2
As we started cleaning up after finishing our work with the stalls, Mikel and Myme showed up just as promised at the lower second hour.
“I look forward to working with you today, Asuta!” Myme declared, her flushed cheeks soon disappearing from view as she took a deep bow. In her slender hand she held some sort of huge leather container. The thing had a rectangular shape to it, and kinda reminded me of a suitcase. Though it appeared to be quite old, the hinges and handle were made of metal, so it was likely a pretty high-class item.
“Yeah, me too. Do you have your cooking tools in that container...?”
“Yes. My dad handed them down to me.”
The dad in question, Mikel, wore a seriously sour look on his face again today.
If they were to have a competition for the grumpiest face around, either Mikel here or Milano Mas would be nominated as this town’s candidate for sure. And it’d definitely make for an exciting match when Donda Ruu or Gulaf Zaza was nominated for the forest’s edge.
“Well then, could we have you hop into the wagon and wait? We still have to do our shopping and visit the money exchange. And Mikel, you come over here too.”
At my prompting, Mikel followed me off to the side.
Just what exactly did he think about his daughter saying she wanted to observe me cooking at the settlement at the forest’s edge? While he didn’t seem strongly opposed, he also didn’t appear all that happy about it either.
“So we’re heading to the Ruu clan’s settlement first?”
“Yeah. The Ruu are one of the leading clans of the forest’s edge. And they’ve all been looking forward to your arrival, Myme.”
“Right! I’ll try my hardest not to let them down!” Myme replied, her eyes filled with anticipation as she got into the wagon.
Just what sort of dish would Myme prepare with giba meat? My heart was beating like I was a young maiden in love just at the thought.
But at any rate, we made it safely to the Ruu settlement.
As far as I knew, only a small handful of townsfolk had ever set foot in the settlement at the forest’s edge. Kamyua Yoshu and his apprentice Leito, Shumiral who came as a guest of the Fa clan, and Jeeda and Bartha who were currently living at the Ruu settlement... They were all I could think of.
Aside from that, there were the two times, ten years ago and a few months back, we had merchant groups heading for Sym (or in the latter instance, people pretending to be one), but they didn’t set foot in the settlement and simply went to cut through the forest instead. Plus someone sneaked into the Zaza settlement where Zuuro Suun was being held, and Lefreya and Sanjura came to the entrance of the Ruu settlement to talk to me, but I figured those could be treated as exceptions.
At any rate, it was an undeniable fact that it was incredibly unusual for anyone from town to be invited to the settlement at the forest’s edge as guests.
Still, thanks to all that strife involving the house of Turan, Kamyua Yoshu and Leito had been continuously visiting, and currently Jeeda and Bartha were living here, so the folks at the Ruu settlement had surely built up a tolerance by this point. As I led the wagon into the plaza with the reins, there were women from the branch houses greeting us the same as always.
“We’ve arrived. Welcome to the Ruu settlement,” I declared as I stopped in front of the kitchen behind the main house.
When she stepped down from the wagon, Myme went, “Ooh...” as she looked all around. “Amazing... We really are in the middle of the forest.”
“Yeah. But there’s nothing around here for the giba to eat, so you don’t have to worry about them.”
It was around then that Mia Lea Ruu approached, wearing a smile. “Good work, Asuta... And to our visitors from town, welcome to the Ruu house. I’m the wife of the main house’s head, Donda Ruu, and my name is Mia Lea Ruu. I can’t say I’m all that well versed on speaking politely, but still, I gladly welcome you both.”
“P-Pleased to meet you! I’m Myme of Turan, and this is my father Mikel,” Myme said with a bow of her head, while Mikel just sort of absentmindedly tugged at his chin. And unsurprisingly, Mia Lea Ruu looked over the two of them with a smile.
“From what I can see, you don’t appear to have any weapons on you. But what’s in that big container? Ingredients? Or blades?”
“Ah, there are knives and spoons and the like in here to use in my cooking.”
“Then could you entrust that to me for just a moment while we go to the kitchen? At the forest’s edge, the custom is that guests need to enter a home without any blades on their person.”
While Ai Fa and I were granted exceptions, that was indeed the rule. But after looking uneasy for a moment, Myme handed the leather case to Mia Lea Ruu without a word.
“Thank you. You’re certainly a good girl, aren’t you? Well then, let me guide you to the kitchen... It’s over this way.”
Myme and Mikel headed off following Mia Lea Ruu’s directions. Meanwhile, we unloaded the luggage and set about cleaning the dirty trays and pans.
For today, the Ruu group consisted of Reina and Rimee Ruu, Tsuvai, and Morun Rutim. Since there had been a day in between, all the members were the same aside from Rimee Ruu.
Then there was the Fa group of me, Toor Deen, Yamiru Lea, and Li Sudra. When you added in Mia Lea and Sheera Ruu on top of that, it already made for a packed kitchen, so Bartha went ahead and passed on participating today.
“It’s finally time, isn’t it?” Reina Ruu murmured with a serious expression.
“I’ve been so excited for this!” Rimee Ruu said.
Then there was Toor Deen looking just a bit nervous, while everyone else seemed the same as always. In particular, Tsuvai and Yamiru Lea appeared to be totally uninterested.
“Well, first off we’ve got to handle the preparations for tomorrow, so please hold on for just a bit as we get that done.”
Myme’s passionate gaze followed me as I stepped into the kitchen.
However, her eyes weren’t locked on me. Instead, they were focused on the chunk of giba meat I carried out from the pantry.
“That’s giba meat, right?”
“Yeah, this is half of a female giba. Male giba are wilder and are harder to capture in good condition, so most of the meat we use in our business comes from females.”
I gently laid the dressed carcass that had been cleanly cut in half atop the work station. The ribs and spine and the like had all been removed, leaving behind a roughly twenty kilo chunk of meat. Since the legs were still attached, those had to be removed first. That job belonged to me and Toor Deen.
All the other women were already working away silently on their own tasks. And since this was daily work for us, they all knew what to do without needing me to hand out directions.
In the midst of all that, Myme’s gaze remained fixed solely on me.
“We’re cutting this up into parts now to make tomorrow morning’s work easier,” I explained as I sliced into the giba with my Jagar-made meat-cutting knife. “The taste and toughness of giba meat changes quite a bit depending on the part. The fat is spread throughout the back and chest, so it’s suited to being thinly sliced and fried, while the legs have more concentrated fat that makes them better suited to be used in soup or minced up.”
“I see. So what I’ve had from your stalls used back or chest meat, then?”
“Yeah, since we can’t really serve soup dishes at the stalls. Now that I think about it, have you ever handled karon torso meat before, Myme...? I don’t have experience with that, so I can’t really compare it to giba meat.”
“No, I’ve never used karon torso meat. All I’ve cooked with is karon leg meat and skinless kimyuus.”
That was about what I had expected. Nowadays you could purchase any ingredient as long as you had the coins, but karon torso and kimyuus with the skin still attached were quite expensive, so they still weren’t easily available.
But in that case, it meant that Myme had never once used properly fatty meat. I was just a bit worried if she would be able to properly prepare giba meat when I considered that.
Well, I’m sure she’ll be fine. I mean, Mikel trained her after all, I thought to myself as we finished up with the preparations. Everything really did seem to be flowing smoother day by day.
With that out of the way, it was the time for the study session with the members of the Ruu clan. The plan was for both Myme and I to show off our skills during this period, but unsurprisingly I ended up going first.
“Well then, how about we review making tino rolls for today? It’d be good to get this down pat, since I’m hoping to share the work for The Kimyuus’s Tail with the Ruu clan, starting in the next contract period.”
“Right. Thank you,” Sheera Ruu said with a dead-serious look in her eyes as she quietly bowed. And Reina Ruu did the same, not saying so much as a word.
It was no surprise that these two were more fired up than anyone by Myme’s presence. After all, they were the most passionate about improving their cooking skills out of the whole Ruu clan.
“This dish is one that I offer at the inns. It involved wrapping finely-minced giba meat in tino and then boiling it. And I use tarapa as the base for the broth’s flavor.”
“I see. So this is a different dish than those giba burgers you sell at your stalls?”
“Yeah. The steps to make them are a bit similar, but I’d say the dishes themselves are completely different.”
With that, we all set about making tino rolls, me to give Myme a sample to try, and everyone else for their own practice. Since the Ruu clan women had said they were planning on making extra to use for dinner, I turned to face Mia Lea Ruu, since she was in charge here.
“Er, this dish uses minced meat, so will Donda and Jiza Ruu be all right with it?”
“It’ll be fine. Tino rolls are those really juicy things, aren’t they? So it’s the same thing as sinking hamburger steak in soup, I’d say. Besides, even our clan head understands perfectly well how tasty minced meat can be by this point. After all, the taste is totally different between stuff like plain grilled or boiled meat and dishes like hamburger steak.”
“Oh really? Glad to hear it.”
“And anyway, lately we’ve been offering two or more different meat dishes as much as possible. So if we go with a thick steak for the other one, that should give his jaw and teeth enough of a workout, so he’ll be plenty satisfied and able to enjoy the dinner.”
Having been granted that permission, I set about making the tino rolls. Since the dish didn’t really use much in the way of new ingredients, I figured it would be well suited for Myme to taste test.
“Well then, first up comes prepping the ingredients. You finely mince up the giba thigh meat, along with any leftover scraps or bits still clinging to a bone that you might have lying around.”
“Right.”
“Once that’s done, you sprinkle on salt, pico leaves, and finely chopped myamuu, then knead it well until it feels nice and sticky. After that, you boil the tino in plenty of water, but you want to add salt to it first. You can use about one percent, er, one hundredth of the amount of water.”
“Why do you add salt to the water?”
“That helps keep the nutrients from escaping out of the vegetables, and also maintains color. Still, that was just the custom in my old country, so I don’t know how effective it is with tino. But it worked with any green vegetable back where I came from, at least.”
“You’re from overseas, aren’t you, Asuta?” Myme asked, her eyes brimming with curiosity. “The thought of meeting a chef born outside of this continent is enough to get me all excited by itself. I really do feel blessed to have run into a chef like you with so many unique techniques.”
“Ah ha ha, I’d consider it an honor if I managed to show you even a little.”
“No, really, by this point, you’ve already been an utterly irreplaceable influence in my life.”
Hearing that really did make me feel bashful. However, I was getting a pretty searing look from Reina Ruu at the same time. I didn’t know if it was due to the rivalry she felt toward Myme or what, but she had been shooting an intense glare for a while now. But I just endured that gaze and set about the next step.
“Once the tino’s boiled, you let it cool down enough that it won’t burn you and then cut away any tough core bits and the like. Then you use a wooden spoon to form the meat filling from before into a long rounded shape like so, placing it on top. Let’s go ahead and make these about the size we serve at the inn.”
It used around 120 grams of meat, and had a retail price of three red coins. And currently, it was the hottest seller at The Kimyuus’s Tail.
“Then you wrap the tino around the filling, and tie it with fibaha vines.”
“You tie up your dish with string?! I heard such methods were used in the castle town, but still...”
“Yup. If you don’t tie them together or use wooden skewers to hold them in place, the filling will all go spilling out.”
It took quite a bit of effort to investigate whether or not using these vines would have any negative impact on the dishes. Meanwhile, apparently in the castle town they had a type of string meant exclusively for cooking.
“Then, you place the bound ingredients in a pot, add some finely-sliced aria and nenon, and boil it all together with tarapa. For the broth, add water and fruit wine, along with just a bit of tau oil for flavor. Then you heat it slowly over a low flame, and all that’s left is tweaking the flavor at the end.”
At that point, we lit up all four stoves in the kitchen, so it didn’t take long for it to get rather hot in the room.
“Well, while that’s boiling we can have Myme— Gah!” I suddenly shouted before I could stop myself. That was because three faces had crept into the window right in front of me: Vina Ruu, Lala Ruu, and Bartha. “Wh-What are you three doing?”
“Huh...? We want to see the guest cook, of course...”
“That’s right! We can’t just leave things be after hearing how she may be a better chef than you, Asuta!”
“We won’t get in the way, so don’t mind us and just carry on with your work.”
It seemed that Bartha was completely blending in with the main Ruu house by this point. While that was certainly a good thing, it was also kinda bad for my nerves.
And meanwhile, Myme was looking my way with a troubled smile.
“That’s too much, saying I’m more skilled than you. Asuta, have you been telling people that?”
“I mean, I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of it or anything.”
“I’m certain I’ll let everyone down, but I’ll try my hardest to make them smile instead,” Myme proclaimed as she placed the leather case atop the work station.
While her cheeks were turning red, there was a clear drive shining in her light brown eyes.
“Well then, I’d like to also begin cooking. Could you share just a bit of giba meat with me?”
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