Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 16 - Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3: Various Paths

1

It was now the sixth of the indigo month, six days after my chance encounter with the star reader of eastern heritage, Arishuna. Having slipped away from the stalls just after the sun hit its peak, Reina Ruu and I were now strolling through the post town while carrying a small pan.

Inside that pan was giba curry. I’d been making progress on it simultaneously with preparations for the welcome banquet, and as I was finally satisfied with the taste, I decided to once again hear the opinions of the various innkeepers.

However, we didn’t head to any of the familiar inns first, but rather a place called Tanto’s Blessing. It was the largest inn here in the post town, and ever since last month, Yang, the head chef for the house of Daleim, had been using their kitchen once every few days.

Apparently, the Tanto in the name referred to the largest river in Genos. I assumed somewhere along the way it met up with the Lanto river that ran through the forest’s edge.

“Welcome, Sir Asuta. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Yang was a slim older chef. He was polite and rarely ever smiled, but he was also clearly passionate about cooking. The man was someone pushing toward the same goal as I was, and also someone I felt was worthy of respect.

Yang had been entrusting his stall to someone else lately, so it had been a while since I last saw him. As the man offered me his usual polite bow, his eyes narrowed questioningly. “My apologies, but is that person also with you? She does not appear to be a person of the forest’s edge...”

“Yeah. She happened to stop by the stall while we were getting ready to leave, so I figured this would be a good opportunity... This is Mikel’s daughter, Myme.”

Myme gave an energetic bow. “My apologies for the sudden intrusion. Since I wish to become a chef too, I wanted to come along. But I’ll leave if it’s a problem.”

“I see. So you’re Sir Mikel’s... Ah, I do not mind. I feel honored just thinking about Sir Mikel’s daughter eating my cooking.”

Since Yang had also been developing a new dish, the plan for today was to sample one another’s cooking. And since he was a chef who respected Mikel, for a while now I had been wanting to bring him and Myme together.

Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen Roy at all since he tasted Myme’s cooking. Was he so shocked by her skills that he’s been holed up in a kitchen somewhere practicing ever since? I thought to myself.

Then, Yang gestured to the side. “Please, I’ve prepared seating over there, so you may start by tasting my dish.”

“Right, thank you.”

At that, Myme, Reina Ruu, and I took our seats.

I had visited Tanto’s Blessing numerous times in the past, but still, it always impressed me just how big the dining hall was. It had to be at least double that of The Kimyuus’s Tail, which was a mid-sized inn.

However, just like with other inns, there weren’t many customers around during the day. Generally in the post town, folks ate midday meals at the stalls and then dinner at the inns’ dining halls.

“Pardon me...” a girl’s listless voice stated, as she laid out an appropriate number of utensils. When I turned to thank her, I instead gave a surprised, “Huh? You’re that Nicola girl I was introduced to before, aren’t you? So you’re not just helping out with the stall, but here too?”

“Yes...” Nicola replied in an unfriendly tone, and then she swiftly fell back. It didn’t exactly look like she was enjoying the job.

“What a graceful woman. Is she from the castle town too, perhaps?” Myme whispered in my ear.

“Yeah,” I replied. “If I recall correctly, she worked in the Daleim manor in the castle town. But is she really all that graceful?”

Rude as it might have been to think so, she seemed more aggressive to me than anything. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say she gave an impression of being brazen.

“Hmm, I didn’t mean her attitude, but more the way she moves and how her skin looks. That’s what reminds me of a noble lady about her... But please don’t pay my opinion any heed. My judgment isn’t exactly reliable.”

She said that, but my judgment was historically terrible.

Thinking back on it, Rimee Ruu had said Nicola looked sad. Maybe she was the sort of girl who gave off a different impression depending on who was looking at her.

“My apologies for the wait. These are the dishes that I prepared,” Yang stated as he returned alongside Nicola, each of them holding wooden plates. They laid out a helping of a soup dish and some vegetables boiled in tau oil atop the table for everyone. But since it was just a taste test, each portion was rather meager.

“This soup uses sheema and chan.”

A familiar sweet aroma tickled my nose. It was the smell of that cinnamon-like herb he had used before at his stall.

In the soup were daikon-like sheema cut into rounds, and zucchini-like chan that had been cut in half. The boiled chunks of dark brown meat had to be karon leg. The lumpy shapes had been boiled quite thoroughly and seemed incredibly tender. And judging from the creamy white of the soup, he must have used karon milk in it.

“For the tau-oil-boiled vegetables, I used a mushroom from Jagar and ma gigo.”

This dish seemed to involve boiling kimyuus breast meat in tau oil along with herbs. And those were supplemented by a brown-beech-like mushroom and the taro-like ma gigo.

“Well then, let’s go ahead and give these a taste test.”

Picking up a wooden spoon, I started by slurping down some of the soup dish.

Despite the scent, it wasn’t sweet. With the sourness and tingling spice, it reminded me more of tom yum goong. He must have combined a variety of herbs in order to create it. But when mixed with the mellowness from the karon milk, it wasn’t hard to get down in the least.

He had gotten plenty of stock from the karon leg meat, making for a dish that definitely stirred up the appetite. However, I couldn’t help but question a bit if the sheema and chan were really a proper fit.

Meanwhile, the boiled tau oil dish had a bit of a very familiar Japanese style to it. In addition to the tau oil, he had unsurprisingly also used a number of herbs. It felt a touch bitter and earthy, certainly, but it wasn’t bad. And I felt the mushroom and vegetable he had chosen were fitting too.

However...

I felt a sense of doubt in my mind that I never had before in regards to Yang’s cooking. What was this sensation, exactly? It wasn’t as if it had come out worse than his previous dishes or anything, but something didn’t quite feel right, somehow.

“What do you think? Please, tell me your earnest impressions,” Yang insisted, calmly staring my way.

Yang was standing here now because he had also been entrusted with the important task of introducing new ingredients to the post town. Actually, to be more accurate, I had just decided to agree to help Polarth and Torst with this in my spare time between selling my giba cooking since I saw no harm in it, but Yang had been solely devoted to the matter.

“Hmm...” I pondered. “Let’s see... To be frank, I think some other vegetables than sheema and chan would be more suited to this soup.”

“I see. Then what vegetables do you think would be suitable, Sir Asuta?”

“What do I think? Well, if it were me, I’d use aria and tino...and I might want to add in some chamcham and mushrooms too.” Chamcham was an ingredient like bamboo shoots that I used when making giba manju and the like. “And I believe dried seaweed and fish stock would go very well with this blend of herbs. I can’t say for certain without trying anything out, though.”

“Dried seaweed and fish, you say? I cannot say I have any experience with how to use such ingredients.”

“It’s nothing difficult. And as long as the prices don’t end up being ridiculous, I’d imagine those ingredients would bring joy to the folks in the post town too.”

Yang slowly shook his head, and then once more looked my way. “This is the first time you have given me such specific guidance, so that makes me quite glad. And what about the boiled tau oil dish?”

“I think your combination of mushroom and vegetables here is suitable. However...it’s a little difficult to explain, but I think there may still be room for improvement in your combination of herbs.”

“My combination of herbs, you say?”

“Right. Is it the bitterness and earthiness that’s bothering me...? No, that isn’t ruining the taste or anything, but I sort of feel like there’s some unnecessary flavor mixed in there.”

By explaining it out loud like that, I finally grasped what felt off to me. Without realizing it, I had been comparing Yang’s cooking to Varkas’s.

There was no great difference between their cooking methods, or those of Roy and Timalo for that matter. From what I could sense, they were all more or less aiming for the same taste, the same ideal delicious flavors. And maybe now that I had tasted the perfected version of the flavor they sought, thanks to Varkas, I could see the “holes” in Yang’s cooking.

Of course, it was also possible that I was just completely mistaken. However, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that Varkas could fill in those holes.

“And what do you two think?” Yang asked, his calm gaze turning toward Reina Ruu and Myme.

The second Ruu daughter set down her spoon and stared straight back at him.

“As a person of the forest’s edge, I don’t believe I can properly judge whether or not the dishes you make are delicious. But as Asuta said, something seems lacking in this combination of herbs, or perhaps there’s something there that shouldn’t be.”

“So it really is the combination of herbs, then?”

“Yes. I can’t say anything for certain, as I have a very limited knowledge of herbs myself...but even so, when I tried that Varkas chef’s dish, I couldn’t help but feel there wasn’t anything lacking or unnecessary in it.”

“None in Genos are as skilled at using herbs from Sym as Sir Varkas, so it is only natural to think that way.” Yang nodded, and then he turned toward Myme.

The young chef’s eyebrows drooped and she looked troubled as she said, “In the Turan lands and the post town, you almost never see dishes that combine more than two different herbs. My father taught me that in order to sell cooking here, it was best not to use overly complex seasonings.”

“I see. Perhaps I was too fixated on using herbs from Sym and strayed from the proper path. It seems these dishes are still in need of a bit of improvement.”

“N-No! I’m still nothing but a chef in training, so please don’t take my words so seriously!”

“No, the words you three have offered have truly resonated with me. I choose to give them weight of my own volition,” Yang said, and then he sighed. “When word got out that a chef from the castle town would be manning the kitchen, that drew a great deal of attention to this dining hall at first, but lately the number of customers seems to be decreasing bit by bit. That, if nothing else, serves as evidence of my lacking skill. I need to work even harder from here on out.”

“No, but...” I started to argue, only for Yang to hold up a hand to stop me.

“It is fine. While it pains me to learn of my own inexperience at this age, at the same time, I also feel glad. After all, it means there is still more out there for me to learn,” Yang said with a smile.

It was an incredibly gentle smile, the kind that this earnest chef rarely showed. And even though he was middle aged, there was a vivid desire to improve shining in his narrowed eyes.

“Still, you seem to have used a great deal of herbs in your dish, Sir Asuta. I’m terribly looking forward to tasting it.”

“Right, then I’ll go ahead and borrow the kitchen.”

Since I was just heating up the completed dish, it took no time at all. Once I handled that alongside Reina Ruu, we divided it up onto three plates.

“Three portions? I assume one is for Miss Myme, but who is the other one for?” Yang questioned as he sat down in a chair with a back. At that, I turned my gaze upon the girl standing there behind him.

“Well, since we prepared extra, you can have some too if you’d like, Nicola.”

The girl narrowed her eyes questioningly. But at Yang’s encouragement, she silently took a seat.

“Wow, what a striking scent!” Myme exclaimed with a smile, picking up her spoon. This would be the first time she had tasted my giba curry. And a moment later, she passionately declared, “Delicious! It’s an unusual taste, but it’s so good! Just how many different herbs did you use in this dish, exactly?”

“In the end, I went with eight different varieties. That was enough to finally recreate the taste I had been aiming for.”

By making a blend with the initial five herbs I had picked out, and three more I had brought back from the Turan manor, I was finally able to perfect my giba curry.

The impression it gave was like a cross between Indian curry and Japanese curry. Though I had actually seasoned it to be paired with baked poitan, it would probably go well with rice too.

Based on Yumi’s impressions, I adjusted it to a medium level of spiciness. In terms of appearance, it was a rather dark brown color, and it certainly did smell spicy.

For vegetables, I employed my standard set of aria, chatchi, and nenon, and I also added chan and the one mushroom I had that was like a common mushroom. On the meat end of things, I used giba ribs and added in just a bit of minced meat. Then in addition to the karon milk, milk fat, and roux made with herbs, I added sugar, salt, tau oil, and myamuu for seasonings, and I dissolved plenty of tomato-like tarapa and apple-like ramam fruit in it. With all that together, I was finally able to give my giba curry the rich yet mellow feel I had been seeking.

“Whoa, that’s spicy!” Nicola suddenly exclaimed in a critical tone. We all looked at her in surprise. With a sour expression on her face, she bowed her head and said, “My apologies...”

“It is indeed spicy. However, there is a harmony to the flavor that makes it difficult to believe eight different herbs were used. How are you able to utilize them so skillfully, Sir Asuta?” Yang asked, wearing a truly bewildered expression.

“Err, that’s probably because I was aiming to recreate a dish that had already existed back in my home country. I can’t imagine I would have been able to figure out how to combine them without a past example in mind.”

“How splendid. I find it difficult to analyze with such powerful spiciness, but I’m certain this delicious flavor comes from the vegetables and meat stock... Sir Asuta, do you intend to sell this dish in the post town?”

“Yes. It doesn’t really use any fresh ingredients aside from the herbs, but I figured it should help to popularize giba meat.”

“I truly am impressed. Despite having such an intense aroma, this dish truly is delicious. I certainly cannot see it failing to become popular.”

“I’m not so sure. I’m honestly still somewhat worried that the folks in the post town may not accept it, since they aren’t accustomed to complex flavors.”

“This dish’s flavor doesn’t feel complex to me. So much so that it is difficult to imagine you used eight herbs in creating it. It’s simply an intense, delicious flavor,” Yang said, once again breaking out in a smile. “This has been an unparalleled impetus to drive me onward too. I feel truly ashamed to have served you such incomplete dishes earlier. And I intend to push myself as far as I can so that I do not keep falling behind you, Sir Asuta.”

After that, we departed from Tanto’s Blessing.

As we walked along the street, Myme turned my way, brimming with energy.

“I’ve seen once again just how skilled you truly are, Asuta! I want to work even harder from now on too!”

“Thanks. By this point, you’ve gotten pretty used to handling giba meat yourself, haven’t you?”

“Yes! I believe I’ll be able to complete a new dish soon. When that time comes, could I ask you to taste test it again?”

“Yeah, of course. By the way, do you have any plans to open a stall in the post town?”

“Hmm, I really would like to test out my skills that way...but spending time on business would mean less time to train my skills, which is not a change I’m sure I’m willing to make,” Myme said, and then she shot me a smile. “But contracts for renting stalls are for ten days each, right? So if I can put my worries to rest, I think I would like to try running one for just one cycle.”

“You’re really something. When the time comes, go easy on me, okay?” This was undoubtedly just as big of a deal to me as manning the kitchen at the same time as Varkas.

With a huge grin, Myme called out, “Thanks for everything today! I’m heading back home to keep on practicing!” before taking off running down the street.

After a moment, Reina Ruu sighed and said, “Somehow, I also have a feeling like I just can’t sit still. Do you think Sheera Ruu and I should spend all day training like that Myme girl?”

“I wouldn’t say that. When you go out like this, you might find all kinds of things that could inspire you. But you don’t get that chance if you’re always holed up in the kitchen.”

“I see. Personally, I want to stay by your side all day. Ah, I don’t mean in that way or anything!” Reina Ruu said, her face going beet red as she waved her hands in a fluster.

“Ah ha ha,” I chuckled, laughing it off.

“But that really is how I feel. It’s not easy to just come out and say, but I’m so jealous of how Toor Deen gets to spend pretty much the whole day working with you.”

“Right. Well, there’s no need to rush or anything. You and Sheera Ruu have improved so much in just half a year, so things will work out fine as long as you keep trying hard,” I said as we headed for the next inn. “You know, I’ve been thinking... It might be good if you and Sheera Ruu started trying to aim for more originality in your cooking.”

“Originality?”

“Yeah. For example, take the giba sauté arrabbiata served at The Sledgehammer. It’s so spicy that it’s tough for you to eat even a single serving of it, right? Generally, I’d say cooking a dish you don’t find tasty feels like putting the cart before the totos.”

“Yes, but...”

“Of course, this is business, so in a way there’s no helping that. But don’t you think the job would be even more enjoyable if you could make the customers happy in the same way you do your family? Personally, I have a great time day in and day out. And I believe that enjoying what you do feeds back into an even greater desire to improve...”

Reina Ruu held her tongue, a serious look on her face.

In order to reward that seriousness, I tried to put my feelings into words as best I could.

“Even when working the stalls, you season the myamuu giba stronger than you personally prefer, right? But that isn’t my stall anymore. It belongs to the Ruu clan. So rather than trying to imitate my cooking, you should try to sell your own dishes. Or at least, that’s what I’ve started thinking lately.”

“Our own cooking...”

“Right. I believe both you and Sheera Ruu should be skilled enough to handle it by this point. That teriyaki stew you had me taste test before was good enough to be served anywhere.”

Reina Ruu was staring at me intently.

As we walked down the street, I gave her a firm nod. “It would be good to consult with Sheera Ruu about it. After all, you’re the only ones who can decide which path is right for you.”

“I understand... Thank you. I feel incredibly honored to hear you say all that, Asuta,” Reina Ruu replied back, nodding with determination.