Your Autograph Please!

Taking my jars out of my survival belt and placing them on the table, I suddenly received a message from my personal terminal. It was from Josh.

"I believe you have heard from Caroline, but 5 days from now the camp will be traveling to the safe areas where the children and vulnerable are. For those 2 days, you will be staying over at the AT Center. It'll only be for 2 days so feel free to treat it as a break."

Replying back with an 'ok', I informed Sazzy about this before the two of us walked over to the recreational area.

Seeing how Josh wore a suit to hide his identity on his own stream, he would probably not be joining us on stream, so I would have to be the one talking about the Lupos culture that was related to food. Not only that, since Josh seemed to be very careful with information, we would probably have to check with him what information can be said on the stream.

Reaching the area, I looked around for any empty spaces on the tables where the people did not seem too busy. Scanning the area, I spotted my first target. Coincidentally, it was the young man who had talked to me here before. He was together with several friends of his, and they were conversing at a table.

Walking over to him, we were spotted by his friends first. The moment one of his friends noticed I was approaching, he ribbed the young man and seemed to say something to him with an evil grin. Turning around, our eyes met, and he immediately turned into a very adorable shade of red.

[He sure loves to blush!]

"Hello, Chef!"

The friend who ribbed him, an obviously playful guy, waved enthusiastically and vacated his seat for me. That seat was right next to the young man.

Glaring at his friend, the young man then smiled in embarrassment at me and greeted me with a small voice.

"Hello, Chef."

"Hello! If it's ok with all of you, I would like to ask about several things."

The young man immediately lifted his head and tried his best to calm himself down. Once his face faded from red to slightly pink, hecleared his throat and straightened his back.

"Please ask us about anything!"

With practically sparkling eyes, I gave a small chuckle before I asked them about how much they knew about the food that is served during lunch and dinner time.

"Most of the camp know how they are made and what ingredients they are made from. When we first join the camp, we are made to rotate between all the roles in the camp to understand how the camp works together, to familiarize ourselves with everyone, and to find out what role in the camp suits us the best. Then we will continue to rotate until we wish for a specific role."

The young man practically shouted his answer. His friend, seeing that the young man was nervous, leaned on him with an arm and took over answering.

"Because of this most people know the recipes. Not only that, recipes are shared between different camps. Nearly everyone needs to know the recipes. The hunting team needs to understand about the ingredients to create bait, or at worse bring some emergency rations back. The gathering group needs to know how to differentiate between ingredients and inedible plants. Cooks need to know the recipe to cook, and those washing and keeping the camp clean need to know these ingredients to prevent removing them, as well as preventing poison from forming due to the inappropriate reaction between ingredients. Essentially, everyone knows about where the food comes from."

"For the cultural part of our ingredients, it's a necessary topic taught to children, as well as a common gossip topic so I should think almost no one doesn't know the stories behind the ingredients."

Leaning hard on the young man's shoulder, his friend discreetly bumped him to continue the topic.

"Ah! Yes! An example of this is how syrup was discovered. It was actually discovered quite recently after the reforestation of this area. One day one of the Lupos had observed a certain large predator digging at the trees and scraping away their bark. It would then stick out its tongue and lap at the fluid coming out of the tree. The member then decided to wait until the predator had left before they copied its movements and discovered syrup. Then he marked the tree and reported his findings. "

I tapped away at my personal terminal, noting down what he said. Looking at me busily taking notes, the young man became obviously more nervous. His friend then sighed and covered for him.

"There are quite a number of similar stories to this. The most common ingredient discoveries come through observing predators and prey to see which plants are edible and which to avoid. Almost all the fruits are discovered this way, since before that fruits were mainly considered inedible due to their sour taste after steaming. And no one really dares to eat raw food. Not after the war."

Listening to his words, one question I always had came to the front of my mind. Although I was not sure they would know the answer.

"How the Lupos steam food is really unique. Is there a reason behind this?"

The group of young men paused a while before whispering in soft voices. Then one of the other men, standing near the back of the group, spoke up.

"According to my mother, one of the first Lupos members, before Lupos had considered itself a combined ethnicity, had discovered a cave that led to a natural hot spring. Seeing the large space, he decided that it was the perfect space to store his food away from predators. So he gathered his food and left them there for weeks. And when he ate the stash from the cave, he discovered that they had changed tastes and some items even turned edible. So now most of our cooking is done through steaming, and the first step to building a new camp would always be to dig a makeshift cave until we reach deep enough underground that it would be hot enough to steam the food."

The group member looked at his friends for confirmation, to which they all nodded their heads.

Then another group member piped up and added to the story.

" I also heard from my mother that the ground near the surface is actually quite cold, which allows us to store food at a cold enough temperature to prevent it from spoiling easily. Then as we dig down we reach a layer which gets incredibly hot. Past that layer and the temperature fluctuates between cold and hot every couple thousand meters until you reach the core of the planet. Although nobody has actually dug deep enough to get to the core of the planet."

Noting all this done, I nodded my head and encouraged them to tell me more. Especially about the food.

Then after gaining several more stories about the food, how they were discovered as well as how the recipes were formed, I said thanks to them and prepared to leave.

As I stood up, the young man seemed to be a little fidgety. With a sudden burst of courage as well as encouragement from his friends, he came forward with his personal terminal up.

"Um.....could I ask for your autograph."

His voice seemed to fade near the end. But I understood what he wanted.

"Sazzy...autographs work the same as they do in my world right? Or is there a special way to autograph things?}

[For autographs, it's mostly the same. You sign your initials and then imprint your personal terminal number onto the piece of electronic 'paper'. First you sign, then press your thumb next to it.]

Following Sazzy's instructions, I signed the electronic 'paper' on the young man's personal terminal.

Practically leaping for joy, he hugged the electronic 'paper' with a large smile on his face and gave a very happy and satisfied 'thank you' before going back to his friends.

Waving goodbye to them for a last time, I headed off to any other groups I could find and asked them for more information.

Once I was satisfied with the day's yield, I headed to the dining area. I should make it there just in time to watch the cooking group make lunch.