping hot for at least five. This means the oyster meat continues to cook inside the shell."

"The principle is the same as resting a steak. Because oysters have a much higher water content, cooking them for too long causes them to lose too much moisture, which ruins the texture."

"So the best way to cook them is to pull them off when they’re only halfway done. Fresh oyster meat won’t have any off-flavors; it’s all about that sweet, fresh taste."