This takes place during the time when the Soot Pencils were drying.
With Turi having started work, it was finally my turn to handle the cooking.
However, with my inability to hold a kitchen knife properly or use fire well, there was no way I could handle the entire process on my own yet. I could only help within my limited abilities, so I ended up cooking together with my mother.
Since we had the opportunity, I wanted to get creative and try making Japanese Food.
My modern knowledge is about to set the world on fire! …That's what I wanted to say, but I couldn't actually deliver.
Because I was helpless right from the start.
I missed Japanese Food, but there was no rice. No miso. No soy sauce. Naturally, no mirin or sake either. Without any seasonings, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't even imagine pulling it off.
Look, I do know how to make miso and soy sauce, at least in theory. I know the ingredients too, right? Soybeans, koji, and salt?
I even learned the process. In elementary school, I went on a field trip to a miso factory, and I actually paid attention to the corner showing how they used to make it in the old days.
But where would I find soybeans and koji in this world?
Even if beans could possibly be substituted with some other kind of legume, where on earth would I buy koji?
Making koji from scratch using things found in nature was just too scary to attempt. Koji is mold, after all. If I failed even slightly, the whole family could end up with food poisoning.
Even if I somehow had koji, fermenting in that mold-riddled house of ours was terrifying. It would stink too, so I'd surely get thrown out before it was even finished.
I gave up on making my own seasonings and racked my brain trying to think of Japanese Food that didn't require any seasonings.
What about sashimi?
There was no soy sauce, but wouldn't it taste good with just salt and citrus juice?
But it turned out the sea was apparently quite far away. Even when I went to the Market, there were no fresh saltwater fish. No wakame or seaweed either.
Forget sashimi — I couldn't even make a seaweed salad.
No seafood meant no kombu, no dried shrimp, no bonito flakes. I wanted to make Japanese Food but couldn't even make dashi. That was truly the fatal blow.
I wasn't asking for instant dashi powder. Just give me some kombu and bonito flakes, please.
Even a cucumber-like vinegared dish was impossible without soy sauce, I wasn't allowed to use sugar, and all we had was wine vinegar. The flavor was so different that I couldn't enjoy it at all.
I tried making it anyway, but the sourness was overwhelming, and it turned out completely different from the vinegared dish I had in mind.
I was so frustrated at my total inability that I just salted and massaged the cucumber-like vegetable — something even I as a child could handle — and ate it plain.
With the salt drawing out some moisture, the slightly wilted cucumber-like thing took on just the right saltiness and started to resemble pickles a little. I thought I could feel satisfied eating something that was at least Japanese Food-like, but instead, I ended up crying from how desperately I missed white rice.
For the record, the multigrain bread and the salt-massaged cucumber-like vegetable didn't pair well at all — they gave off strong "this isn't right" vibes.
Rice, rice, Japanese Food! Someone give me Japanese Food! Please bless me with Japanese Food!
Because the cucumber-like vegetable made me crave Japanese Food so badly, I came up with the idea of fishing for something in the river and making something Japanese Food-like on my own.
Since I couldn't use fire, my only option was to dry the fish. I'd catch fish in the river and try making dried fish. If I brought salt, sprinkled it on, and dried them, it might work out. …I really hoped it would.
"Hey,
"I don't think you'd be able to, Mine."
Just as Lutz predicted, the result was a crushing defeat.
Fishing itself was incredibly difficult.
As I stood there looking dejected, Lutz brought over the fish he had caught.
"See, I caught some, but what are we supposed to do with these?"
"Can I have them?"
"Sure. I don't need stuff like this."
"Lutz. Lutz, can you start a fire? I want to try making these salt-grilled."
I couldn't hold back any longer and tried salt-grilling the fish Lutz caught, like it was ayu.
So stinky!
So bitter!
So awful!
I took one bite and immediately grimaced. Something was wrong. It had a muddy, unappealing taste completely different from what I'd expected.
Why was it so stinky?
I was searching my memory and tilting my head, wondering if I'd grilled it wrong, when Lutz furrowed his brow.
"If you don't prepare it properly, of course it'll smell, eating it like that."
"…It stinks."
This fish stinks. I wished he'd told me that sooner.
I took the second fish and filleted it with a knife. Japanese kitchen knives worked differently, so it came out a bit ragged, but the taste shouldn't be affected.
I skewered it on a whittled stick and hung it up to dry. Maybe dried fish would work out.
I left it out in the sun to dry and went to gather firewood, and when I came back, it had become rock hard and completely inedible. It seemed all the moisture had evaporated.
"Mine, what is this?"
"…Over-dried dried fish. It's not really edible as dried fish anymore."
"Yeah. It doesn't even look like food."
"But it might still work for dashi. Let me take it home and try."
Even if it was inedible as dried fish, it might still extract a decent stock.
I brought the rock-hard dried fish home and tried to use it to make dashi.
"Mine, what is that!? It's disgusting! Please stop trying to put that in the pot!"
"Um, Mother. I want to use it to make stock."
"No! Only food goes into my pot!"
…Technically it is food, though.
My mother firmly rejected my proposal to use it as stock, disgusted by the dried fish.
Maybe it was because we didn't see fish very often in our daily lives, and a desiccated, split-open fish just looked too disturbing to her. She'd called half a pig's head "delicious-looking," after all.
I'm sorry, Mr. Fish.
Conclusion: I cannot make Japanese Food.
Without dashi and with absolutely no seasonings, there was nothing I could do.
Once I gave up on miso, soy sauce, sake, and mirin, Japanese Food was this impossible. I truly understood now just how important seasonings were.
For the time being, I'd think about how to use what was currently available to at least make things taste a little more like Japanese Food, or at least closer to the flavors I remembered from
That would be more meaningful. Yes.
And then, quite unexpectedly, we received a whole bird today. A neighbor had apparently hunted about five in the forest. Eating them all before they spoiled was difficult this time of year, so they wanted to return the favor since Father had shared when he'd once brought back too many.
It was Mother who prepared the bird whose name I didn't even know. The knife for cutting meat was too heavy for either Turi or me to use.
"Mine. Here, pluck the feathers off this one."
"O-okay…"
I gripped the limp, lifeless bird's feathers and pulled. The popping sensation as the feathers came out sent goosebumps crawling across my skin.
I told myself there was no other way if I wanted to eat, and plucked away through tears. It would probably still take time before I could handle this as a simple repetitive task.
But I had made progress — now I could stand there while the guts were scooped out without fainting or running away.
"Alright, Mine. Time to cook."
"Got it."
Since we had it, I planned to make chicken stock with the bones. Having chicken broth would open up a whole new range of dishes.
We didn't have kombu or bonito flakes, but what about combining it with stock from dried mushrooms as a stand-in for dried shiitake?
But making chicken broth turned out to be a huge challenge. Mother didn't understand the concept, so at first she wouldn't help at all. Apparently the proper way was to grill the bones and eat them right up to the very edge.
I explained that I was the one in charge of cooking today and managed to convince her to at least chop the bones into pieces. After that, I had to manage on my own.
I kept throwing water, chicken bones, chicken breast, and herbs into the largest pot. Even though they looked different, I picked things that had similar smells, flavors, or uses.
Something that smelled like green onion, something that tasted like ginger, something that smelled like garlic, bay-leaf-like leaves — basically, I started tossing in every herb I knew was used for removing gamey odors.
"Mine! Stop right there!"
"Huh?"
"That's too much for you to handle! It's dangerous!"
When I tried to cut the white radish-like vegetable — the leafy part that tasted like garlic — with a knife, Mother snatched it away from me.
As if terrified I'd somehow let it escape, she gripped the leafy part firmly and placed it on the cutting board.
The moment Mother glared at the white radish and sliced it in half with her kitchen knife, I heard what sounded like a scream — from the white radish.
"Huh? What?"
I blinked, wondering if I was hearing things, and Mother released the leaves. Then she turned the kitchen knife on its side and smacked down — Bam! — the same motion you'd use to crush garlic.
I'd been about to thank her for being faster than my painstaking mincing, but then the white radish that emerged from under the knife had somehow turned into a red radish. It was stained red as if blood were seeping out, and it was terrifying.
"There, all done. Make sure to wash it properly before using it."
"…Okay."
Was the radish actually less scary than Mother? That must have been my eyes playing tricks on me. Yes, tricks. I decided to go with that.
In this world, there were occasionally strange ingredients that looked somewhat like vegetables I knew but that I couldn't identify. Whenever I encountered these odd vegetables, I was reminded with a jolt that this was truly not the world I came from.
There were a few hiccups, but once I added the herbs for removing gamey odors, the only thing I had to worry about was skimming the scum.
I'd heard that after the first boil, you should dump all the water and start fresh, but the soup had never tasted bad when I skipped that step. It sounded like a hassle, so I just kept it simmering on low heat.
After it came to a boil, I pulled out the breast meat at the right moment. A quick rinse in cold water, then I shredded it and set it aside to put on the salad — it was delicious that way.
While the soup simmered, I prepped the other parts of the meat. I cut the easily spoiled parts — like the heart and the gizzard — into bite-sized pieces, sprinkled them with salt and sake, and set them aside. These would be simply grilled with salt. That was apparently the cooking method the family found most acceptable.
The word "charcoal grill" flickered through my mind for a moment, but I had other prep work to do, so I gave it up.
Today's menu was the organ meats and thigh meat. Mother was going to take the thigh meat and make an impressive roast chicken, so I was forbidden from touching it.
I seasoned the breast meat with salt and sake and put it in the Winter Preparations room. This was for tomorrow's cooking.
If I had a refrigerator and sealable plastic bags here, I would have made chicken ham, but I couldn't do that here. What a shame. A real pity.
"…Smells good, doesn't it?"
"It's going to taste even better once it's done."
As the smell of the broth began to fill the air, Mother, who had been keeping her distance looking uneasy, slowly crept closer and closer to the pot.
Since chicken broth just required patient simmering, I focused only on skimming the scum and began slowly chopping vegetables.
Everything took longer with this small body, so there was no harm in starting early.
This was my first attempt at the "Let's Eat Something Japanese Food-like" plan: hot pot. If I had stock, couldn't I make a hot pot?
I couldn't make my usual stock, but this time I had chicken broth.
I didn't have ponzu or sesame sauce, so I planned to season it with pomes — the yellow, bell-pepper-looking things that actually tasted like tomatoes — and herbs, simmering it all into something like a tomato-based hot pot.
For the pome hot pot, I decided to use the drumettes, which Mother said were mostly bone and hard to use. I also chopped up whatever seasonal vegetables I could identify by sight. The beauty of hot pot was that once you simmered everything, it generally tasted good no matter what.
"Oh, it should be about ready. Mother, can you help me?"
I set a strainer over the second-largest pot and called Mother over.
"What do you need me to do?"
"I need you to pour the broth through the strainer like this. I want to strain out the bits we don't need."
"…So we're not eating this part after all?"
Mother looked visibly relieved as she strained the chicken broth through the strainer for me.
I scrubbed the large pot clean and poured the strained broth in. The second-largest pot was used frequently, so storing stock in it would be in the way. Plus, the pome hot pot I was about to make would also need the second-largest pot.
I added chopped dried mushrooms — a stand-in for dried shiitake — to the finished broth and began making the pome hot pot. While the drumettes simmered, I picked meat off the chicken bones I'd strained earlier and added it to the pot.
The bones were sharp, so I had to be careful not to cut my fingers and to make sure no bones remained in the meat. I picked at the meat bit by bit.
The delicious smell of Mother's roast chicken began to waft over, so I timed my own cooking and added vegetables to the pot.
"Mine! What are you doing!?"
"…Just putting in vegetables?"
"They need to be blanched properly first!"
Except for removing bitterness, if you boiled vegetables until they were limp in a separate pot, dumped out all the cooking water, and then only used the boiled vegetables in your dish, the flavor would be halved. A lot of the nutrients would leach out too.
I had no complaints about Mother's cooking, but it was a problem when she tried to force the same methods on me.
"This dish is fine like this."
"But it'll ruin a perfectly good meal!"
"It'll be fine."
As long as I skimmed the scum while it simmered, the pome hot pot would be done.
I tasted a little and it was good. No need to pre-blanch the vegetables. Yep.
"I'm home. Ah, so this is where the smell was coming from."
"Welcome home, Turi. What's wrong?"
"There was this really good smell coming from the direction of the main road, and I got super hungry just walking toward it. People on the street were sniffing around trying to figure out where the smell was coming from. Nobody thought it was coming from our house."
It must have been like passing by a Chinese restaurant or a ramen shop — the kind of smell that made you want to eat immediately. Chicken broth was quite powerful.
"I'm home. Oh, so it was our house after all."
Father, who'd been on the day shift, also returned. Apparently the chicken broth smell had spread over quite a wide area. He sat down at the table with a face full of anticipation.
The whole family was assembled at just the right time for dinner.
"I received a bird from Al today. It was a return gift because you shared some with him before. Mine and I cooked it together."
"So this unfamiliar dish is something Mine made?"
"That's right."
In the center of the table sat Mother's roast chicken made from the thigh meat, and beside it, a salad topped with shredded breast meat. Next to Father were the grilled organ meats arranged as snacks, and the pome hot pot was ladled into individual bowls. Once laid out like this, it didn't even look like a hot pot anymore — just pome soup.
"What's this? It smells amazing. Can I eat it?"
"It's pome soup. I worked hard to make chicken broth, so it should be delicious. Try it."
When I said that, Turi, who had already been leaning in close to the soup, her eyes sparkling, grabbed a spoon.
"Wow, it's delicious! Why is it so good?"
"My, it really is. I was shocked when I saw you just throwing in chicken bones and unwashed vegetables, but this is actually tasty."
Mother took a bite too, and said so in a genuinely impressed tone. For her, who knew the cooking process, it must have been a ball of anxiety that couldn't possibly taste good.
"You're amazing, Mine. You've got a real talent for cooking."
Father was delighted, devouring the food at an incredible pace.
I tried the pome soup myself. The chicken broth had developed a really wonderful flavor, and the umami from the vegetables came through beautifully. It was delicious.
But delicious as it was, it wasn't Japanese Food.
The next day, I finished the firewood gathering in the forest early and came home. The younger children had to travel in groups both going and coming back, but Turi, who had completed her
Since I wanted to use the leftover chicken, today's cooking duty wasn't just Turi's — I was joining in.
This was the second attempt at my "Let's Eat Something Japanese Food-like" plan: chicken steamed in sake. The idea was that if it was sake, even if it wasn't Japanese sake, maybe it would give a similar feel.
"Using the leftover meat means you've already decided what to make?"
"I'm planning chicken 'sake-steamed,' gnocchi, and salad. What do you think?"
"Hmm, I don't really get it, so I'll leave it to you, Mine."
First up was making gnocchi.
I boiled potatoes, mashed them, and mixed in a little salt and multigrain flour. It was multigrain flour — the kind used by citizens who couldn't easily afford wheat flour. It was mostly rye, barley, and oat.
I rolled the dough, about as firm as an earlobe, into round, rope-like shapes and cut them into roughly one-centimeter pieces.
"I cut the dough with the knife — can you stretch each piece out like this?"
"Okay."
I watched Turi nod vigorously after seeing me struggle a little as I pressed the dough onto the back of a fork and rubbed it with my thumb to shape it.
The fork tines left a ridged pattern on the surface of the dough, while the underside got a concave shape from the thumb, which helped the sauce cling better.
I cut the dough and Turi stretched the pieces one after another. She was faster than me and had more strength, so the shapes came out more uniform.
"Turi, you're better at this than I am."
"Really? …Mine, stop watching me and keep cutting. We're running out of dough, you know?"
Turi boiled water for me, and once it was at a rolling boil, I cooked the gnocchi. When they floated to the surface, they were done.
I made a concentrated pome sauce by taking yesterday's leftover pome soup and adding more pomes, reducing it down. Since I'd toss the gnocchi in right before eating, this was as far as I could go for now.
"This should be about right for now? The salad won't take long either…"
"Mother should be home soon, so maybe we should start on the salad?"
While Turi and I worked on the salad, Mother came home from work.
When I spotted Mother, I went to the Winter Preparations room and retrieved the breast meat I'd prepped the day before, ready to start the sake-steamed chicken.
Even though it had been sitting on the cold stone of a cool room, I was still nervous about it this time of year. I gave it a cautious sniff.
…Okay, not spoiled. We're fine.
"Mine, is this iron pot okay?"
"Yep. Thanks, Turi. I seasoned it with salt and sake yesterday, so it'll cook quickly."
It would have been nice to have pepper for the marinade, but that was something I just had to give up on.
The method was simple. Sear the skin side of the salt-and-sake-marinated breast meat until it got some color, flip it over, pour in sake, and cover with a lid.
Since we had the opportunity, I decided to add some mushrooms I'd gathered in the forest today to give it extra flavor. When I was about to wash and cut the mushrooms with a knife, Turi's eyes went wide.
"Mine, don't! You have to roast those mushrooms over fire first or they'll dance!"
"Huh?"
Before I could process this, Turi skewered every single mushroom stem and began roasting them over the stove flame, sprinkling salt as she went.
Dance? The mushrooms? Like bonito flakes swaying in steam? I had no idea what that meant.
Tilting my head in confusion about the dancing mushrooms, I watched Turi hold out the roasted, slightly browned mushrooms to me.
"Now they're safe."
"Oh, thanks…"
I thought it was a strange expression, but if they were safe now, that was fine. This must be one of those mysterious ingredients. Apparently, one had to be wary of certain mushrooms at first glance.
Being careful not to burn myself on the hot mushrooms, I sliced them up.
"Mother, which sake is okay to use for cooking? If I skimp on the sake, it won't taste good, so I want about half a cup."
"Use this one."
Mother filled a cup about halfway with sake. I climbed up on the stool, reached up as far as I could, and poured it all at once into the iron pot. It hissed — Ssssss! — as the sake hit the hot metal. I covered the pot with a lid, and once it started bubbling vigorously, I removed it from the heat. All that was left was to let the residual heat finish cooking the meat.
"You're taking the pot off the heat already?"
"Yep. The residual heat is more than enough to finish cooking it. If you overcook breast meat, it gets dry and tough."
While the sake-steamed chicken finished cooking, I heated up the pome sauce I'd made from the leftover soup and tossed the gnocchi in to coat them.
Turi's salad was also finished. Just like yesterday, it was topped with shredded breast meat. She'd apparently been very pleased with the breast meat from yesterday.
"Tonight's dinner is fancy too."
"We have Al to thank."
Considering our finances, a meal like this on the table was a rare occurrence. Receiving a bird as a gift was a really big deal.
"I'm home. Looks like tonight's going to be good too."
Father, who had been looking forward to tonight's dinner as well, returned with a beaming smile. He proudly declared that he'd bragged about last night's meal to his coworkers.
Through the filter of doting-father goggles, I had a feeling the bragging was wildly exaggerated. I hoped that was the case. If it wasn't, it might make things a little awkward at the Gate.
"Itadakimasu."
"Oh, amazing! This is delicious, Mine!"
Turi's eyes went wide with delight as she ate the sake-steamed chicken I'd sliced and served.
Mother took a bite too, and smiled warmly.
"For something so simple, the breast meat came out really tender. And the mushrooms are wonderfully flavorful. Is it because of the good sake?"
"Maybe. The sweetness of the honey wine adds depth to the flavor."
The moment I said that, Father's face changed. He shot to his feet, dashed over to the shelf, and grabbed the sake bottle.
He stared at the not-particularly-large bottle, now significantly depleted, and slumped in despair. He looked like he was about to cry.
"…M-my secret stash of sake…"
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Because Mother had said to me with a slightly dark smile, "It's sake your father bought secretly and hid away. Since we have the chance, let's all enjoy it together."
For once, I'd tried to read the room.
Since it was honey wine, it had a different sweetness from Japanese sake and was delicious, but it still wasn't Japanese Food. It was a completely different thing altogether.
Oh, how I missed Japanese Food.
Sometimes I'd be surprised by ingredients that were described as "dancing," "rampant," or "dangerous," but for the most part, I was able to cook without issues using the techniques I already knew.
The potato gratin I made another day, the risotto-like dish using soba-like grains, and the quiche-like thing made by lining a dish with hardened multigrain bread dough were all well received.
The family loved them, but I personally was far from satisfied. Even when making Western food, without proper seasonings and spices, the flavors all started to taste the same after a while.
Just give me some pepper, please! Curry powder would be even better!
My quest to improve my daily diet would continue.
There are probably a lot of restrictions on ingredients and seasonings, so it must be really hard to cook.
Besides, without a stove, how would you even control the heat?
Come to think of it, during the lodging training, I couldn't control the heat and ended up boiling the miso soup over, which caused a huge commotion.
Next time, Lutz and