Chapter 478 - 312: The Italians’ Nemesis

Chapter 478: Chapter 312: The Italians’ Nemesis

"We have to wait for the meat delivery from Mr. Beef. I ordered half a cow, and I’ll butcher and prepare it on-site."

"Half a cow?!!"

The uncommon order was like a boulder dropped into a calm pond, sending massive waves through the crowd.

A normal family usually just buys steaks per person—mostly the kind that comes three or four to a pack.

Buying half a cow like this... they hadn’t just never seen it, they’d never even heard of it.

"Mr. Beef’s shop restocks around one in the afternoon. It’s been that way for years. I’ll come by at one, then!"

’One in the afternoon?’

Lin Chen nodded to himself. He’d forgotten to ask for the specific time, but he was surprised at how familiar these customers were with every stall.

’That’s good, too. It saves me another trip.’

「Soon, it was afternoon.」

A few minutes past one, Lin Chen and Erica arrived at the entrance of Mr. Beef’s stall. Three familiar faces had gotten there even earlier and were chatting with Mr. Beef.

"Hey, good afternoon, Lin and Erica. They were just asking me what you two are planning to make later."

Seeing the main stars had arrived, Mr. Beef grinned and ducked down, pulling a large bag of long, flat, wide, slightly yellowish-white strips from the fridge under his counter.

"Here. I heard you wanted to make something delicious with this, so I had my dad bring some extra. This is the entire amount from the eight cows butchered today. The stuff from the half-cow you ordered hasn’t been cut yet."

"This much??"

Lin Chen took the heavy bag, stunned. It felt like it had to be at least seven or eight pounds.

Back in China, this amount would cost a fortune. You only get two of these from each cow, totaling about a pound. While not absurdly expensive, it’s definitely pricier than beef.

Fresh beef backstrap like this would go for at least forty yuan and up on the market in China. In some more expensive places, it could even be sixty or seventy. The frozen kind is much cheaper.

"What is this? Cows have something like this?"

Erica voiced the question on the other customers’ minds.

"Turn around."

Lin Chen patted her shoulder, then began gesturing on her back.

"Let’s say you’re a cow. Your limbs are the shanks, and your shoulders are the blade steaks. Between the two blade steaks is the neck meat, a cut you guys almost never eat. It most likely gets ground into mince."

"Below the neck meat, near the spine, is the chuck eye roll. It has dense marbling, so it’s very tender. It’s used quite a bit in Western cooking, too."

"Further down, connected to the chuck, is the cut you’re most familiar with: the ribeye. The outer part is the ribeye cap, and underneath is the ribeye heart. Below that is the sirloin, and hidden under the sirloin, inside the body, is the filet."

"This bag of backstrap is the two main fasciae on the cow’s back that connect the muscles from head to tail. Each cow only has two. You’ll see clearly when we look at the half-cow later."

After his explanation, the customers had a moment of realization. Erica, on the other hand, was still completely lost and shot him a speechless glare.

’Using me as a stand-in for a cow... What am I supposed to say about this man?’

While he was explaining, Mr. Beef brought out the beef shank and tendon that he had ordered. Lin Chen took the opportunity to use Erica’s calf to demonstrate a few more things.

"Wow, there are so many edible parts on a cow. It’s amazing! How come we never see them?"

"Because nobody eats them," Mr. Beef said with a helpless shrug. "North Americans are too timid. They won’t buy unconventional cuts, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know how to cook them. Over time, it’s led to a situation where these parts just don’t sell. We can only send them to factories to be processed into animal feed."

"I’m hoping Lin can make these cuts popular. That way, maybe someone will buy them. Even if we sell them cheap, it’s more profitable than selling them for animal feed."

He said ’selling,’ but it was practically giving them away. After all, if the factories didn’t take them, the parts would just rot and stink. Besides incineration, there was no other good way to dispose of them.

"I can’t make any promises about that. After all, white people are notoriously stubborn. You’d be better off hoping Europeans or South Americans might be interested in trying them."

"Hey! You know, you’re not wrong. All the beef shanks and stuff in my shop are bought by Europeans and South Americans. We get Mexicans and other Latinx people, and some from India, too."

"There are people from India here too??"

"Of course. But they’re the kind who grew up here in North America."

After a bit more small talk, Lin Chen met Mr. Beef’s dad: a burly man, just under six feet tall, with corded muscles everywhere except for a rather noticeable belly—a classic ’skinny-fat’ build.

He walked in from the back of the shop, pushing a small cart, and immediately spotted Lin Chen standing by the entrance.

"So you’re that celebrity chef from Great Xia? Well, I’ll be. This is the first time I’ve ever had a customer order half a cow and cut it up themselves. I’m curious to see how you Great Xia chefs butcher beef."

"Hello, hello, I’m Lin," Lin Chen said, hurrying over to help with the cart and smiling a bit awkwardly. "I wouldn’t call myself a celebrity. I’ve just been on a couple of shows and gained a small following. At best, I’m a social media content creator, and a new one at that."

"All the same to us. For regular folks like us, you’re a celebrity. We never get any celebrities out here in the sticks. You’re the first."

Mr. Beef’s dad looked to be in his forties or fifties, his hair graying at the temples. His voice was loud and full of energy, and with his muscular build, you could tell he did heavy labor every day.

It made sense. A full-grown cow weighs several hundred kilograms, and even after processing, you’re left with three to four hundred kilograms of meat. Add in the bones and organs, and it’s all heavy. Butchering seven or eight a day? You really couldn’t do it without some serious strength.

After helping move all the beef to his stall, Mr. Beef’s dad casually washed his hands in the sink. He showed no intention of leaving, simply leaning against the counter.

"Don’t mind me. You do your thing. I’m just going to watch. Maybe learn a new way to cook beef. You know how it is, my family got tired of the usual beef dishes a long time ago."

Since they didn’t know exactly what Lin Chen planned to do, the half-cow hadn’t been processed at all. It had simply been cut in half down the middle by a machine.

Lin Chen nodded, unrolled his knife bag, and took out a long, slender butchering knife. He swiped it against his honing steel a dozen times before making his first cut into the cow’s shoulder.

The sharp blade glided through as if cutting tofu. The leg muscle was easily separated, and with another turn of the knife along the bone, he effortlessly removed the entire leg bone.

"Nice knife work!"

Mr. Beef’s dad couldn’t help but applaud. "That skill is on par with a professional butcher! Do you Great Xia chefs have to know how to do this too?"

"To be honest, this is my first time butchering beef," Lin Chen replied with a sheepish laugh.

"Impossible! Finding the bones and joints so precisely on your first try? Do I look like an idiot?"

"I’m really not lying. I’ve never cut beef before, but the anatomy of mammals is actually pretty similar. I have butchered a lot of chickens, though. And I went through a phase where I loved watching videos of butchers breaking down pigs. You watch enough, and you just pick it up."

In front of everyone, he continued deboning the beef and portioning out the different cuts, not forgetting to explain to the camera what each part was and the best way to cook it.

The two leg bones, ribs, and spine were quickly cleaned. He chopped them into smaller pieces with a cleaver, cracked the leg bones in half, and threw them directly into a stockpot with scallions, ginger, white wine, Sichuan peppercorns, and bay leaves to simmer.

"Right now, I’m making a clear beef bone broth. Although the ingredients are a bit different from what you’d use in Western cooking, the principle is similar. This broth isn’t usually drunk on its own. It’s used as a base for noodle soup or as a stock for cooking other dishes."

"Of course, I’m not doing any of that today. Beef this fresh is best suited for a more primal cooking method. I’m going to make a very famous dish from Cantonese cuisine, in the south of Great Xia: beef hot pot."

"Hot pot!!!" Erica’s eyes lit up instantly.

"Hot pot?"

"Hot pot?"

"What’s that?"

Aside from her, everyone else, including Mr. Beef’s dad, looked completely baffled.

Anyway, the camera was on a tripod, so Erica didn’t need to hold it. She immediately pulled out her phone, found the photos and videos from the last time she had hot pot, and showed them.

"Oh, hey, this looks pretty good. You cook beef in a boiling, flavored broth and pair it with a dipping sauce mixed to your own taste? Interesting. One pot can satisfy everyone’s different preferences."

"It’s not as simple as you think," Erica said with a mysterious smile, putting her phone away. "Besides freshness, there are specific requirements for how the beef is prepared. The sauce is important, the broth is important... just you wait and see."

Mr. Beef’s dad, who hadn’t been expecting much, was suddenly intrigued after seeing the hot pot video. He pulled out his phone.

"It’s me. Something’s come up with a client, so I’ll be back later. And don’t you dare try to slack off. If I catch you, next time I’m feeding you snapped spaghetti!"

"S-snapped spaghetti?"

Lin Chen asked, amused, "Are they Italian?"

"Yeah, a young guy who works on my farm. Good kid, but he likes to slack off if no one’s watching. You know how it is, Europeans are all like that."

"Haha, you know, it’s actually quite popular to snap spaghetti in Great Xia. We also have many different kinds of pizza, with fruit pizza being especially popular. We even have Italians who come all the way over just to try it. There are lots of taste-test videos online."

"What did you say?!"

The voice of Mr. Beef’s dad shot up an octave, his face a mask of disbelief. "Italians... going to Great Xia... to eat fruit pizza?"

"Hey! That joke’s not the least bit believable. Those stubborn folks have a knee-jerk reaction just hearing the word ’fruit’ on pizza. Fruit pizza is taboo for them!"

"Erica."

"Leave it to me~"

It wasn’t just Mr. Beef’s dad; this was the first time Erica herself had heard of such a thing. Intrigued, she started searching on YouTube and, in no time, found a ton of videos, many with high view counts.

She clicked on a random one. The top-liked comments were, without a doubt, from enraged Italians cursing up a storm.

Expanding the comment thread, the replies underneath weren’t words, but a solid wall of pictures of all kinds of fruit pizzas.