"Ah, fresh mushrooms really make such a delicious soup," Sulyeon said with a relaxed and satisfied expression.
Hayoon also picked up her bowl and said, "Once the food is cooked, you take it out into your bowl and eat it with dipping sauce. Besides mushroom stems and salt, I also prepared some sweet and sour fruits. You can add them according to your taste."
Minho glanced at the Spelon Berry powder beside them and asked, "This also goes into the dipping sauce?"
"Mm, like this."
Hayoon was the first to add a little into her bowl without mixing it.
Just then, the fire pit was still burning, so she fried some beast oil again, scooped it up with a wooden ladle, and poured it over the crushed Spelon berry powder.
The hot oil splashed onto the ingredients in the bowl with a sharp "crackle."
Immediately after came the released aroma of peppery numbness mixed with the fragrance of scallion-like herbs.
Just smelling it was enough to make Hayoon's appetite surge.
Before her transmigration, she cooked with pepper powder every day, so she was very familiar with it.
She never expected that after not eating this flavor for so many days, she would miss it so much.
As for the dipping sauce, if soy sauce were added for a salty umami taste, it would definitely taste even better.
Soy sauce was a seasoning she used even more often than pepper powder.
She remembered there was a plant in the wild that looked similar to beans.
If she had the chance, she needed to go look for it and see if she could brew soy sauce.
The others also smelled the aroma and exclaimed one after another.
"So fragrant!"
"Once you pour hot oil over it, it completely changes!"
"This can be done too?" Leeho said. "I will try some as well."
Immo stopped Hayoon from standing up. "Sit and eat. I will heat the oil for him."
In the end, Hayoon, Leeho, Minho, and Haeun all added the crushed Spelon berry powder into their dipping sauce and poured hot oil over it.
Immo and Sulyeon did not add it.
They wanted to try Leeho's first, and if they could accept it, they would add it later.
The meat in the pot was already cooked. Hayoon called everyone to eat quickly, otherwise if it overcooked, it would become tough.
Besides the mushroom hot pot, the two batches of fried mushrooms from earlier were also placed on a stone slab beside the stove.
Hayoon had already noticed Haeun glancing repeatedly at the fried mushrooms, and she smiled. "If you want to eat, then eat."
The boy's eyes lit up. He quickly responded and accurately picked up a piece of peppery fried mushroom with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth.
With the crisp "crack crack" of chewing, his eyes widened and he kept nodding at Hayoon.
After swallowing, he said loudly, "Sis, this taste is amazing! My mouth feels numb, and my tongue doesn't even feel like it belongs to me anymore! Hahaha!"
Hayoon asked, "Is it good?"
"I did not really taste it properly. I will eat more." Haeun said.
Hayoon laughed. "Alright." Then she called out to the others, "You all try it too?"
No one refused, including Sulyeon, who also picked up a piece.
After tasting it, her eyes gradually brightened. She gave it a very high evaluation.
"I thought the original one was already good enough, but I did not expect that adding Spelon berry makes the flavor even richer. Especially when chewing and biting into the crushed pieces, there is suddenly a soft numbing sensation between the teeth. The texture is so special! Delicious, really delicious! I want to add it into the dipping sauce too!"
She turned to Immo. "Mom, is the tribe organizing a gathering tomorrow? If not, can the two of us go to the top of Gale Mountain and bring back two baskets of Spelon berries? We can fry more of this flavored mushroom back home!"
Immo could not help but laugh. "You have not even finished this meal, and you are already thinking about the next one. After the rain, mushrooms will keep growing for a while. We are still going to gather mushrooms anyway, so we can just pick some Spelon berries while we are at it."
Sulyeon nodded repeatedly. "Mm mm!"
Leeho was the one who adapted to it best. He ate several pieces in a row before speaking. "After living for decades, I only now learned that these Spelon Berry can be eaten like this. It feels like adding more would make it even better."
Hayoon said, "I was worried everyone might not be used to it, so I didn't add too much. You can adjust the amount yourself when you cook it later."
Minho who is sitting beside him calmly added, "It's good."
Immo said honestly, "I still find this flavor a bit hard to get used to."
Hayoon replied, "Some people don't like this taste. That's fine. You can just eat the original flavor."
The fried mushrooms were delicious, but they were only an appetizer.
After that, everyone naturally shifted their chopsticks toward the meat in the broth pot.
Every year after the rainy season, many mushrooms grow within the tribe's territory, becoming an important food source.
Grilled mushrooms, fried mushrooms, mushrooms stewed with meat.
In addition to these common methods, people also select some mushrooms, dry them, and store them for winter.
When food becomes scarce, they can be soaked in water and used for cooking again.
The meat slices in the mushroom hotpot were not actually much more delicious than their usual stewed meat, just more tender.
What truly amazed them was the dipping sauce Hayoon taught them to make.
Tender boiled meat combined with the aroma of mushrooms was already extremely flavorful.
When paired with the rich dipping sauce, the taste became even more intense.
The gamey smell was removed, leaving only the rich fragrance of meat and mushrooms, amplified many times over.