A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 101: Problems Processing Plants (2)
When she returned to the village, Theo was still not back, so Serena put Kiro down to sleep before she packed away the cotton and some of the berries. They’d have them for tonight.
She then took the rest to the wild birds and checked the garden beds for weeds and made sure the birds weren’t destroying the plants. Seeing that they were fine, Serena headed back to the hut.
She wanted to head out to the village, but didn’t want to leave a sleeping Kiro by himself. So, instead, Serena got to work on her wheat project. Since, jam was a bit of a bust right now, this was her focus.
It would be a massive breakthrough if she could make wheat into some kind of food.
After making sure Kiro was fully asleep, Serena retrieved the new book she purchased from the system to read up on wheat. The leather-bound book was quite thick and it took a bit of searching for Serena to find the page on wheat.
There it gave her a description of the plant, how to harvest it and then how to process it into something called flour. After that, there were several recipes on different foods to make using the flour.
Coarsely grinded flour mixed with water or milk could be made into porridge. From there one could add things like salt, honey, or spices to add flavor to it.
More finely grinded flour, meanwhile, would be used to make other things such as pasta or noodles, depending on the methods, or even yeast, which would then be used for making bread.
It was honestly astonishing to Serena to see how many foods could be made from one plant alone. And it was a plant that could be easily stored. They just needed to build something called a granary.
They seemed to be built with suspended floors which kept the wheat safe from rodents and moisture, ensuring its preservation for long periods. Then as they needed flour, they would grind it.
Which led to another problem - she needed something called a mill.
From the looks of it, they were made from stone and wood and would be used to grind the wheat. There was both a hand version and a building version to produce more wheat at once.
The building one was something she’d need to look more into, Serena sure the city planning guides had more about the structure. The one shown in her new book used water, so she knew she’d have to build it by the river.
As for the hand one, it seemed simple enough to build. The problem was the stone part. She could find the stone herself, however, would likely need help carving and assembling it.
Which meant for now she was stuck just separating the wheat berries, the part which would be turned into flour, from the rest of the plant. They could keep the stalks for kindling, wild bird nesting and to add to the garden beds, so it wasn’t a total loss.
Of course, now she was stuck wondering how to get Theo to help her carve a stone mill without asking too many questions. Then again, he didn’t really ask her many questions when she did things.
Seemed for now, she’d just harvest and process the wheat and then in the cold season when they had more time, they could try to make that stone mill. Perhaps, it was time she looked more into that jam idea.
Because while she didn’t like how Liz went about it, the system did have a point about the bees. From what she understood from the farming book, they’d be needed for pollening plants.
She didn’t fully understand the process, but if they had a bunch of bees around, it would probably be helpful to their large scale farming. And they’d get lots of wax and honey from keeping them around.
Which would be helpful in making different types of jams.
Serena did search through the book to find more about jams and there were other methods, such as using sugar instead, but that was a whole other mission. She’d need to find plants which could be made into sugar.
Then she’d need to turn them into sugar and she wasn’t sure how easy that would be. Her wheat project was already showing her that she couldn’t underestimate doing things without needing tools.
Eventually, she returned her book to her subspace along with the processed wheat. Keeping them underground would be a bad idea, so she decided to keep them in the safest possible place for now.
Just as she was cleaning up the wheat stalks, Theo returned with a deer. He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing and began processing the meat.
Serena put the wheat stalks by the other kindling before she went over to help Theo. They worked quietly for some time before Serena decided to bite the bullet.
"Hey Theo." Serena called out, making the tiger beastman look up.
"Do you need something?" Theo asked.
"Not really. I was just wondering if you knew how to harvest honey." Serena responded. "I know of this method to cook fruit with honey to keep it for a long time, but I need honey and beeswax. Do you think it’s possible to get it?"
Theo froze at her words. He’d never heard of such a method, but then again, he wasn’t a herbivore so didn’t eat fruit. Serena, however, did so she could have known about such a method.
Still, it was strange that the village didn’t use such a method. Of course, it could be because harvesting honey was a dangerous task. It could get you killed if you weren’t careful.
"I’m not sure..." Theo finally answered. "It would take some time to find it and it’s quite dangerous to get. Some beastmen die every year trying to get it."
Serena pursed her lips at those words, knowing he was right. That was one of the major risks of getting honey. Which made Serena wonder how someone would raise bees without dying.
Her lip twitched, knowing where this was going. Gosh she hated this damn system.
