Hugo is Gone

In the narrow space between two rows of luxurious buildings, in a corner where sunlight could not reach, Hugo struck his second match.

The aroma of fried carp drifted into his nostrils. The French rarely ate carp; they preferred oysters during Christmas.

When the French ate oysters, they ate them truly raw, at most adding a few drops of lemon or ginger juice. At this moment, Hugo recalled the days in Paris when he held red wine in one hand and oysters in the other.

Back then, French oysters were very cheap and were once known as the food of the poor. However, after some began to link oysters, truffles, and certain aspects of virility together, wild oysters in France were almost driven to extinction.

A poem once praised: "Spring reigns all year in the Louvre, European frogs are renewed in turn. Eating three hundred oysters a day, I would not refuse to remain a Gaul."

(The French are also called European frogs because they eat everything, such as snails, rabbits, and frogs—foods that Europeans usually do not eat.)

In fact, Archduke Franz's carp farming plan was ultimately a success, though it did not use the Asian carp famous in later generations, but rather the native European mirror carp, known in the East as the "Three-Scale Carp."

Compared to the sluggish Asian carp, mirror carp were more alert, faster, and had a breeding rate far exceeding their Asian counterparts (by 20%), which allowed them to survive in European rivers teeming with predatory fish.

Truth be told, there was no real technical difficulty in carp farming. This fish had no grand ambitions; as long as it had food and water, it would breed frantically, resulting in high yields and strong disease resistance.

How could such excellent food not attract the attention