Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 10 - Chapter 2.1

Chapter 2: The First Day of the White Month, Asuta’s Day (Second Half)

1

The sun had reached its peak.

It was at this time of day that I left the stalls up to Sheera Ruu’s group and headed around to the inns.

Since I needed to take someone along with me to assist with the cooking, Li Sudra joined the team at the stalls in my place. And just as Reina Ruu had said, the Rutim and Lea each sent two young hunters to town, allowing our initial group of four bodyguards to accompany us and leave the stalls to the newcomers.

Naturally, Reina Ruu was the one I asked to act as my assistant. While she was clearly jealous of Sheera Ruu being left in charge of the stalls, she also seemed to have a strong interest in helping out at the inns.

The first place we headed to was The Sledgehammer, which was frequented by easterners. Normally Ludo Ruu would follow us to the kitchen, but Shin Ruu took that role today while the other three kept watch outside the shop.

“Listen, if you see a brat with red hair, make sure not to charge in alone, alright? Blow your grass whistle and summon everyone else instead.”

Honestly, Ludo Ruu looked more excited than worried as he gave those instructions. I guess he wanted to see just how strong this hunter of Masara who even drove back Shin Ruu really was.

At any rate, after temporarily parting ways with them, we stepped into The Sledgehammer.

“Nail, I brought the giba meat I promised you.”

As I entered the kitchen and opened up one of the bundles I had brought, Nail’s eyes started sparkling with joy. Since he had gone and made up his mind to purchase giba meat, I wanted to bring him a sample to try as soon as possible.

“Thank you. You said this meat today was to get a taste, correct?”

“Yes. The taste changes based on the part of the giba the meat comes from, but some parts have a lot more volume to them than others. And so, I would like to adjust the price based on the cut of meat,” I explained, opening up the bundles one after another as I did so. “However, it’s not as if any cut is necessarily higher quality just because you can get less of it. I believe they’re all delicious in their own ways regardless of price, so I’d like you to start by trying them all.”

“I see. Karon torso meat is softer and tastier than leg meat, but I don’t know how it is for giba. I’m certainly interested to find out,” Nail said, seriously observing the meat atop the counter.

For today, I brought 200 grams each of four different cuts: Shoulder, sirloin, rib, and thigh. Since you could get a lot less fillet and chuck, they were much more expensive cuts, so I didn’t include them in my lineup.

“You can get the greatest amount of meat from a giba’s hind legs, so I’d like to set the price there the same as karon legs. Then I decided to adjust from that baseline based on how much of each cut you can get from one giba.”

Nail had said he wanted to start by trying out a purchase of enough meat for ten meals each day, or roughly 2.5 kilos.

As for my prices, they were as follows:

Thigh: 9 red coins.

Shoulder: 11.5 red coins.

Sirloin: 14.5 red coins.

Rib: 16.5 red coins.

“The taste changes quite a bit based on whether you grill or boil them too, for example, so please go ahead and try all sorts of stuff. And of course, I don’t have any issue if you want to buy, say, five meals worth of thigh meat and five of shoulder meat or the like.”

“Thank you. And on that point, are there some parts that are better grilled and others more suited to boiling?”

“Personally, I feel that thigh and shoulder meat are easier to eat boiled because they’re tougher. But if you beat them with a pot or wooden stick to break up the fibers and then cut the sinew and slice them up thinly, that should also soften them up quite a bit.”

“I see. It certainly seems like this will be worth grappling with,” Nail replied, his eyes happily narrowing.

Kamyua Yoshu had said that the food at inns was like an extension of home cooking. However, I got the impression that Nail here and Naudis from The Great Southern Tree put a great deal of effort into what they offered.

And I was certain that what drove them to work so hard was their desire to satisfy their customers from the east and south who came far from their homes to reach Genos. It was because they were that kind of men that they were willing to buy more expensive seasonings from other nations, and why they asked some stranger like me to sell them cooking to serve at their places.

“Well then, I’ll go ahead and get to work for today.”

With that, I set about making 30 meals worth of giba sauté arrabbiata with Reina Ruu’s assistance.

◇

A bit under an hour later we wrapped up our work at The Sledgehammer and headed out for The Great Southern Tree.

Yesterday, this was when Jeeda attacked us along this same road, but this time we arrived safely without incident.

“Ah, I’ve been waiting for you, Asuta,” the owner Naudis greeted with a smile. However, that expression darkened quite a bit when he heard my request to once again have hunters of the forest’s edge keep an eye on the entrances to the inn. “Did you get mixed up in some sort of trouble again? Have the talks with the folks from the castle gone that poorly?”

For the sixth time now, I repeated what I had already explained to Milano Mas, Dora, Zasshuma, Sanjura, and Nail. That it wasn’t just the talks going bad, but also the fact that we were attacked by someone with a grudge against the people of the forest’s edge, so we wanted to shore up how many guards we were using. It was a rather unsettling story, so it was no surprise to see Naudis’s expression grow more and more clouded as I talked.

“Hmm... That certainly does sound troubling...”

Unlike Nail, Naudis didn’t seem to take much of a stance when it came to the people of the forest’s edge. He neither avoided them nor did anything to protect them. However, I got the feeling that he respected me as a valuable business partner. Even so, I felt like if this went on for too long, there was a risk that he’d eventually judge it too dangerous to keep being involved with us... But once again, he didn’t tell us to leave.

“I had been thinking it was a bit troubling that the folks from the castle hadn’t put out any sort of notice even after all that commotion. If they had just said it was the fault of both the people of the forest’s edge and the castle, and that they were working hard so the same mistakes wouldn’t be repeated, I believe that would have done a great deal to put everyone in the post town more at ease,” Naudis stated. “I’ve certainly found that sense of uncertainty as to whether or not everything is now out in the open more than a little unpleasant. Well, not that I ever really expected the folks from the castle to own up to their own shameful mistakes, though.”

Those words really went to show just how strained the connection between the Genos post town and the castle really was.

It had already been a month and a half since I first stepped foot in the post town. And in all that time, I’d never heard anyone who worked or lived there have anything positive to say about the castle or the guards, not even once. If Melfried really did become the lord of Genos in the future, would he find that a troubling situation he needed to do something about?

“All that aside, there’s the matter of our business. I’ve been truly looking forward to the chance to eat the new dish you’ll be making today.”

“Right. I’ll get started on that now.”

As of today, I would be changing the dishes on offer at The Great Southern Tree.

For now, that meant making a soup. But what should I call it, exactly? Giba soup prepared with tau oil? To be honest, it was pretty much the same dish I had been making for dinner at the Fa house.

I used giba thigh, shoulder, and rib meat, as well as aria, tino, chatchi, and gigo for vegetables. After boiling all that together, I then added rock salt and tau oil for flavor to create a new giba soup that brought to mind Japanese tofu and vegetable chowder.

Though I used a lot of different vegetables, I didn’t put in a ton of each, which kept the cost/price ratio at a minimum. Without the meat it was 23%, and with meat we were talking 60%. And since cubed giba meat stew used a whole lot of tau oil and fruit wine, it went up another five percent from there.

The one point that differed from my regular soup was that when I initially boiled the meat, I added lilo leaves to thoroughly remove any stench. Since the meat had been bloodlet, there shouldn’t be any strong smell left lingering about it, but since there were probably plenty of folks out there who would have an issue handling the taste of the meat compared to the less quirky kimyuus or karon, I added that extra little twist.

The real selling point to the dish, though, was definitely the potato-like chatchi and yam-esque gigo. The chatchi was heated steadily along with the water from the start, while the gigo got added last, after all the other vegetables were nice and cooked. Thanks to that, both of them came out soft and flaky.

“Once you’re done scooping scum, maintain a low flame, alright?”

“Yes, just leave it to me,” Reina Ruu replied with a smile. She had at least as much skill as me at making this soup, if not more, so I had no problem leaving it up to her. As an aside, Ai Fa hadn’t come out and said that my soup was tastier. Ultimately, her impression was, “I’d have to say that they’re about equal...”

At any rate, after entrusting the soup to Reina Ruu, I set about making the sample dish. Though Naudis had been satisfied with the taste of the giba soup, he had also asked me not to remove the cubed giba meat stew from the menu. And so, what I was unveiling today was a new replacement for that dish.

“So does today’s dish have a name?”

“Yes. I call it meat and chatchi stew.”

Upon hearing that, Naudis’s eyes opened wide.

“Not ‘giba and chatchi’ but ‘meat and chatchi?’ Why did you name it like that?”

“Ahaha, it’s because that’s what it was called back where I come from. And I have a dish called giba chitt over at The Sledgehammer, so I wanted to differentiate it from that.”

However, back in my home country, there was nothing known as a chatchi. Instead, we had the very similar potato. And so, naturally, the dish was meat and potato stew back in Japan instead.

I used to make it a lot back in the Tsurumi Restaurant.

Still, I needed to revise the recipe thanks to the differing circumstances. The chatchi and aria filled in for the potatoes and onions just fine, but unfortunately I didn’t have any soy sauce, sugar, or mirin on hand. What I did have was the soy sauce-like tau oil and the fruit wine. The latter definitely had a much higher sugar content than normal wine though, which was what led me to the idea of making the cubed giba meat and meat and chatchi stews.

The ingredients are one thing, but what I really need to do something about is the seasonings, I thought to myself as I dropped a pinch of giba fat into the metal pan and started frying the rib meat.

Once there was just a little red left I mixed in the aria and chatchi, and then when the fat had spread out properly, I added the tau oil, fruit wine, and water.

As soon as it reached a boil I scooped the scum, then put the wooden lid on and let it heat over a medium flame. Now I just needed to let it cook till the chatchi softened, and it would be done.

“So you just need to wait now, Asuta...?” Reina Ruu asked from the neighboring stove, having passionately watched me work.

“That’s right,” I answered.

“Then that’s a rather simple dish, isn’t it?” she replied.

“Yeah, the work itself is simple enough. But on the other hand, the proportion of tau oil and fruit wine, the amount of cooking time, and the strength of the flame can have quite an impact on the taste.”

And there weren’t any measuring cups or gas stoves here in this world, either. That made a chef’s intuition all the more crucial.

“Back in my old home country, it’s been practically synonymous with ‘home cooking’ for quite some time. Surprisingly enough though, it may be harder to explain how to make it than the hamburger steak or cubed giba meat stew.”

“Really?” Reina Ruu asked, looking all the more interested.

“Aah, what a wonderful aroma of tau oil and fruit wine,” Naudis said with a big sniff. “It’s not as if I’ve never used fruit wine in my own cooking, but I certainly haven’t used it as boldly as you do, Asuta. I’d say that mellow sweetness you get from it is just the way southerners like it.”

“Ah, now that you mention it, is there any sugar in Jagar?”

I vaguely recalled Aldas saying something to that effect.

“It exists in Genos too. However, I’ve never seen it sold outside of the stone walls.”

“So it’s rare enough that you can only get it in the castle town, huh? Hmm, the seasonings on offer here in the post town really don’t feel like enough. I mean, it’s not like you can even get a hold of tau oil without a special relationship with merchants from the south, right? Actually, now that we’re on the topic, are any seasonings other than rock salt usually sold around here?”

“I think saying they’re not would be the most accurate answer. After all, it varies from person to person whether or not they treat herbs like myamuu as a seasoning or a vegetable.”

As I tossed a small bit of firewood into the stove, I replied, “I see,” with a nod. “Now that I think about it, I’ve hardly ever seen pico or lilo leaves being sold. It’s only very rarely that I see them at a place selling rock salt.”

“That’s because around here, you can only harvest such things in the forest of Morga. The right to gather as much as they please is one of the very few special privileges granted to the people of the forest’s edge,” Naudis answered, carefully choosing his words so as not to sound sarcastic or snide. I was sure that he was also striving his hardest to not treat us differently.

“So then in the post town, you’ve got to pickle meat in salt in order to preserve it?”

“That’s correct. It would take too much time to buy fresh meat every day, and you can get it cheaper by purchasing in bulk. And so, I generally buy a few days’ worth of meat and pickle it in salt.”

“I see.”

With any luck, I may get a chance to use karon or kimyuus meat to give Milano Mas cooking lessons. Would I be able to prepare a proper dish with something other than giba meat, though? I was honestly getting excited at the thought of the challenge.

“Ah, excuse me for a moment,” I said, taking the lid off the pot as I figured it was about time.

Instantly, steam filled with the smell of tau oil and fruit wine exploded forth.

I had sufficiently submerged the ingredients in water, but now about half of that was gone.

After stirring the contents of the pot with a wooden spatula, I then stabbed some chatchi with a grigee toothpick. It smoothly slid on in without any resistance, but how was the taste?

The chatchi had already been split open by the toothpick, and so I tossed a chunk of that and the rib meat into my mouth.

It had a mildly sweet, subtle flavor. The chatchi was soft and flaky, while the meat was suitably tender. And when I bit into them, a perfect harmony of further sweetness and delicious flavor filled my mouth.

Still, the sweetness really is a bit on the weak side. I think a bit of a stronger flavor would be ideal...

I poured some tau oil into a wooden spoon until it was about halfway full, then dissolved that into the stock atop the plate and added it all into the pot.

While carefully stirring so as not to break apart the chatchi, I brought it to a boil once more and then gave it a taste.

Yup, that was seeming pretty good. Normally I would say that it was best to treat this like the cubed giba meat stew and let it cool down first to let the flavor permeate the dish. But even at this point, the taste was already satisfactory.

And so, I scooped out the contents of the pot onto a fresh plate.

“Please, dig in. I would say this is around half the size of a meal for one.”

Contained within was around 120 grams of meat, half an aria, and a fourth of a chatchi.

I would have liked to add a greater volume of chatchi if at all possible, but since I needed to keep the costs of making it around the same level as the cubed giba meat stew, that was as much as I could use. After all, chatchi cost two and a half times as much as aria.

It really does feel awfully pricey, but then again I’m used to looking at aria and poitan as a standard, and they’re actually super cheap, I thought to myself as I served up the other half on another plate.

“Reina Ruu, I’ll take over manning the fire, so would you like to give this a try?”

“Huh? Is it really alright?” she asked, sounding childishly excited.

Naudis had an equally big grin on his face, too.

The pair of them both brought their spoons to their mouths in sync, and exploded with joy at exactly the same moment.

“Asuta, this is so tasty!”

“Yes, it’s truly delicious.”

With Naudis in particular, I didn’t think I had ever seen him look so overjoyed.

“Aah, it really is good. The chatchi are wonderfully soft, and aria with the sweetness soaked into them are especially superb. Ah, but the giba meat is so delicious too... And the taste of the vegetables seem to stand out here even more than with that cubed giba meat stew dish!”

“Thank you... But unlike with that dish and the soup, I didn’t use any lilo leaves here. And I didn’t season it all that strongly either, so I’m still a little concerned that the quirkiness of the giba meat may not be to the tastes of your customers from the south.”

“I think that shouldn’t be an issue. In fact, I also felt that you may not need to add the lilo leaves to that giba soup either. It seemed to me that the strong aroma from them was interfering ever so slightly with the flavor of the tau oil.”

That was some rather keen perception, there.

If the lilo leaves had harmonized perfectly with the giba soup, then I’d have used them in the Fa house, too. Ultimately, it was nothing but a desperate measure to eliminate the smell of the meat.

“I don’t think giba meat has much of a stench to begin with, to be honest. In fact, I’d find it strange if there were any customers who disliked the taste,” Naudis said, tilting his head a bit while still smiling. Despite him being a hairy-faced middle-aged man, it really was a rather charming expression. “Perhaps it’s just down to the impression that ‘normal’ people shouldn’t eat giba meat? It’s true that it tastes very different from karon or kimyuus, and it’s a strong flavor at that, so I could see how having such thoughts in your head could lead to a bad impression.”

It was true that Pops and his group had thought so when he tasted my giba burger and said it was bad. But just a month later, he went and chose to buy a ton of giba jerky rather than karon. “A month of eating the stuff is plenty enough time to get used to a strong flavor like that,” Pops had said.

“It’s been a month now since you started doing business with your stalls, hasn’t it? In that case, the idea that giba meat is worth eating must have spread throughout the post town by now. This flavor is where the giba’s deliciousness lies, so I don’t think there’s any need to purposefully season it to weaken that.”

“You think so...? It’s very reassuring to hear you say that,” I replied with a smile. “Well then, will you be purchasing this dish?”

“Of course! Ah, but still... I find it difficult to imagine just abandoning the cubed giba meat stew. I don’t mind if it’s once every five, no, even ten days, but could you please still sell it to me...?”

“If you’re fine with it being that rarely, then that would be okay. In that case, how about on the first day of a ten-day contract I’ll prepare the cubed giba meat stew, and then alternate between the meat and chatchi stew and the giba soup after that?”

It seemed that rather than what his customers wanted, Naudis was primarily focused on his personal desire for cubed giba meat stew. It seemed that unlike Nail, he was also eating the meals he purchased from me for dinner. I definitely felt honored thinking how he wanted to eat it badly enough to sacrifice one meal’s worth of profits.

At any rate, the reason I had wanted to remove the cubed giba meat stew from the menu was because of the cooking time it took. But if it was just once in ten days, I should be able to balance that out with my other work. And even if I couldn’t, I would just have to shorten my time at the stalls that day.

Ah, but with the current circumstances, I guess we’d need to increase the number of guards we have around early in the morning, huh...? I’d certainly like it if we didn’t need them anymore by the time I’m able to start working with the other inns...

As that thought was running through my head, Naudis called out to me with a bit of a worried look.

“By the way, Asuta... You said you wanted to take a break every ten days, didn’t you?”

“Right. So from here on out, I’d like to make our future contracts ten days each to align with that.”

“I don’t mind that, of course. However... Your plan is to take two days off this time around, correct? The seventh and eighth of the white month?”

“Yes. I want to take the chance to work on my cooking skills.”

“I see...” Naudis said, hanging his head.

In the meantime, Reina Ruu had gone and shared her meat and chatchi stew with Shin Ruu.

After I stole a glance at the boy’s eyes narrowing with satisfaction when he took a bite, I turned back towards Naudis.

“What is it? Is there some sort of issue?”

“There is... But it’s something I need to handle on my own,” Naudis replied, raising his head again with a look of determination. “Asuta, earlier you asked me if I would consider purchasing giba meat and cooking it myself. Is that offer still valid?”

“Huh? Yes, of course.”

“In that case... I believe I would like to buy some giba meat.”

“Why is that?” I couldn’t help but ask.

I found it hard to imagine that Naudis was just that interested in my proposal.

“For the sake of my business, of course. If there are two days in a row in which I’m unable to offer your cooking, my customers may end up heading to another place to eat instead.”

“A-Aren’t you just overthinking things, there? When I take a break it’ll be from all the inns, so my cooking won’t be sold anywhere on those days.”

“But you’re selling giba meat to the owner of The Sledgehammer, aren’t you? And you said you’re hoping to sell your cooking to The Westerly Wind and The Kimyuus’s Tail, too... In that case, it’s possible those inns may also come to offer their own unique giba dishes, isn’t it? That’s what concerns me.”

“Right...”

“I can’t imagine the other inn owners possess anywhere near your level of skill. However, frustration at being unable to eat giba cooking can only be resolved with such dishes, wouldn’t you say? At the very least, that’s how I’d think if I were in my customers’ shoes,” Naudis said, then he deeply bowed his head. “Please, sell me giba meat too. I’d like to work hard with my wife over these remaining few days to create a dish that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to serve.”

Naturally, I bowed my head too and said, “Thank you.”

My primary goal was selling the giba meat itself rather than my cooking. For not only Nail but also Naudis to make up their minds on that matter was something I felt so grateful for that it left me a little taken aback.

At any rate, I was able to complete my business in the post town for the day without the red-haired boy Jeeda attacking or Cyclaeus employing any wicked schemes. And with that, this strangely fulfilling first day of the white month was now two thirds of the way done.