Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 14 - Chapter 1.2

2

“Well then, I’m off. Let’s both give it our all again today.”

“Right. Make sure to keep your guard up, and make it back home safely.”

The nightmare I had in the morning had caused quite a stir, but regardless, in the end I was able to head out from the Fa house without incident on the nineteenth of the black month.

Ai Fa was remaining behind at the house, so after saying farewell to her I directed the wagon Gilulu was pulling south down the path through the forest’s edge. I was gripping the reins in the driver’s seat, and little Toor Deen was right there behind me. She had wanted to help me for quite some time, and she had finally managed to earn the approval of Gulaf Zaza, who held authority over her clan.

After a little while on the road, the young girl quietly called out, “Um...”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Oh, it’s not a big deal, but...”

“No need to hold back. You can go ahead and say anything that comes to mind.”

“Umm...the breeze feels very nice, doesn’t it?”

Since we were heading down a perfectly straight path right now, I turned around and replied with a smile, “That’s for sure. It seems like we’ll have a nice, pleasant day at work again.”

Toor Deen nervously smiled back. The girl was still just as shy as always, but she was starting to express herself more and more each day.

It had only been around a month since she had started helping out with the business, but with her unusually high level of cooking skills for such a young age, she was already an indispensable part of our workforce.

Originally, she had been born into the Suun branch houses. After the Suun clan’s crimes were exposed, she became a member of the Deen clan along with her father, and had been living earnestly to make up for her former sins. When she was bound by the twisted customs laid down by the former leading clan head, Zattsu Suun, the girl had been like a walking corpse, but she had regained so much vitality and emotion since then.

After twenty minutes or so of chatting with Toor Deen, we arrived at the Ruu settlement. By the time we made it there, the chefs of the Ruu clan already had their own wagon standing by. Since they had expanded the business they were doing in the post town, they had purchased that wagon and a new totos to pull it.

The new totos had been given the gallant name of Jidura. Apparently the word meant “red” in the language of the Eastern Kingdom of Sym, so the Ruu called it that because of its somewhat reddish plumage.

“Good morning, Asuta. Here’s to another fine day of work...” Vina Ruu called out, standing next to Jidura with a nonchalant, seductive smile. It seemed that their group today consisted of her, Reina Ruu, and Tsuvai.

Tsuvai was the only fixed member of the group, whereas Reina and Sheera Ruu alternated each day, and Vina Ruu was on a rotation with Lala and Rimee Ruu.

Reina Ruu and Sheera Ruu were the ones in charge when it came to their stalls, and they ended up alternating so that one could always stay behind at the settlement to handle preparations for the next day, making everything flow smoother. All this was possible because over this last month and a half all of the members in their group had learned how to prepare myamuu giba.

As for the other three sisters on rotation, that was because they all wanted to work in the post town, and it was also thanks to Rimee Ruu finally receiving permission from their parents. When the older Vina and Reina Ruu were both going to the post town each day, it had an impact on their work at the main Ruu house, which apparently led them to adopt this system.

Then when the sun hit its peak, one of them would leave the stalls along with me, while Ama Min or Morun Rutim would come to assist in their place. They had strengthened their lineup so that even though they were running two stalls now, they always had three people present.

As for the Fa clan stalls...

“Ah... I-I look forward to working with you again today...” Toor Deen said, now facing away from me.

Following her gaze, I found the other member of our group elegantly approaching.

“I feel much the same.”

It was the former eldest daughter of the main Suun house and current member of the Lea clan, Yamiru Lea.

When I decided to also bolster the lineup for my stalls, I ended up recruiting from the clans under the Ruu. Right away, the Lea clan head Rau Lea firmly insisted that I take Yamiru Lea.

“She’s awkward, lacks strength, and isn’t all that skilled when it comes to cooking. So please, show her how it’s done so that she can make delicious food like you!” the young Lea clan head had entreated.

Then there was Li Sudra who came to help when the sun hit its peak, rounding out our full group of four running the Fa clan’s stalls.

“Well then, let’s get going. Take care so that our luggage doesn’t fall over, okay?”

“Of course,” Yamiru Lea briefly replied before moving toward the wagon, and Toor Deen scurried out of her way in a fluster.

Still, she used to go pale just seeing Yamiru Lea, so that was progress. While she still got a bit nervous, Toor Deen was in the midst of trying to form a real bond with the older girl.

In the past at the Suun settlement, one was on top while the other was subservient. But now, Yamiru Lea and Toor Deen had been granted new clan names and were trying to live new and different lives. It really was a twist of fate that the pair would end up working together in the post town like this.

But at any rate, we had to be on our way. After getting back in place in the driver’s seat, I took the path south and called out to Yamiru Lea behind me. “When you walked over, you came from the direction of Shin Ruu’s house, didn’t you? Were you meeting with Mida?”

“Indeed.”

“He seems like he’s built up quite a bit of stamina, don’t you think? Ludo Ruu has been saying it may be all right to have him head out into the forest soon.”

“I see.”

She didn’t seem to be in an especially bad mood. This was just how Yamiru Lea always acted lately.

If push came to shove, she could still break out her same sharp tongue, but her usual expression had grown much more gentle, and she felt a lot less like she was tormenting herself. It was honestly hard to imagine now how she had once worn a chilly grin with eyes like a poisonous serpent.

“Still, it certainly is impressive that you’re able to prepare this much food each and every morning...” Yamiru Lea called out to me.

Lately I had taken to preparing the meals for The Sledgehammer and The Great Southern Tree in the morning, so they were already loaded into the wagon.

“It’s not such a big deal. I have the folks living nearby help with the simple preparations, then Toor Deen lends a hand with the trickier parts.”

“Hmm... But you’re paying coins to those women you get help from too, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s a cheap price to pay. And the work only takes two or three hours or so.”

But for this past month and a half the wages for helping were upped to two red coins per hour plus extra based on ability, which was a significant increase. Considering the period back when I kept it at just six red coins for over seven hours, this was more than double. And I arrived at that number by taking into account the daily wages paid in the post town.

“Well, I suppose such expenses are nothing whatsoever to the Fa clan. From what I hear, the Ruu clan now has over twenty silver coins.”

“Ooh, they still have that much left after buying a wagon and two totos? It’s only been a month and a half since they actually went into business for themselves, so that sure is something.”

The Ruu clan had purchased the wagon and totos not just for the sake of business, but also for their clan members. Their wagon was a simple wholesale one without a top, but even so, that purchase had to add up to over three silver coins in total.

By the way, a single silver coin was equivalent to one thousand red coins or a hundred white ones. And so, it was the absolute highest denomination of currency used in the post town.

“I’m sure Tsuvai’s been carefully managing the finances. But still, those really are fantastic results.”

“There’s no need to keep on praising Tsuvai like that. Were the Ruu not able to earn such a fortune precisely because you allotted them so much work? If the Fa clan can manage to create everything needed for the inns without issue, then what need is there to share that with the Ruu?”

As we already planned out a while back, we were now alternating with the Ruu clan when it came to providing food for the inns.

At first the Ruu clan had offered giba soup while I’d had my meat and chatchi stew and giba sauté arrabbiata, but now Reina Ruu and the others could also make those dishes, so we were splitting things equally. On top of that, I was also now able to offer a brand new dish to The Kimyuus’s Tail, so Reina and Sheera Ruu were in the midst of practicing to make it.

“Still, the Ruu clan also purchased the wagon and the totos for the sake of their clan members, so I’d say it was a good allocation of funds. And it’s much healthier to do things like this than for the Fa clan to just stockpile a fortune, wouldn’t you say?”

“Just how much of a fortune has the Fa clan amassed...? I would be interested in hearing, if it is all right to ask.”

“I’ve got no reason to hide it. Hmm, adding together our current reserves, it should be around 37 silver coins.”

“My, so you don’t even have double what the Ruu clan possesses?”

“Right. That’s because we have to buy more meat from other clans than the Ruu do.”

Putting together what we used at the inns and stalls with the fresh meat we sold, we were currently using 130 kilograms of giba meat per day in the post town. Converting that into fairly sizable giba, you would be talking three of them worth of meat.

Around half of that came from the Fa clan, but there was no way that Ai Fa could hunt down the full amount all on her own. And what was more, the Fa clan entered its half-a-month-long break period starting in the middle of the ashen month.

To compensate, we had to purchase whatever extra we needed from other clans. And we had revised the rate to 120 red coins per giba, so it made for quite an expense.

But, well, thinking of it another way, it meant by buying so much meat, we Fa were sharing our wealth with other clans.

“At any rate, I’m really glad for the fact that we can sell so much meat and so many meals in the post town without facing a significant burden. It’s not a problem at all,” I replied honestly.

We had strengthened our personnel and optimized our business model. Thanks to that, regardless of how we increased our workload, we were able to keep on working while facing less of a burden than before. The majority of the reason for that was because I had started leaving a lot more to the Ruu clan, and the rest was that we had revised our work schedules.

Up until now, we had remained in the post town for five and a half hours, including preparations and clean up. But now, we had managed to shorten that to around three and a half hours.

Previously, we had a bit of a blank period between the morning rush and when the sun hit its peak, and even once that was past, we remained in the post town until the scheduled time arrived. We eliminated that excess time by restricting our operations to just before and after when the sun hit its peak.

However, our sales at the stalls had risen so greatly that that wasn’t a problem at all. Our meals cost one and a half times as much as they used to and our business hours had shortened, but we were getting over double the number of customers we used to.

I figured that was down to the fact that the nobles of Genos had acknowledged the taste of giba meat, as well as justice being served for all those criminals, meaning that fewer folks felt the need to avoid the people of the forest’s edge.

Furthermore, all sorts of unfamiliar ingredients were flowing into the post town one after another, which was making things a bit chaotic. Since I at least had some idea of how to use those ingredients, I had quite an advantage. Thanks to that, I was able to charge straight ahead without any worries about the rise in giba meat prices tripping us up.

This really was a critical moment for us, but in a good way. After all, our work had finally reached the stage where we were trying to truly establish giba cooking in Genos, so that it wouldn’t end up as a mere footnote in history.

◇

And with all that in play, we arrived at the post town.

We borrowed our stalls from The Kimyuus’s Tail, purchased vegetables from Dora’s place, and delivered the completed meals and fresh meat to the inns. And taking advantage of our numbers, we split those tasks up between us.

By the measurements of this world, it was currently the upper sixth hour. By my internal clock, it would be around 11 AM. And our new work schedule ran from then till the lower second hour, or 2:20 PM or so.

The reason I was able to be so precise in terms of time was because of the sundials we had Polarth purchase for us in the castle town. Currently, the Fa and Ruu houses were each equipped with one, as was my wagon.

After we settled down in our prescribed place for the stalls, we set up that sundial from the wagon in a sunny spot out in the thicket. To make sure we aligned it properly, we had gotten permission from the town guards and then marked it out on a tree’s roots. It was possible there could still be a fair bit of error in our measurements, but it was definitely a lot more accurate compared to trying to eyeball it based on the position of the sun in the sky.

When we got to our spot, there were already thirty or so customers waiting there. The first day we reopened, there were around a hundred customers gathered, making for quite a commotion. But when the ducal guards watching over us at the time explained that there was no worry of us running out of food even without them crowding around like they were, that somehow managed to bring things under control.

Even with that in mind, though, we still tended to get around this many customers gathering each morning. And the majority of them were southerners, who tended to be less patient than westerners or easterners.

“Thanks so much for waiting. We’ll get things ready soon, so hold on for just a little longer,” I called out to the customers as we prepared to open for business.

First off, that meant heating up the pan I ordered through Diel’s metalworking group over a flame. Then I placed a steamer basket made from tree bark on top of it. This new cookware was also something I had requested Polarth purchase for us from the castle town. The diameter was the same as the pan. It was made from a bark akin to tough bamboo, and the bottom had a coarse mesh texture to it. The boiling contents of the pan rose as steam and cooked the ingredients in the basket, so it was basically like what we called a bamboo steamer back in my old world.

After setting two layers of those steamer baskets, I waited for the food to cook. Contained within them were meat-filled manju. I decided to call them giba manju, since that’s what I had taken inspiration from when developing this dish.

I packed them with plenty of meat, around 120 grams or so, and also made full use of ingredients that had come flowing in from the castle town in the dish. While the base for the flavor was a familiar tau oil, the more subtle ingredients included not only fruit wine but also Jagar sugar and reten oil. As for the fillings, those included minced giba meat and aria, and also ramanpa nuts and a vegetable called chamcham.

Ramanpa nuts were an ingredient similar to peanuts, and Timalo had used them in his appetizer for the dinner party in the castle town. It really was meant to add an ever-so-slight accent to the flavor, so I only added a single pinch of the ground nuts for each dish.

Chamcham had an amusing name, and apparently it was purchased from some other town in Selva. It became lightly sweet when boiled, and had a unique crisp texture to it. I was using it as a replacement for bamboo shoots.

My giba manju were a size or so bigger than the ones I was familiar with, and though the outer layer was thin, they were stuffed with plenty of filling in exchange. They used around two-thirds the amount of meat as the giba burgers, but they certainly weren’t lacking in volume. And currently, we were selling a hundred of them each day at a price of two red coins each.

“Can you handle it? Take care not to let any drop on your legs, all right?”

Hearing that, I turned around and found Toor Deen and Yamiru Lea carrying an iron tray together.

That tray weighed twelve or thirteen kilos at most. But since Yamiru Lea was exceptionally weak for a woman of the forest’s edge, it was still heavy for her, which was why Toor Deen was lending a hand.

I thought to myself how it made for an adorable sight, only for Yamiru Lea to shoot me a glare as a light sweat appeared on her brow.

“What? You look like you have something to say, Asuta.”

“N-No, not at all. Actually, could you handle this flame, Yamiru Lea?”

After entrusting the steamer baskets to Yamiru Lea, I moved over to the other stall where they had set down the iron tray.

Compared to the manju, I was preparing a rather simple dish over here. After grilling giba rib meat dipped in sauce atop the tray, I then wrapped it up in baked poitan along with shredded cabbage-like tino. It was like a simplified myamuu giba recipe.

Each of these only used ninety grams of giba meat and half a poitan, and amounted to a diameter of twelve to thirteen centimeters. While the giba manju used ingredients and tools from the castle town, the aim of this dish was to come up with a simple and direct presentation of giba meat.

In exchange, though, I put some real effort into creating the sauce. It also had a tau oil base and used familiar ingredients such as fruit wine, aria, myamuu, and chitt seeds, but I put in a great deal of experimentation to come up with the ideal yakiniku sauce.

Since I didn’t know what else to call it, I was referring to the dish as a giba meat poitan wrap. And we sold 120 of them each day at a price of one and a half red coins.

One of them was enough to make a good snack for women and children, while adult men could buy two of them for the same price and volume of food as the giba burgers. And for folks from Jagar with hearty appetites, it wasn’t rare for them to order one each of the giba meat poitan wrap and giba manju.

As I was slicing up the tino for the giba meat poitan wraps, the customer from Jagar at the head of the line called out, “Hey, is it still not ready yet?” with a pained look in his eyes.

“My apologies, but they’ll be ready shortly... Ah, and for anyone after the special menu item, could I have your orders now?”

“Yeah! I’ll get it today for sure!”

When I turned to glance at Toor Deen, she gave a little nod and took off toward the wagon. Before long, she returned holding dozens of thin sticks, bundled together in a sort of wooden tube.

“Go ahead,” I prompted, holding them out toward the customers, at which point the five in the front immediately reached out at the same time. Apparently, all of them were after the special menu item.

At any rate, all five of them each pulled out a stick about twenty-centimeters long simultaneously. While most of them shrugged their shoulders and made comments like, “Damn, a miss,” or, “Ugh,” one of them joyfully proclaimed, “It’s a winner!” When I looked, I saw that sure enough, there was a red mark on the end of their stick.

“Congratulations,” Toor Deen replied with a bashful smile as she once more darted over toward the wagon. And this time around, she returned cradling a large wooden box. Sealed within was the third dish offered by our stalls: the special menu item, a giba cutlet sandwich.

It likely went without saying just what that implied. Unsurprisingly, it involved taking the giba cutlets that were so popular with the people of the forest’s edge and sandwiching them between baked poitan. Since it would be tricky to prepare fried food at the stalls for a variety of reasons, I got these ready first thing in the morning at the house instead.

However, the dish turned out to be quite popular here in the post town too. In fact, it was too popular. It was so much of a hit at the test stage that I was concerned my other dishes would stop selling if I just sold it normally.

On top of that, the giba cutlets took a bit longer to prepare than other dishes, and the cost of the ingredients also couldn’t be underestimated. Plus there was the concern that it would create a crazy line early in the morning again if I couldn’t prepare enough, so I ended up choosing the rather unusual sales method of holding drawings for a limited amount of dishes.

Ultimately, I prepared thirty of them for each day. The price was the same three red coins as a giba burger. I had those wishing to make a purchase draw lots, and when they got a dud they purchased a different dish then and there. And since there were an equal number of duds as the total number of dishes on offer between the four stalls, the odds remained the same regardless of when a customer stopped by.

I was pretty nervous as to whether or not this method would work out when I first tried it, but from what I could see, the customers generally seemed to enjoy it.

“Damn! I’ve gotten duds three days in a row now... Well, the other dishes are tasty too, so it’s fine,” one of the first customers to draw grumbled with a conflicted expression on his face. “Still, when you can’t eat something when you want it, it makes you want it all the more. You sure did come up with one heck of a crafty way to do business.”

“Ah ha ha, sorry about that.”

“I’ll get a winner tomorrow for sure! Anyway, hurry up and give me one of those!”

“Right, please hold on for just a little longer.”

It was about the point where the giba manju would be heated through, I figured. And so I set down my vegetable cutting knife and lit the brazier under the iron tray.

“Asuta, we’re ready for business over here,” Reina Ruu called out from the myamuu giba stall.

Giving a nod, I lifted the leather bag full of meat up onto the counter.

“Sorry for the long wait. But we’re now open for business too.”

With that, our day’s work got off to a perfectly tranquil start.