Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 22 - Chapter 3.3

3

“We decided to bring in a number of outside chefs for today in order to treat everyone from the forest’s edge. Hopefully the meal will be to your liking, dear guests,” Luidross stated, noticeably having trouble retaking the reins of the conversation. In the meantime, several pages started laying out food and wine atop the table. “For drinks, we have not just mamaria wine, but also nyatta sparkling wine and spirits, and even medicinal drinks from Sym. Why not give them a taste to compare?”

“No, fruit wine will be enough for me,” Jiza Ruu responded.

“Well then, I hope you will at least enjoy the way our own head chef personally cut the drinks with additional fruit. For those of you who do not partake in alcohol, we have arow tea as well.”

All of us from the forest’s edge, aside from Jiza, Shin, and Sheera Ruu, soon had a cup of hot tea that gave off a pleasant raspberry smell placed in front of us. The scent was that of arow—a type of berry.

“Well then, a toast to an even brighter future that we hope to share with the people of the forest’s edge,” Luidross called out, and everyone raised their cups. Then, as we were placing them back on the table, an appetizer was laid out in front of everyone.

“Oh? What sort of dish is this?” Luidross asked.

“It is maroll meat dressed with hoboi sauce,” one of the pages said in response to his question, since the chefs were holed up in the kitchen.

It was what you might call an hors d’oeuvre. Each of the pretty plates made of white ceramic had a bit of maroll on them, slathered in a pale brown paste—maroll being a type of large shrimp-like crustacean with a sweet taste. The only ones you could get in Genos were dried goods delivered from the capital, so these must have been rehydrated and then boiled. Their flesh—which was white with a touch of faint pink—had been separated into small pieces and topped with a paste made from the sesame-seed-like hoboi.

After giving our respective premeal chants, I brought some to my mouth and found that tau oil and sugar seemed to have been used in the hoboi paste, giving it an exquisite balance of saltiness and sweetness. As for the maroll, it had such a moist and chewy texture to it that it was hard to imagine it had previously been dried meat. It was packed with the umami of dried fish and overflowing with seafoody flavor.

Personally, I had no issues with it as an appetizer, and since the taste wasn’t overly complicated, nobody from the forest’s edge had any trouble eating it either. In fact, I even noticed that Ludo Ruu was really wolfing it down.

“Normally, we would be served a series of five dishes in a particular order at this point, but from what I understand, you have no custom of eating meals in this manner at the forest’s edge. Because of that, we were planning on bringing everything out at once now, but what do you all say?”

“We shall follow the wishes of the master of the house,” Jiza Ruu replied. Luidross gave him a nod, and then signaled the pages.

The next things to be brought out were the soup and fuwano dishes. The soup was a seafood dish with a spicy aroma, while the fuwano dish was a sandwich with a variety of ingredients between pieces of fuwano bread cut into squares. Also, the fuwano they used was the black variety from Banarm.

“This dish also has a wonderful smell,” Toor Deen whispered into my ear. And I had to agree with her. The aroma it was giving off was fantastic. It was definitely spicy, but not to the point that the people of the forest’s edge would find it unpleasant. It was a scent that was sure to stir up one’s appetite.

“My, this is quite tasty. You give it a try too, Odifia,” Eulifia urged with an elegant smile, finally speaking up after remaining silent this whole time.

However, her young daughter just said, “I hate spicy things,” and turned away.

“It shouldn’t be too hot, even for you. They must have chosen this recipe with the young children who were going to be here in mind.”

Curious to taste it for myself, I slurped a bit of the reddish soup and found it indeed had a mellow flavor with just the right amount of a kick to it. It must have used either chitt seeds or those ira leaves we had tried out a few days back. Its spiciness was similar to that of chili peppers. Odifia and the people of the forest’s edge would be perfectly capable of enjoying it without having their tongues hurt too much.

The solid ingredients included pepe and nanaar, which were like garlic chives and spinach respectively, as well as soybean-like tau beans. The fish might have been the char-like rillione I had once used. It was a white meat with excellent flavor.

The pepe and nanaar lent some green to the red soup, and the well-boiled tau beans were nice and soft. And was the broth made from seaweed, perhaps? The level of spiciness was just right and it had a refreshing flavor that lingered on my tongue, making for a dish that tasted ever better than it smelled.

“What do you think?” Luidross asked.

Jiza Ruu politely replied, “I believe it is good. However, I am not well suited to judging the quality of dishes that don’t use any giba. If you want to hear what we think about the flavor, our chefs would be able to respond more meaningfully.”

“It’s quite delicious. This flavor seems like it goes better with fish than it would with giba too, right?” Reina Ruu quietly chimed in, and Sheera Ruu nodded along.

Then Polarth turned to look at me. “What do you think, Sir Asuta? You are quite knowledgeable even about dishes that do not use giba, correct?”

“Yes, it’s really good. It’s spicy, but still easy to eat. It was chosen out of consideration for not only Lady Odifia, but also the people of the forest’s edge, wasn’t it?”

Odifia and the people of the forest’s edge were both slurping down the soup at a steady pace. Its perfect level of spiciness must have been working up their appetites too.

And the fuwano dish was every bit as good. The fillings included scrambled eggs, thin slices of bamboo shoot-like chamcham, crushed ramanpa nuts, and that sweet cinnamon-like herb. The chamcham had been heated through just enough, leaving it with a fantastic texture. Also, the whites of the scrambled eggs were just a bit transparent, so they seemed to have come from totos rather than kimyuus.

As for the bread, since it used black fuwano, it had a very crisp texture. They might have also added karon milk to the dough, as I could sense a faint sweetness that formed a delicate harmony with the fillings. I thought the black fuwano sandwich paired fantastically with the flavor of the soup.

The black fuwano sandwich didn’t contain any added sugar and only had a light sweetness to it, whereas the seafood soup was mildly spicy and had abundant umami. The two dishes complemented each other very well. They were a fantastic match, and it felt like they felt like they were only truly complete because they were being served together.

“This really is fantastic. Yang tends to use this herb a lot. Is he the one in charge of the kitchen?”

Polarth was the one who answered. “No. I’m loath to say it, but Yang does not possess the skills needed to compete with this house’s head chef. Sir Luidross is much more discerning when it comes to good food than my father, after all,” he said with a rather formal expression on his face. What was probably going unsaid was the fact that the head chef for the house of Saturas would never be passed over in order to bring in the head chef for the house of Daleim under these circumstances. I felt a little embarrassed for having suggested it. I still didn’t have a good grasp of noble formalities. “You people of the forest’s edge will be preparing some dishes after this, correct? The chefs have been looking forward to meeting you in the kitchen.”

“Oh, really?”

The only other fully fledged chefs we had interacted with were the ones who had been at the taste testing the other day, and out of all of them I only knew Timalo and Varkas by name.

The way these dishes were made was very different from Timalo’s methods, and I had already heard that Varkas wasn’t going to be here due to a request from another noble. Even if one of his apprentices had suddenly been added to the team here today, I had no idea what their skills were like.

Well, if I’ll be meeting them later anyway, I suppose there’s no point in trying to guess.

The one thing I could say for certain was that this chef possessed extraordinary skill. That was all that really mattered to me.

“I’ve been told that giba meat is just as good as karon, so I have very much been looking forward to this day, when I will finally be able to taste it,” Luidross calmly interjected. “However, my understanding is that the value of giba meat hasn’t been set in stone yet, so it is still too soon for it to be traded and worked with here in the castle town. And yet, we’ve been waiting for four months now, and the day when it will become available here seems to be nowhere in sight.”

“Well... I believe it to be worth as much as karon torso at the very least, but if the price is set that high, it will become difficult for many in the post town to ever get their hands on it. Karon torso meat has started to find some usage in the post town, though. Once it becomes a reasonably common purchase there, I think at that point it should be no problem to finally set a price for giba meat,” Polarth replied.

“Oh?” Eulifia questioned with a little tilt of her head. “So you’re insisting on prioritizing the citizens of the post town? What is the purpose of doing that and forcing the residents of the castle town to go without?”

“It’s so we don’t antagonize the residents of the post town. Though we have managed to settle matters with the house of Turan once and for all, the actions of the previous head of the house have destroyed much of the trust the people of our lands had in us. If restricting ourselves from buying giba meat for a while lets us avoid angering them, then is that not what we should do?”

“So you’re saying if it becomes impossible to eat giba meat in the post town, a riot could occur? Asuta and his people have certainly gained quite a bit of influence there, haven’t they?” Eulifia remarked with a chuckle, only for Melfried to fix his gray eyes on her.

“Why are you bringing that up again now? You were informed of what Duke Genos—my father and the lord of this land—intended to accomplish with his decision long ago, correct?”

“Well, I thought I understood his reasoning well enough, but upon further consideration, this state of affairs is truly quite astonishing. After all, the people of the post town are permitted to buy any of the ingredients that are available in the castle town, correct? And yet we are forced to refrain from purchasing giba meat.”

“Sir Asuta and the people of the forest’s edge are selling not only giba meat, but meals made with it as well. If the townsfolk become unable to experience that delicious cooking any longer, it very well could lead to a riot,” Polarth explained.

That was something of an exaggeration, but he might have worded it like that to emphasize the importance of not buying up all the giba meat. Actually, since Eulifia had been the one to take the conversation in this direction, had she also been thinking about trying something like that? This noblewoman was not only graceful, but quite determined as well.

“Still, it is not as if Sir Leeheim had ill intentions in trying to purchase giba meat. He simply felt that such business dealings would bring prosperity to the people of the forest’s edge, and that he could earn a fortune for his house at the same time. But I cannot imagine he would be so fixated on the idea that he would invite the animosity of those living in the Saturas lands of all places,” Polarth declared.

However, Leeheim just looked troubled as he glanced around the room. He was likely trying to figure out whether Polarth was being supportive of him or talking down to him. But it was only natural that he would be confused. The peculiar relationship between the nobles, the residents of their lands, and the people of the forest’s edge was a difficult one to fully grasp.

“Er, I actually have a proposal on that front,” I chimed in.

“What is it?” Luidross asked, his benign gaze turning my way.

“You see, we’ve been making giba sausages at the forest’s edge, but since it’s a type of smoked meat, they take a great deal of effort to prepare. Removing the moisture also means the meat loses a lot of weight, and that makes them unaffordable for a lot of folks in the post town, so I’ve been wondering for a while if it would be possible to sell them in the castle town.”

“Hmm? But smoked meat is what travelers and soldiers on the field of battle eat, is it not? Fresh karon meat can be bought from Dabagg, which is just half a day away by totos, so I can’t imagine we’d have any reason to eat such a thing...”

“Yes, but the flavor of the meat condenses when it’s smoked. It also doesn’t get dried out as much as the stuff that soldiers eat, so while it doesn’t last as long, it’s very delicious. I had some folks who really knew their meat give it a try when we traveled to Dabagg, and their reactions were quite positive. Although, some stuff did end up happening that made us decide not to expand our business out there.”

“Yes, that was a most unexpected occurrence. And thinking back on it, that little incident was related to the former head of the house of Turan as well,” Polarth said in an amused tone. And now that he had brought that up, I recalled that it was Melfried who had dispatched an investigatory unit to Dabagg after that.

I then said, “Naturally, it’s important for us to take Duke Genos’s judgment into consideration whenever we think about doing business in the castle town, but I did bring along some sausages for taste testing today. I’d be grateful if everyone would give it a try, to see whether or not it’s suitable to be sold here in the castle town.”

“Oh? You brought a gift in addition to your cooking?”

“Yes. It’s the least I can do as thanks for allowing me to intrude on this banquet between the Ruu clan and the house of Saturas.”

Ai Fa gave a silent nod.

Seeming to have completely recovered by this point, Luidross looked like a true noble again now as he smiled and replied, “That is much appreciated. I consider myself to be rather discerning when it comes to the quality of food, though not to the extent of the previous Count Turan or Duke Genos. I will be sure to give your sausages a proper try in the days to come.”

“Thank you very much.”

“But first, you must enjoy our hospitality. Now then, why don’t we bring out the next dish? We mustn’t keep our guests waiting.”

With that, the pages brought out a good number of plates once again. It was finally time for the vegetable and meat dishes. When one of them was placed before him, Ludo Ruu bluntly asked, “What’s this stuff?”

“It is a vegetable and dried milk dish,” one of the pages rather broadly explained, perhaps because they hadn’t heard the details.

It was a strange dish, square in shape, around ten centimeters on each side and two centimeters deep, colored green and red in a marbled pattern, and partially coated in gooey dried milk. Though we had been told it was made of vegetables, it was impossible to guess which ones just from looking at it.

On the other hand, the meat dish was just simple grilled meat. It was cut flat and sautéed, and then a small amount of deep green sauce had been drizzled on top. It was only accompanied by a crispy bit of thin baked black fuwano.

“This is a grilled gyama dish.”

When we heard that explanation, Toor Deen and I immediately shared a look. As I examined it, I could clearly tell that it wasn’t smoked meat, but rather a sauté prepared with fresh meat. Since Varkas had purchased all the live gyama to be had in this region, the dish must have been prepared by someone with ties to him.

“Gyama meat, you say? This will be my first time eating it as well. I’ve been told that they are wild beasts just like giba, so I wonder what sort of flavor this will have.” Luidross chimed in, sounding honestly impressed. Polarth and Eulifia’s eyes were also sparkling with anticipation.

“Hmm. I like dried milk, but this stuff below it doesn’t even look like food.” Ludo Ruu was the only person to complain, poking the square dish with a metal spoon. The object’s shape collapsed just from that gentle nudge and the young hunter yelped, “Ah! This stuff’s as soft as melted dried milk. Is it really food?”

“Varkas made dishes that didn’t look like food too, right? His vegetable creation in particular took a really bizarre form,” Reina Ruu whispered to calm him down. However, Ludo Ruu just looked even more displeased.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been chosen for guard duty for those events.”

“Oh, right. It was Dan Rutim and the others who were with us that time... Well, still, I’m certain that one of Varkas’s apprentices made this, so you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.” Apparently, Reina Ruu had also arrived at that conclusion with the arrival of the gyama meat. She then went ahead and took a bite of the vegetable dish first, and its taste made her close her eyes and sigh deeply. “It’s certainly unusual... How would you even go about turning vegetables into something like this?”

My curiosity now thoroughly piqued, I went for the vegetable dish first too.

It was soft enough that it offered no resistance to a spoon slicing through it, and the dried milk on top seemed to have some extra milk or something added to it. It was gooey like the dried milk fondue we’d had back in Dabagg, and didn’t seem to be solidifying in the least. And somehow, the square veggie shape underneath was just as mushy as the dried milk.

It’s like a melting jellied broth or something.

I carved off a little bit and brought it to my mouth. The first thing that hit me was the rich flavor of the dried milk, but then I picked up on the tastes of all sorts of vegetables. Among them, I could clearly make out the sourness of tarapa and the bitterness of pula. The rest all had a mild sweetness, and there seemed to be a whole lot of either the carrot-like nenon or the cabbage-like tino.

It’s also got the spinach-like nanaar and zucchini-like chan...and that’s all I can make out. They were all made into a sort of paste, but they weren’t fully blended together, so the flavors remain separated.

It all seemed to be held together with oil from some kind of seafood—I could sense the abundant umami of fish in it.

You could make it a little more solid if you had a refrigerator, but I guess this is the best you could do in a place as hot as Genos. The vegetables must have been made into a paste and partially mixed together, then solidified with fish oil.

It was a really strange dish. However, I wouldn’t quite call it complex. The ingredients were all separate enough to create that marbled surface. Thanks to that, you could clearly pick out the tarapa and the nenon, for example. Furthermore, the flavors of the dried milk and fish were quite strong, giving the taste a clear direction to follow, and the sourness and bitterness were kept to being merely an accent, so it wouldn’t be confusing to one’s tongue.

“Well, I guess I wouldn’t call it bad,” Ludo Ruu remarked as he pulled his plate of meat closer.

Polarth smiled at him. “This meat dish is truly delicious. I wonder if it will be able to satisfy all of you from the forest’s edge as well.”

It smelled prominently of herbs. The green sauce must have had an herbal base. Its overall aroma was fairly spicy, and yet also refreshing.

Using a knife and fork, I cut into the meat. It seemed to be neither especially tough nor tender. However, I saw hardly any red or fatty meat.

The smoked gyama meat I’ve had has always been pretty fatty, so maybe it’s a different cut. Could this be from a thigh or something?

When I brought the slice to my mouth, I found it had just the right amount of chewiness. Though it wasn’t fatty, it was moist and had excellent texture. Its flavor was pretty unusual, but the herb sauce alleviated that aspect. The herb in question, by the way, had a stinging pepper-like flavor.

It was definitely very different from pork or beef. Gyama looked similar to goats, so was their meat similar too? Unfortunately, I had never tasted goat meat, so I couldn’t compare them.

I’ve been told that chitt seeds are essential to have when you’re preparing the meat of gyama raised in the mountains due to the stench it picks up, but this one must have been raised on the plains. It’s a fairly distinctive meat, but it isn’t difficult to eat at all.

In summary, it was delicious. Of course, I tended to enjoy unusual meats, so it probably made sense that I’d find gyama more satisfying than karon.

“Yeah, this is just plain tasty,” Ludo Ruu said, wearing a look of satisfaction. Ai Fa, Jiza Ruu, and Shin Ruu didn’t look particularly displeased as they ate it either.

As I was mentally taking note of that, though, Ai Fa leaned in close to me and asked, “Asuta, this meat comes from the animals we saw before at that manor, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“It isn’t bad. Or at the very least, I feel like it’s more filling than the meat of those karon and kimyuus beasts.”

Perhaps that was because of the difference between livestock and wild game. Of course, I didn’t know for sure whether those gyama were wild beasts or domesticated, but thinking of it that way made the most sense to me. And maybe this was another hint about how the ancestors of the people of the forest’s edge might have come from Sym.

At any rate, I was glad the meat was to their tastes. Honestly, I never expected that there would be food in the castle town that the people of the forest’s edge would enjoy without any reservations, not even in my wildest dreams. Our chefs were one thing, with inquisitive spirits sometimes being able to overpower their personal preferences, but seeing the hunters eating it without any problems, when they had shown no interest whatsoever in anything but giba meat up until now, that felt downright miraculous.

“Oh, and this weird vegetable stuff might not be half bad either, if you have it together with the meat. And it was really good idea for them to have this fuwano bread on the side too,” Ludo Ruu said, offering his full assessment.

Luidross nodded in satisfaction as he watched his guests enjoying themselves. “Well then, last up is dessert. I hope that you’ll enjoy this part of the meal just as much as the rest of them.”

The dessert we were wrapping things up with unsurprisingly also used black fuwano. It had been made into flat pieces of bread and had thin slices of a pink fruit placed on top. That was minmi fruit, which was similar to peaches. They must have been baked in an oven or something along with the black fuwano, judging from how they were glistening and giving off even more of their sweet aroma than usual.

I didn’t have anything to complain about with this dessert either. It had a light sweetness and its flavor was excellent. The light texture from the black fuwano was also quite pleasant. On top of that, the bread had a sesame-seed-like accent to its taste, which must have come from the hoboi seeds that had also been used in the entree. They had probably been ground into a paste and then kneaded into the dough. The surface of the bread had a thin layer of panam honey smeared on top, but the sweetness from the minmi fruit was the focus of the dish.

“My father, the leading clan head Donda Ruu, told me not to have high expectations for the cooking of the castle town. That no matter how fine the dishes you prepare may be, our tongues are unable to appreciate them as you do. But if nothing else, I can confidently say that not a single one of the dishes presented today was bad,” Jiza Ruu declared.

“Oh?” Polarth said with a small start. “That’s quite a surprise. It’s true that the leading clan heads of the forest’s edge have often frowned when partaking of the castle town’s cuisine, and I even recall them looking displeased with some of the giba dishes Sir Asuta prepared for our consumption.” He might have been referring to how Dari Sauti had been displeased with my cutlets fried in reten oil. If so, then he really was remarkably perceptive. “Sir Jiza Ruu, and also Sir Shin Ruu, is this not essentially your first time eating food from the castle town? In which case, this cannot even be chalked up to you growing accustomed to the cooking we serve here... You must have strong compatibility with the chef.”

“That’s true. From my perspective, I don’t believe Timalo’s cooking, which the leading clan heads once ate, was significantly inferior to this,” Eulifia agreed, sounding amused. Meanwhile, her young daughter was tugging at the hem of her elegant dress.

“Hey, is it still not time for Toor Deen’s sweet?”

“Hmm? Ah, yes. We’ll get to enjoy one of your desserts today, will we not, Toor Deen?”

“Uh, yeah...” Toor Deen replied with a nod while shrinking up.

Luidross glanced over at her, twisted his mustache, and remarked, “Hmm... In that case, I suppose it is at last time to sample the giba cooking of the forest’s edge. My deepest apologies to all of you chefs for making you rush off.”

“Not at all. This is our job,” Reina Ruu said with a nod, rising from her chair, and the rest of us followed suit.

Ai Fa was the only guard who would be accompanying us to the kitchen. As for Sufira Zaza, she looked a bit torn but ultimately decided to remain at the table. As we exited the banquet hall, I glanced at Leeheim and Leiriss out of the corner of my eye, but the two of them were just sitting quietly, pecking away at the remainder of their food.

“Today’s dishes were all simply wonderful. I felt surprised in a completely different way than when I had Varkas’s cooking,” Sheera Ruu whispered as a page led us down the hallway. “Varkas’s dishes left me feeling quite confused, but today’s were, how should I put it...? I felt like they were giving me a sense of relief as I ate them.”

“I feel the same way. It must have been one of Varkas’s apprentices who prepared it, but which one was it?” I replied.

“Doesn’t it have to be that old man, Tatumai? He seemed to be in charge of the apprentices,” Sheera Ruu asked.

“I think it was the southerner, Bozl. He’s always been quite friendly toward us people of the forest’s edge, so don’t you think he ought to be able to discern our preferences?” Reina Ruu said.

However, both of them turned out to be wrong.

We didn’t have to walk for much longer before we arrived at a door to a kitchen, and when it swung open we found a young man and woman awaiting us there... Shilly Rou and Roy.

“Oh, so it was you two who cooked everything for us?” I called out, as Reina Ruu had been left at a loss for words. Shilly Rou had already removed her white mask, and was looking our way with a chilly gaze. “Varkas had a different job to take care of today, right? Is it okay that you’re not helping out with that?”

“We were helping with that earlier, until the lower third hour. Beyond that point, we were no longer needed, so Varkas ordered us to accept this job at the Saturas manor,” Shilly Rou replied, sounding quite displeased as she did so.

Roy shrugged, standing next to her. “I was just an assistant, of course. But I managed to earn my first pay since I started working under Varkas... Shilly Rou’s cooking was good, right?”

“Yes, it was delicious. Even the men of the forest’s edge offered no complaints, and they usually only ever show interest in giba meat.”

“Well, of course. We made sure to pair things with the people of the forest’s edge in mind,” Roy said, showing me a grin for the first time in a while. “I told Shilly Rou everything I knew about your tastes. The vegetable dish wasn’t an issue, was it?”

“Well, some people thought it was kinda dubious at first, but everyone ate it in the end.”

“Glad to hear it. That dish has a rather strange texture, so that was the one thing I was concerned about.”

Roy was smiling at us dauntlessly, but Shilly Rou remained silent.

After looking both of them over, Reina Ruu finally spoke up. “So, you gave her information on which sort of dishes to prepare? You’ve become that familiar with the tastes of the people of the forest’s edge?”

“Huh? Yeah, at least somewhat. I heard all your comments about Timalo’s cooking, after all. And I’ve tasted the food you serve plenty of times too, so I do have some idea of what you like.”

“I see...” Reina Ruu replied, casting her gaze downward. I saw a bit of frustration on her face for some reason.

“So it’s your turn next, right? If you have any extra food to spare, could we have some too? I mean, we did treat you to gyama meat, after all.”

Perhaps Roy was feeling a bit lighter after having opened up to Reina Ruu the other day and getting some of the load off his chest. I felt a little bad for Reina Ruu, but seeing him smiling again after so long made me feel warm inside.