Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 19 - Chapter 2.2

2

“This is the kitchen.”

At this point, Mia Lea Ruu had taken on the role of guiding everyone personally.

Sheera and Lala Ruu were working away in the kitchen alongside Granny Tito Min and the two guests from the Zaza clan on the preparations for tomorrow. Since tomorrow it would be myamuu giba on offer rather than the time-intensive giba burgers, they were already getting close to finishing the task.

“Oh, so you really came? Welcome to the Ruu house, little girl,” Lala Ruu called out to Tara with a big smile while transferring myamuu marinade to a leather bag. Even though Tara seemed to still be feeling the shock of having met Donda Ruu, she responded with a joyful smile of her own.

“It’ll be a bit tight in here with all these people. We’ll head out once we’re done with our work, so hold on for just a bit,” Granny Tito Min chimed in.

However, Dora waved his hands to forestall her and said, “Ah, no, we’re the ones interrupting, so you don’t need to do that. We’ll just stay out of your way off in the corner, so please, don’t mind us and keep doing whatever you need to do.”

“I see. Well, the young girls have been really passionate about cooking lately, so I’ll just step out by myself,” Granny Tito Min replied with a gentle smile, and then she left holding a massive pot. She must have been going to handle some washing.

As he watched her leave, Dora whispered to Tara, “She seems a lot nicer than the old ladies around our place, doesn’t she?”

In the meantime, I went ahead and got started on my prep work too. That meant having everyone help slice up the meat that I had left in the Ruu clan’s care. It was nothing but basic preparations to help make the following morning’s work more efficient, though, so it didn’t take all that much time. But once the revival festival rolled around, this sort of work was sure to get a lot more troublesome too.

Once that was about done, the women from the Zaza clan called out to me. “Asuta. With these numbers it would be better if we left as well... But as members of the Zaza clan, we believe we should stay to see how you of the Ruu and Fa are deepening your ties with the townsfolk.”

“Got it. In that case, why not just participate in the study session?”

“We are grateful for your kindness...”

Though Sufira Zaza acted rather stiff for her age, ever since I saw how taken she was with Toor Deen’s sweets, she stopped feeling so difficult to handle.

Perhaps my thoughts had shown on my face, because she started to look even more standoffish than usual as she exited the kitchen alongside her clan member. Since the door was always left open for ventilation, they seemed to be planning to watch over our study session from out there.

“Now then, we normally have a study session with everyone for around two hours. It’s time we spend on thinking up new dishes and re-examining ways to use ingredients,” I explained while looking around at everyone. Even with the two women from the Zaza clan now outside, that left the eight of us who had returned from the post town, Sheera, Lala, Mia Lea, and Rimee Ruu, and the six guests, making things even more packed than usual. “I was thinking that for today, we could tackle a number of ideas involving the ingredients from Banarm that have been spending a long time on our shelves.”

“Ingredients from Banarm?”

“Yes. A man named Welhide who was among Banarm’s envoys asked me to try to come up with new uses for the fuwano, fruit wine, and vinegar they produce.”

“Ooh, so you’re even getting requests from other towns now, Asuta? You’re really something,” Dora said with an amused smile. “Well, fuwano from other towns would be business competition for someone who sells poitan like me, but I’m certainly not about to go interfering in your business. I’ll just consider it surveillance on the enemy.”

“You don’t have to worry. With all the effort it would take to transport fuwano from Banarm, it will cost more than the ordinary stuff, so I can’t really see it selling in the post town where poitan is becoming a staple food. Welhide wanted me to come up with a new dish using this stuff, with the idea being to target his sales solely at the castle town,” I explained as I scooped some of the fuwano flour packed into a bag out onto a plate. “Take a look. This is fuwano from Banarm.”

It was a dark gray, somewhat coarse fuwano flour.

The women of the forest’s edge had already seen it numerous times, so only the guests were interested in the sight.

“Hmm, that’s not an especially appetizing color.”

“Yeah. But apparently, it has even more nutritional value than the fuwano from Genos. The people in Banarm, especially those who aren’t nobles, don’t really eat proper vegetables, so they subsist on nothing but this fuwano, karon meat, and milk.”

“Ooh, so is this fuwano as nutritious as aria?”

“I don’t know what the health of the citizens of Banarm is like, so I can only guess, but based on what Welhide told me, that may be the case. Apparently, the grass the karon eat spreads so wildly that they have to take care that it doesn’t grow over into neighboring fields.”

“Ah, so that’s why vegetables are so scarce in Dabagg?” Myme chimed in, clapping her hands together and looking satisfied with that realization. “But without those abundant pastures they couldn’t satisfy the bellies of their karon, right? That’s why nobody raises them in Genos, and Dabagg and Banarm don’t grow many vegetables.”

“Supposedly so. I guess it’s so obvious to the people who live in Dabagg that they didn’t feel the need to explain it to us,” I replied as I handled the preparations. “But apparently, the upper class of Banarm eat this black fuwano with vegetables, and it doesn’t wreck their bodies from overnutrition or anything, so I was asked to find a way to use it with no need to worry about how I paired the stuff... But I figured it could have a negative impact on the sales of not only poitan but even other vegetables if I made something too good, so I thought up something eccentric instead.” As I saw it, I didn’t want to sacrifice Dora and the other farmers for the sake of trade between Banarm and Genos, so I ended up racking my brains a bit. “Well, to jump to the conclusion, it’s something similar to the pasta I made before... Ah, now that I think about it, I still haven’t shown that to everyone in town. Pasta is a new style of food made by combining fuwano with poitan and kimyuus egg.”

“Ah, the stuff you fed to the folks in the castle town?”

“Right. I think I’ll go ahead and make it for everyone tonight. Anyway, back to the black fuwano flour, I’m going to try mixing it with poitan and preparing something similar to pasta. And if the castle town accepts it, then that should help you sell even more poitan.”

“Yes, we certainly haven’t been getting calls for poitan from the castle town. If this works out, we’ll need to expand our fields even further,” Dora replied with a joyful look on his face.

I smiled back at him and then got to work on the task at hand.

“This black fuwano has a more subdued taste than the white fuwano from Genos. The texture is coarse, the color dull, and it’s packed with nutrition. Considering all that, it may use not only a different variety of fuwano, but a different method of grinding as well. Well, I don’t know anything about how fuwano is refined to begin with, so I can only imagine. At any rate, I figured I could make use of the slightly sticky texture to prepare a somewhat different dish than pasta.”

“Ooh. But if it’s got less taste than our fuwano, doesn’t that make it similar to poitan? And won’t they just become ever weaker if you mix them together?” Yumi spoke up. The Westerly Wind avoided using expensive ingredients, so she was asking out of pure curiosity.

“No, it was closer to the ideal that I was aiming for when combined than using black fuwano on its own. Could you give it a taste once I make it?”

“Of course! That’s pretty much why I came!” Yumi replied, seemingly back to her normal self. As I glanced her way out of the corner of my eye, I went ahead and blended the black fuwano with some poitan flour.

The ratio was one to four, with more of the black fuwano. I slowly added water while quickly stirring rather than kneading it. Since I wasn’t actually making pasta, I didn’t need any kimyuus egg or reten oil. I split apart the flour whenever it started to clump up, and just kept on adding water bit by bit.

Once I added a little over half as much water as there was flour everything was good and moist, at which point it was finally time to start kneading. First I used my fists to get it gathered up fairly well, and then I folded it in on itself and kept on thoroughly kneading with my palms.

Once I had it made up into a proper dough, I moved it over to a floured tray and stretched it out with a pole. When it looked to be around two or three millimeters thick, I sprinkled more flour on top and folded it in half twice, then sliced into it using a cutting board. Thus far, it was the same process as making pasta.

“Now we just need to boil it to finish it off, so let’s go ahead and make a stock first.”

For the stock, I used smoked fish and seaweed, then added tau oil and sugar for flavoring. And for peace of mind, I added a bit of fruit wine as a secret ingredient, since there wasn’t any mirin or sake to be had.

“So those are the smoked fish and seaweed delivered from the capital? Nobody in the post town can afford to use ingredients that expensive,” Telia Mas interjected, speaking up for the first time in a while. She didn’t look all that shaken up despite being faced with such a huge crowd of people from the forest’s edge. I had been worried about what sort of impact meeting with Donda Ruu would have on her, but now I breathed a sigh of relief.

“But these ingredients let you make a simple and delicious soup. If the day comes when we can order a lot of them from the capital, that may lower the price a bit. Hopefully the elites of Genos can help make that happen.”

“I personally never expected nobles to do anything before, but the second son of our land’s ruling house may be able to do something about it,” Dora said with a bright smile. He was of course talking about Polarth, of the house of Count Daleim.

At that point it occurred to me that our two guests who had been here before were being awfully quiet, and when I turned to look, I found Myme and Mikel watching me work with deadly serious gazes. This study session was their main purpose for coming along today.

“Okay, that should be about right for the sauce. Sheera Ruu, could you handle the rest?”

“Yes, of course.”

Sheera Ruu already knew the steps, and so she filled a fresh pot with water and placed the boiling pot in it. The thought was that while it could be eaten warm, it would be easier if it was cooled.

“Now we cook the noodles from before in boiling water. Ah...back in my home country, we called dough made into this shape ‘noodles.’”

As I explained, I tossed the noodles into another pot that was now brought to a boil. After that, I used a grigee chopstick to roughly separate them. For the cooking time, I estimated it to be around two or three minutes.

Now that I thought about it, it would certainly be nice to get ahold of the hourglasses I had requested from Polarth soon. Though I had gotten entirely used to cooking by feel, I was sure that having a tool like that would be greatly appreciated by the chefs of the forest’s edge as well.

“Once it’s boiled, you wash it off with cold water atop the netting. Then you just serve it up on a plate and it’s good to go.”

“It’s done? Are you not going to add it to the broth from before?”

“Nope. This is meant to be eaten by dipping it in a bit of broth with each bite.”

In other words, it was a dish modeled on zaru soba.

It would be possible to make it using the white fuwano from Genos too, but in terms of texture, I felt the white stuff was more suited to pasta and udon, while the black fuwano was a better fit for soba.

“You’re free to eat it however you like, but this is how we did it back in my home country,” I said, grabbing a bit of it with my homemade chopsticks. “But if that’s difficult, you can eat it like pasta, with one of the wooden spoons with three prongs cut into it.”

But since we were talking zaru soba, I really did want to have folks use chopsticks and slurp it instead. I had been using pasta as a springboard to move into other types of noodles recently, so I wanted to try to spread the use of chopsticks bit by bit as well.

“Ooh, you didn’t use meat or vegetables at all. You just boiled that dried fish and seaweed.”

“That’s right. Back in my home country, lots of people would use this dish on its own as a light afternoon meal, but I’m sure that would feel lacking to the people of Genos. If I pair it with meat or vegetables, I think it should be able to keep up with the sales we’ve seen up till now,” I replied as Rimee Ruu and the others helped portion the dish out onto some plates. “And I’m sure this won’t be enough for all of you either, so please give it a try while imagining it being paired with a meat or vegetable side.”

It was finally time to give it a taste.

The members of the group from the forest’s edge had already tried it, and smoothly ate the fuwano soba just like they would with pasta. Though it had been delayed because of the trip to Dabagg and the matter with the Sauti clan, I had already unveiled the dish twice at study sessions.

Ultimately, Reina, Sheera, and Rimee Ruu, along with Toor Deen had decided to try using chopsticks. Rimee Ruu had said, “It looks tastier eating it Asuta’s way!” while the others were just highly curious people. And so, they ended up attempting to help spread the use of chopsticks at my request.

Then there were the six guests.

The first among them to speak up was Yumi. “This is interesting! It’s hard to imagine this was made with fuwano and poitan!”

“That’s true. If it sits in the broth too long, the flavor gets rather concentrated, but I also find it just plain good,” Dora agreed.

Meanwhile, Mikel wore a serious look on his face. “This certainly is a mysterious dish. It’s as if you went out of your way to make fuwano more difficult to eat... And yet, cutting it thinly like this is how you were able to create this very particular mouthfeel. I find it difficult to form any impressions...”

“But this broth is delicious, isn’t it? Smoked fish and seaweed certainly are amazing ingredients, to allow you to create such a deep flavor in so short a time just by boiling them!” Myme added.

As they had skipped right over pasta to this fuwano soba, the guests were unsurprisingly looking taken aback. But, well, even if the order was reversed, they would be getting to try out plenty of pasta tonight.

I told them, “I also believe this would go well with the addition of some herbs or a little dried kiki, or maybe even sprinkling grated gigo over the top, but I’m still experimenting with all that. For now, I was thinking of having the folks from Banarm give it a try like this.”

“Well, folks from the castle town may find a dish like this really interesting. And if you say it needs poitan, then that means I’ll be able to expand my fields to their limits.” With those words from Dora, the unveiling of the black fuwano came to a close.

Next up came the Banarm fruit wine and vinegar, which were like white wine and white wine vinegar.

“Yumi, you should already be plenty accustomed to this white mamaria vinegar.”

“Yup! It’s a bit expensive, but it really makes the mayonnaise taste a whole lot better! All the customers who order okonomiyaki love it.”

“The dark red mamaria vinegar sold in Genos is pretty flavorful and sour, but that can end up ruining the overall taste, so I’d say it’s best to use whichever kind is best suited to each dish.”

With that said, I personally had a much easier time finding uses for the white mamaria vinegar than the balsamic-like red mamaria vinegar. In fact, I had already switched over to the stuff from Banarm for the sweet and sour giba served at The Kimyuus’s Tail.

“And the white fruit wine should be usable in ordinary stews. The impression I get is that it’s probably a better fit with kimyuus than giba.”

“Even though they’re both fruit wine, they taste totally different, don’t they? I feel like it’s going to knock me over, seeing one new ingredient after another like this,” Myme said, looking overcome with joy.

“Okay, how about we try to make a stew using this fruit wine in the time we have left? It could be useful as a flavoring for soups too,” I said.

With that, we split off into separate groups and started sharing ideas.

As he glanced around, Dora suddenly sighed. “So you study cooking every single day like this? It makes sense now, how you can all make such delicious food.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Normally, we’re busy with the day’s work and can’t spend quite this much time on our studies, though. But now that we’re making so much money from our business in the post town, we can afford to spend some of our time on this.”

“Yeah! My dad is supporting us just fine, so I’m able to make time to study my cooking too!” Myme said with an innocent smile, but it didn’t seem all that straightforward to me. Of course Mikel was supporting them financially, but while he was out, Myme must have been taking care of all the housework on her own. Not just the cooking, but the cleaning, the laundry, and the shopping for the day, and then using her remaining time to study. It was unavoidable, considering Mikel had lost a lot of movement in the fingers on his right hand.

She was only around ten or so, but she was that passionate about cooking. Rather than the sharp sense of taste she had inherited from her father or the cooking knowledge he had imparted to her, I thought that that was her greatest strength.

“Hey there! Things are sounding pretty lively around here,” a voice suddenly called out from outside. Then, Ludo Ruu peeked his head in through the open kitchen door.

“Ah, it’s Ludo Ruu!” Tara exclaimed, starting to step forward only to freeze in place. There was a massive black shape behind the young hunter.

“You sure are back early.”

“Yeah, we actually caught a giba in a trap for the first time in a while. We decided to carry it back in a rush so the mundt wouldn’t get at it.”

“You caught a giba?” Dora questioned with a stiff expression as he walked over to Ludo Ruu. Yumi followed after him, her eyes sparkling with curiosity, along with a timid-looking Tara and Telia Mas, who had a serious expression on her face.

Ludo Ruu and Shin Ruu were carrying a grigee pole with a giba that must’ve been around a hundred kilos or so tied to it. I couldn’t spot any wounds on the carcass aside from the bloody mark along its throat. They must have succeeded in bloodletting it.

At that, Dora gave an oddly heavy sigh. “This certainly is quite the fine giba... It’s a size bigger than the ones that we’ve caught in our traps.”

“Wooow, this is my first time seeing a giba ever! Amazing! So this thing turns into that delicious meat?” Yumi chimed in, filled with admiration.

Besides Dora, who had caught some in the traps around his field, this was probably the first time any of our guests had seen one. As they stared at the massive giba, Yumi seemed impressed, Tara seemed to be intimidated, and Telia Mas had her arms wrapped around herself.

“You wouldn’t stand a chance if you got stabbed by tusks this thick! Hey, so did you guys catch it?”

“Hmm? We just lifted it up from where it was caught in a pitfall and slit its throat, so it’s not like a big achievement for any of us. Actually, who are you anyway?”

“Huh?! We’ve met lots of times when you guys were guarding Asuta! Not that we’ve ever been properly introduced, though,” Yumi retorted, clearly displeased.

“Hmm...” Ludo Ruu thought with a light tilt of his head. “Well, whatever. We’ll have to put off skinning this guy so we can head back out into the forest. I’m gonna be there at the Fa house for dinner, so we can save introductions for then.”

“You’re going into the forest again after catching one this big?”

“Yeah, since there will be fewer giba around here soon. We’ve got to hunt them while we still can.”

Dora sighed again. “Please take care while you’re doing your work. I’ll be praying to the western god that you return safely.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Ludo Ruu still seemed to be more or less in hunter mode. Though his eyes weren’t blazing, he looked even tougher than usual.

With that, Shin and Ludo Ruu silently disappeared into the butchering room. Meanwhile, another huge figure appeared from beyond the building. Instantly, Yumi shrieked, “Aah!” and for some reason started clinging to me. “I-I-It’s him! What’s he doing here?!”

It was Mida, carrying another giba in the hundred-kilo range all on his own. I could hear him breathing heavily as he slowly approached.

“Well, Mida was judged for his crimes too and is living as a member of the Ruu clan. He won’t do anything violent anymore, so don’t worry.”

In recent years, it had been less Zattsu Suun and his ilk and more Mida and Doddo who directly terrorized the post town. Although Mida was only fourteen, he was just under two meters tall and so large that I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to his weight, making him feel almost more than human. Having run into him before at the stalls, Yumi didn’t let go of me even after I offered that explanation.

“Asuta, I messed up the bloodletting...” Mida said, talking to me just the same as always. “And the horns flew off somewhere too. I did bad...”

At that point, Mida slowly turned to the side, prompting Yumi to hug me even tighter. Not just the horns, but half of the giba’s entire head was missing.

“Y-You finished it off, Mida? Considering you weren’t using giba summoning fruit, that sure is amazing.”

“Yeah... But I failed with the bloodletting, so you can’t sell it, right?”

“What’s most important is hunting as many giba as you can, isn’t it? Worrying about the meat and horns is like putting the cart before the totos. You did a fine job, Mida.”

“Really?”

After stopping for a bit, Mida’s cheeks suddenly started trembling. Though I figured that was because he was happy, Yumi just hugged my torso ever tighter still.

“Hey, Mida! We’re heading back into the forest once we get these guys hung up, so hurry and finish your part of the job!” Ludo Ruu called out.

At that, Mida quietly said, “Goodbye...” and then disappeared into the butchering room.

“Ugh. That caught me off guard. I got a little weak in the knees there. Sorry, Asuta, but can I lean on you for a bit longer?”

“Y-Yeah, but could you hurry up and recover faster?”

Telia Mas had remained silent for a while, but now she approached us. “Asuta, you said he was judged, but just what sort of crime did that man of the forest’s edge commit, and what punishment did he receive?”

“Who, Mida? He was a part of the main Suun house that was responsible for all those awful crimes, so he had to cut all ties with his family and had his clan name taken from him. If he keeps living properly, some day he’ll be granted the Ruu name, but until then he won’t be allowed to marry.”

“I see...”

“Oh, and he’s much younger than he looks, so he had nothing to do with the crimes of the previous head of the Suun whatsoever. He did pillage the fruits of Morga and supposedly smashed some stalls in the post town, but nobody ever taught him those things were wrong, and Cyclaeus dismissed any crimes the Suun committed. That’s why the people of the forest’s edge feel that if he lives properly from now on, he can atone for everything he’s done.”

Telia Mas gave a small nod and closed her eyes.

“I see. The people of the forest’s edge are even stricter on their relatives than the townsfolk are, if they’ll even punish someone so young that had nothing to do with the most serious of those crimes,” Dora interjected, as if trying to smooth things over.

“Yeah...” Telia Mas said quietly, opening her eyes. “My feelings are still so jumbled that I’m not sure I can find the words to express myself properly... But I really am glad I came here to the settlement at the forest’s edge.”

Having said that, Telia Mas gave a fleeting, yet very definite smile.