Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1: The Ruu Clan’s Outdoor Restaurant

1

“Man, this is making me kinda emotional,” I said as I looked around.

Currently, it was the twenty-seventh day of the indigo month, four days after we returned from our trip to Dabagg.

It sure was something, thinking back on the path that led us here. And I was certain the women of the forest’s edge by my side felt much the same.

It all started three days ago, on the day after we returned from Dabagg.

As we had taken the day off from our business in the post town, we invited Mikel to the forest’s edge for the first time in a while so he could teach us how to make dried milk. After that, the time came to give Reina and Sheera Ruu’s new dish a taste test.

“There may still be some fine details that we need to revise, but for the time being we consider it complete,” Reina Ruu said as she held out a wooden plate with a serious look on her face. Contained within was a soup made using giba offal. “We catch five or six giba a day at the Ruu settlement, and over ten if you include our subordinate clans. Even if only half of those are successfully bloodlet, we still get ahold of a huge amount of innards every day, to the point that it was hard to figure out what to do with all of them.”

“And we felt that if it was flavored like this, the townsfolk would at least give it a look, but what do you think? I would love to have you try it and share your thoughts.”

I had lots I wanted to say too, but I focused on giving the dish a taste test first.

It was a really simple soup dish, with an underlying note of tau oil. However, the faint aroma of myamuu gave it a great scent.

“Since it’s an offal dish, we parboiled it with lilo leaves. Then, for flavoring, we had tau oil, myamuu, sugar, and chitt seeds.”

“We used everything aside from the small intestines that are used to make sausages, and for vegetables we had aria, tino, nenon, and pepe leaves.”

“Pepe leaves, huh? I see.”

Pepe leaves were akin to garlic chives. Apparently Reina and Sheera Ruu had decided to use them as vegetables rather than herbs.

There were no issues at all with the soup’s taste. The tau oil and sugar gave it a salty-sweet flavor, while the myamuu and chitt provided a truly stimulating accent. I really couldn’t sense the stench from the entrails at all. The unique flavor from the pepe leaves probably contributed a great deal to that last point as well.

Then you had the main ingredients, with all the different types of offal giving it some really delightful chewiness. You not only had the springy large intestine and stomach, but also the heart and diaphragm meat mixed in, which tasted very similar to normal meat, so nothing felt lacking at all.

The dish had hardly used any novel ingredients. But because of that, Reina and Sheera Ruu’s pure skill was easy to see from how wonderfully it had turned out.

“Yeah, this is delicious. It’s every bit as good as the offal hot pot stew with tarapa that Toor Deen prepared before.”

When I said that, Toor Deen turned my way in shock.

“I-I just covered up the stench of the innards with the strong flavors of the tarapa and chitt seeds, so I’d say this dish is far, far better than what I made.”

“Your dish had a real hearty flavor, Toor Deen, while this hot pot stew has a bit more of a subtle taste. But I wouldn’t say either is better or worse.”

Toor Deen looked more and more like she just wanted to run away, but Reina Ruu gently mediated.

“You’re more accustomed to handling innards, Toor Deen, so if it really is as good as your dish, then that’s an honor. And I also believe that we should share our honest impressions rather than trying to mince words when it comes to cooking.”

The young chef didn’t seem to know what to say in response.

“Now that I think about it, we’ve never had a chance to taste your cooking before, Toor Deen. Could you please let us give your offal dish a try sometime?”

“Okay,” Toor Deen replied, her face now beet red as she looked down at the ground.

And when Myme chimed in, saying, “I’d love to try it too!” the young Deen girl looked ready to up and faint from embarrassment. “Still, this dish really is delicious! Giba innards are such an interesting ingredient!”

“Yeah, it’s every bit as good as karon offal... More importantly, though, you did an outstanding job with the seasoning,” Mikel stated with his same sour look as always.

At that, Reina Ruu’s expression tensed up a bit as she looked his way.

“Um, thanks to your help, Mikel, we now have a new ingredient to work with: milk serum. Do you think that we should use that in this dish?”

Milk serum was the liquid separated out from the solids during the dried-milk-making process, or what I knew as ‘whey.’

As Mikel stroked his square jaw, he muttered, “Milk serum, huh? There wouldn’t be any issue with using it. It doesn’t have all that strong of a taste to begin with... But you wouldn’t see all that big of a change from adding it either, so I don’t think there’s any need to go out of your way to try it.”

“Is that so? Well, it isn’t as if we’re going to be making dried milk every day, so it sounds good to me if we can avoid having to use milk serum.”

“Hmph. You sure are greedy, still wanting to tinker after making a dish this good.”

“That’s right!” Myme interjected with a smile. “This dish really is delicious! I’d love to have some more until I’m all full!”

“Thank you,” Reina Ruu replied with a smile of her own. “It’s very reassuring to hear the two of you say that. And it’s a true honor too,” she added, then shared a joyful glance with Sheera Ruu.

As I looked over at the two of them from the side, I chimed in. “But weren’t you talking about unveiling a new dish for the stalls? You plan on serving soup in the post town?”

“Yes. There’s only a few, but some stalls in the post town serve soup already.”

“Right. But that would require a lot of preparation, wouldn’t it? You’d have to prepare tables and chairs, and also plates and spoons too.”

“That’s true. But the Ruu clan has earned so many coins from food sales that we don’t know what to do with them, so I don’t believe that should be any issue. And my father’s given his approval as well.”

“Huh? You already got Donda Ruu’s permission?”

“Yes,” Reina Ruu answered with a firm nod. “You told us before, didn’t you? That cooking would be even more enjoyable if we could feel the same way making food for the townsfolk as we do for our family, and that doing so could lead us to improve even further. Sheera Ruu and I discussed it, and decided we want to serve a soup dish.”

“Ah... In other words, you want to experience your customers enjoying your cooking from closer up? And that’s how you decided on soup, which would need a place for people to sit?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

I was seriously impressed. On top of that, from the bottom of my heart I thought it was awesome that a person of the forest’s edge like Reina Ruu had come up with such an idea.

“Got it. In that case, let’s do everything we can to make it a reality. I figure if we consult with Milano Mas, we should probably be able to work out how to set up some seating.”

“Thank you,” Reina Ruu and Sheera Ruu replied with proud smiles.

Three days later, the outdoor restaurant was all set up.

First up had been securing the seating. We had a carpentry shop that I was acquainted with prepare wooden tables and chairs, as well as a frame to add a canopy over them. It was the same place we had already used a number of times for totos wagons.

“Oh, so this time you need tables and chairs?” the place’s owner asked with a grin on his rugged face as he bit into a giba burger. Aside from just making purchases, we also saw him once a month for maintenance on the wagons, and we made sure to bring the owner, who didn’t get around much, a meal from the stalls whenever we visited. “You want to use them outside rather than indoors, right? It would probably be best to put them together cheaply and have you buy new ones once a year. So, how many do you need?”

“Let’s see... Can we order five tables that can fit four each, and enough chairs to match?”

“I should be able to take care of that over the course of today and tomorrow. I’ll have them ready for you by morning two days from now.”

“Huh? You can build them that quickly? Ah, and we’d also like to order a frame for a canopy to hang over everything.”

“That’s no trouble at all. Your business is really important for us. I mean, you’ve ordered four wagons in four months.”

Just the other day, I had bought new wagons for the small Sudra and Fou clans to do their shopping, and before that the Ruu clan had wanted one for their business, all of which had gone through this one carpentry shop.

The owner tossed the rest of the giba burger into his mouth, chewed it, and then added, “The real difficulty will be preparing that many wooden plates and spoons. We don’t handle small stuff like that here, but I know a lot of craftsmen who purchase lumber from the same dealers. Do you want me to introduce you to them?”

“Ah, that would be a big help.”

And so, we ended up getting the utensils, tables, and chairs all worked on simultaneously. Then we ordered a karon leather tarp for our canopy from a leather worker as well, which finished our prep work for the time being.

Next, though, we had to secure the space to set it all up. Normally, that would be handled just by paying a suitable location fee.

“What with the space and utensils costing so much, not many people try to open soup shops. But, well, considering how much you’ve been selling, I guess you don’t have anything to worry about,” Milano Mas had said.

The space for a normal stall usually cost one white coin for ten days, but since we needed to prepare seating as well, that meant we needed at least two more spaces. Since the Ruu clan ran two stalls already—one selling giba burgers and the other myamuu giba—that would mean they’d need to pay for five spaces in total. But from here on out, they would alternate those every other day and offer their new giba hot pot stew dish daily.

“So, what will you do with the seating after closing up for the day? I don’t mind taking care of them, but then you’d have to pay for the storage too, and it’d be a hassle transporting them back and forth, yeah?”

“That’s true. How do other stalls normally handle it?”

“They generally just leave them out. It’d be pretty weird for someone to steal a bunch of crude tables or chairs meant for use outside, and even more guards patrol the post town at night than during the day, so I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. But in that case, you’d have to pay for the spaces even on days you take off...”

Even so, three spaces for a day would be just three red coins. That sounded pretty cheap to avoid any extra hassle.

With everything taken care of, the Ruu’s outdoor restaurant was ready for business on the morning of the twenty-seventh day of the indigo month.

Perhaps it wasn’t completely open to the air with the leather canopy overhead, but considering the occasional squalls you got in Genos, that was just how it was gonna be. Regardless, we were all set up now.

The back of our three new spaces were pushed right up against the thickets that grew near the road, with all five tables and twenty chairs set up. The tables were simple wooden boards sitting on top of short logs, while the chairs were pretty much just stumps. However, the surfaces had been carefully smoothed out so that they wouldn’t catch on clothing or anything.

Then there was the canopy stretched out above the space, supported by a sturdy wooden frame that came up around two and a half meters high. It was made to be just a bit higher in the middle, so that water wouldn’t pool on top of it.

We also needed a setup for washing the tableware. We had prepared thirty sets of tableware to go alongside the twenty seats, but naturally they would need to be washed before they could be used again. After all, the girls were planning to prepare eighty servings of the soup dish, the same as the number of giba burgers they made.

Since some people might have been dissatisfied with just a soup dish without any fuwano or poitan, the plan was to offer a big plate filled to the brim for three red coins or a half serving for one red coin and one split coin, with the idea being that they could then order a cheaper giba manju or giba poitan wrap to go with it. However, that meant we would be going through plates even quicker.

With that all in mind, we purchased a wooden barrel to fill with water drawn from a well in order to wash the tableware.

I had, of course, heard that wells existed, but this would be our first time actually using one. The spot for drawing water was protected by guards, and anyone was able to draw from it for free. Having access to such an abundant source of water was surely yet another reason Genos was able to prosper so greatly.

At any rate, it was a pretty new experience, lining up with the townsfolk and all their carts loaded with barrels and vases for drawing water.

“We should be good to go now, right?” I called out.

Sheera Ruu was in charge for the day, and she gently smiled back as she answered, “Right.” Then, she placed her hands over her chest and calmly closed her eyes. “In a way...I feel as if I have my own house now. How very strange. After all, it’s only a covering over some tables and chairs, all furniture unlike anything we use.”

“It’s not strange at all. After all, you’re opening a restaurant rather than just a stall. I’m feeling pretty emotional myself.”

It really was a magnificent sight, seeing the two stalls each for the Fa and Ruu clans, and then the outdoor restaurant space set up beside them. I felt just as excited as Sheera Ruu as I got things ready on my side.

By the way, Sheera Ruu, Lala Ruu, and Tsuvai were the ones on duty for the Ruu clan today. As always, Ama Min Rutim was also scheduled to join once the sun hit its peak, but they hadn’t increased their staff any further. To compensate, we had prepared the food for The Kimyuus’s Tail and the other inns in the morning, so all of them would be able to remain here.

Now that they were selling soup, someone needed to wash the dishes. But if push came to shove, they could borrow help from our Fa clan stalls, so for now the plan was to give it a try with the current numbers.

“Jeez, our share sure is small considering the cost of the location, isn’t it? Why go to all this trouble just to increase our expenses?” asked Tsuvai, the only one who looked displeased while getting things ready to open.

Lala Ruu angrily turned her way, but before she could say anything, I interjected. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure the novelty will draw even more customers than we had before. Lately, it’s started to look like we’re getting about as many customers as we’re ever going to, so if this starts attracting more attention, it should easily make up for the cost of the extra space.”

“Hmph! I guess you can just take it easy since it’s not your problem!”

“I don’t feel that way at all. It’s true that it’s up to each clan to decide what to do with their earnings, but we’re all working hard to help people see how delicious giba meat really is. And besides, if you break it down, that fee only amounts to three red coins a day, right? That’s not exactly the kind of spending we’d have to worry about.”

“But we used up lots of coins buying all this unnecessary stuff, didn’t we?”

“If you look at things long term, they should be able to earn it back soon enough. After all, Sheera and Reina Ruu created an incredibly delicious soup dish. This is just what’s called an upfront investment.”

“An upfront investment...?” Tsuvai questioned, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t get what you mean, but those words have the smell of coins lingering about them.”

“That’s exactly right. Bottom line, I’m sure the idea Sheera and Reina Ruu came up with will make the Ruu clan even wealthier eventually, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

To be honest, it felt like they had gotten a step ahead of me.

Considering the amount of leeway we had in our daily lives, preparing an outdoor restaurant was no issue. And selling a soup dish from a stall during the day would help spread the deliciousness of giba meat even further. I was sure this new direction was a big enough change to have a major impact on the future course of our business.

If this outdoor restaurant is a success, it will expand the scope of dishes we can offer a great deal. After all, so far we’ve been stuck with offering dishes that can be held and eaten.

Now, though, we could sell not only flame-broiled and soup dishes, but even stuff like curry and pasta at the stalls. While I felt frustrated that I hadn’t managed to come up with the idea on my own, the fact that it was my comrades from the forest’s edge who had figured out how to make it happen was a happy and reassuring thought. I felt like they had defeated me, but I was still happy about it.

So for now, I’ve got to give them all the support I can to make this business venture by the Ruu clan a success.

For this first go, they set things up so that Lala Ruu was placed in charge of the new giba hot pot stew, Tsuvai handled the giba burgers, and Sheera Ruu took charge of managing the outdoor restaurant and washing dishes. Since the giba burgers took more effort to make than the giba hot pot stew, our side prioritized giving Tsuvai our assistance when needed.

“If you’re ever shorthanded, Tsuvai, feel free to ask for help, okay?”

“Hmph! This is the Ruu clan’s business, so there’s no reason for the Fa to assist us.”

“Aw, you don’t have to be like that. You’ll need a hand when heating up fresh tarapa sauce and patties, won’t you?”

“Do you think I can’t manage that much on my own?”

“That’s not what I meant, but sometimes you need to step away to relieve yourself, so...” I started to argue, only for Tsuvai to shoot me a glare as she stirred the contents of her pot.

Yamiru Lea had been steaming giba manju beside me, and only now did she speak up. “You know, your approach is rubbing Tsuvai’s nerves the wrong way, Asuta. If the time comes when she needs your help, you can just say she owes you one and force your help on her.”

“Ah, I see. I still don’t really know how to handle Tsuvai.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s a particularly important concern. Tsuvai seems to enjoy complaining to you, and she hates people acting unnaturally reserved most of all,” Yamiru Lea stated with a smug look.

I was feeling at a loss as to how to respond when a voice called out, “Hey!” from an unexpected direction. It had come from one of the customers who had lined up in front of the stall and was looking restless. “Is the food still not ready yet? Your soup uses tau oil, right? Hurry up and let me have some already.”

The man was a southerner with a dark-brown mustache, and he was just one member of the greater-than-usual crowd of customers attracted by their curiosity about the outdoor restaurant that had suddenly appeared.

Looking around, I saw Lala Ruu striking a triumphant pose in her spot on the other side of Tsuvai’s onion-like head.

“The soup dish seems like it’s ready. If you’d like to give it a taste, please go right ahead.”

“Oh, really? Hey, looks like they’re ready for business over there!”

With that, the majority of the customers excitedly crowded over to the giba hot pot stew stall.

And so, our business for the day once again got off to a lively start.