Chapter 121: The Laws of Tasting (3)
Chapter 121: The Laws of Tasting (3)
As breakfast was drawing to an end, Martin spoke. “Minjoon, I think it’s about time I asked. Can I?”
“You mean about the recipe?”
“Yes. I’m not even asking you to reproduce the recipe. You can identify all the ingredients, right?”
Jo Minjoon closed his eyes for a moment.
The ingredients slowly appeared before him in the system window. Even the tiny differences that Kaya, whose palate was closer to a genuine absolute sense of taste, could not distinguish were written there. If someone asked him what condition the beans had been in or even which variety had been used, he could answer.
How far should I take this?
It was important to demonstrate his ability only to a degree that people could reasonably accept.
Jo Minjoon slowly opened his mouth.
“If I had to tell you one thing, it’d be that everything is Brazilian.”
“……What did you say?”
“All the ingredients were grown in Brazil.”
After saying that much, Jo Minjoon smirked and pointed at the menu.
We use only domestic ingredients.
The sentence was printed first in Portuguese and then in English underneath.
Martin sighed.
For a moment, he had genuinely wondered whether this young man could now identify the nationality of ingredients just by tasting them.
At that point, it wouldn’t be a human tongue anymore.
Martin calmed his unnecessarily startled heart and spoke again.
“Don’t tease us. What about the ingredients? Can you identify them? This one should definitely be difficult, right? It’s been simmered for so long that the textures should have broken down and the flavours should’ve blended together……”
Instead of answering, Jo Minjoon took another bite of the feijoada.
Then he considered how many ingredients he could genuinely identify using his own palate.
It was not bad.
If there were ten ingredients, he was confident he could identify at least seven of them now, rather than only four or five.
Perhaps if he could return to the day of that elimination mission, he would now be able to survive it perfectly well without relying on the system.
He had improved that much.
Of course, the fundamental sensitivity of his tongue still fell short of Kaya’s, but it had unquestionably become more trained.
More sensitive.
Jo Minjoon smiled confidently.
“I don’t know. The flavours haven’t blended together as much as you’d think. I can taste black beans, and besides those, kidney beans…… Ah, there are lentils too. This place is a little unusual. The place we went to yesterday only used black beans and kidney beans, but they put lentils in here as well. As for the pork, they used the back ribs…… Ah, and they didn’t cut the meat up before putting it in. They boiled the ribs first, then pulled the meat off once it became tender enough to fall apart. I can definitely taste the bone stock.”
“……You can taste that?”
“I can. If stock were so insignificant that you couldn’t taste it at all, why would people go through all the trouble of making it?”
He was not merely lying while relying on the system.
Once he knew which ingredients had been used and concentrated on them while eating, he really could distinguish their flavours.
Of course, without the system, he would never have been able to perceive them to this extent……
There was a saying that knowing what one was eating changed the experience of eating it.
When chefs in high-end restaurants explained the ingredients and cooking methods to their customers, it was not simply to make them feel as though they were receiving special treatment.
“Besides those, there’s garlic, bay leaf, bacon seasoned with black pepper, onions cooked in olive oil, and one more thing……”
Jo Minjoon slowly trailed off, then smirked and shrugged.
“It’s a flavour I don’t recognise. I’ve never tasted it before.”
In fact, the name was clearly displayed in the system window. But if he actually said it, things would become too strange. It was far too unfamiliar an ingredient for him to plausibly know.
At that moment, Rachel spoke. “Annona cacans.”
“………What?”
“The flavour you said you don’t recognise. It’s Annona cacans. It’s a fruit found in Brazil and Paraguay. Wild animals eat it, but if people consume too much, it can cause severe diarrhoea, so it’s only eaten in small amounts. Depending on how ripe it is, the bitterness can also become too strong to eat.”
“So you’re saying that’s actually in the feijoada?”
“I told you, Martin. I knew the owner of this restaurant.”
Martin nodded in amazement.
He looked as though he wanted to ask something else, but perhaps because he could no longer allow his own voice to appear too much in the broadcast, he kept his mouth shut.
Had his pleading expression given him away?
A moment later, Anderson asked exactly what Martin seemed to want to know. “But why put something that can cause severe diarrhoea into a dish in the first place? It doesn’t even taste particularly remarkable.”
“You’re a chef. You should know. A single drop of vinegar can completely change the balance of a dish despite being nothing particularly remarkable on its own. Douglas—the person who developed this menu—believed that Annona cacans would make his feijoada better.”
“I’m not sure it actually makes that much of a difference.” Jo Minjoon hesitated before speaking.
It felt uncomfortable criticising the creation of Rachel’s friend, so he tried to soften his wording. Even so, it was obvious that what followed would not be praise. “His willingness to use an unfamiliar ingredient is impressive, of course. But I’m not sure the result lives up to that effort. Honestly, that vague bitterness lingering in my mouth does make the flavour last longer, but at the same time, it makes me less inclined to take another bite.”
It was like adding medicinal herbs when simmering pig’s trotters or bossam. Using medicinal herbs or unusual spices to flavour stock was not inherently bad. But the fruit’s distinctive bitterness, combined with something almost astringent, did not merely provide a subtle accent. It unnecessarily tired his tongue and mouth.
(Translator’s Note: Bossam — A Korean dish of boiled or simmered pork served in slices, commonly accompanied by kimchi, garlic, sauces, and leafy vegetables for wrapping. Aromatic ingredients may be added to the simmering liquid to perfume the pork and reduce strong meat odours.)
Jo Minjoon’s expression soon hardened.He might compromise on other matters, but when it came to cooking, he would not yield. “Beating around the bush is just tiring my mouth. I’ll say it plainly. It isn’t delicious. Honestly, it falls behind the other dishes here. And the reason is obvious. Why did he put that in?”
“I understand.” Rachel answered briefly.
Seeing her nod as though his criticism were perfectly reasonable left Jo Minjoon confused.
“If you wanted to argue over the flavour, there would be plenty to criticise. And if you wanted to defend it, there are excuses you could make too. Minjoon, do you know the history of feijoada?”
“No. I’ve never really heard about it.”
“You know Brazil once had a large population of enslaved Black people, right? There’s a story that hungry enslaved people took cuts such as pigs’ ears, tails, and feet that their owners discarded and boiled them together with beans. Put simply, it’s a dish born from hardship.”
It was something Jo Minjoon had never heard before.
In that sense, it reminded him somewhat of Korea’s kkulkkuri-juk.
(Translator’s Note: Kkulkkuri-juk — A poverty food associated particularly with the Korean War and its aftermath in the early 1950s. It was made from whatever ingredients could be obtained, including leftover or discarded food from U.S. military bases, and is often discussed as one of the predecessors of budae-jjigae.)
“And things weren’t so different in Brazil fifty years ago. Comparing the poverty of Brazil then with the poverty of the slave era would be pointless……but one thing is certain. Douglas—no, people of Douglas’s generation, people living in his time—were hungry enough that they sometimes had to put things like Annona cacans into their feijoada. Even knowing they might suffer diarrhoea afterwards.”
The atmosphere grew heavy.
Emily spoke, her voice slightly damp with emotion. “There’s more history behind this dish than I thought.”
“Right. Of course, that doesn’t erase the flaws Minjoon pointed out. Whatever the circumstances, if a dish isn’t delicious, that alone is a serious problem. But the reason I told you this is that you aren’t merely food critics. Anderson, Minjoon. You’re chefs. Chefs focus on making delicious food, but you also have to understand the feelings of the customers who seek that food. I believe you should be able to sense something beyond flavour.”
Jo Minjoon and Anderson silently looked around.
Only now did they notice that many of the customers ordering the feijoada were elderly.
Jo Minjoon thought of elderly men and women working in Korean markets, eating kimchi jjigae made with a little kimchi, a little pork, and plain water rather than properly prepared stock.
Something in his heart ached.
“It isn’t an elegant dish. And the recipe itself is frankly hopeless. But even so, it has value of its own. The proof is simple. People still come here looking for it. That alone means the dish has value.”
The cameraman slowly turned towards the other tables.
It was then that a thick, hoarse, cracked voice emerged, slowly and unexpectedly, like a turtle poking its head out of its shell.
“I can’t tell whether you’re praising me or insulting me. Camila, you tell me. Should I get angry or thank her?”
“One thing is certain: you shouldn’t get angry. It’s bad for your health. What are you going to do if your blood pressure shoots up and you collapse?”
“Right. I understand. I’ll endure it. But why did that old hag with the filthy temper, the one who once said my food tasted like cow shit, come back to eat my cooking?”
“It’s been a while, Douglas. How long has it been?”
“We haven’t seen each other since Daniel died, so it must be ten years.”
“It’s already been that long. You’ve aged a lot too.”
“Looking at our faces, people might think we’re the same age. Didn’t you spend any of that huge fortune of yours on skincare? Your face is covered in wrinkles. Tch, tch.”
At first, it sounded as though he were simply mocking her.
But regret lingered beneath his gaze and voice.
Perhaps inside that rough voice and those deep eyes were incidents and years none of them knew about.
But now was neither the time nor the place to ask.
Jo Minjoon’s mobile phone suddenly vibrated.
He thought he had put it on silent, but apparently he had only switched it to vibrate.
He was about to reject the call without thinking when his finger stopped.
Anderson, who had been watching him, glanced at the name displayed on the screen and frowned.
Then he turned towards Martin. “Can we take a short break?”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
“Teacher Rachel probably needs some time to catch up with her old friend……” Anderson glanced at Jo Minjoon. “And he looks like he urgently needs the toilet.”
Thanks to Anderson’s consideration—mixed with both goodwill and malice—Jo Minjoon eventually found himself standing in the bathroom with his phone pressed to his ear.
For a moment, there was only static.
Then a faint voice came through.
[Minjoon?]
At first, he thought the voice sounded faint because of the connection.
But after listening carefully, he realised that was not it. She simply sounded exhausted, as though she did not have enough strength to put any energy into her voice.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
[I’m sorry. I only just saw your message. I didn’t even have time to charge my phone. But out of all the messages that piled up, I called you first. So you’re not allowed to be upset, understood?]
“What reason would I have to be upset? If you’re busy, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
[…………Right. You wouldn’t be. I know. I just said it.]
The conversation fell silent for a moment. Jo Minjoon simply held the phone to his ear. Kaya’s faint breathing sounded almost as though it were coming from right beside him.
“Are you tired?”
[Is it that obvious?]
“Just from the way you’re talking. You don’t have any energy. Did something happen?”
[Yes.]
Her answer was so calm that Jo Minjoon was more startled than he would have been by panic.
He heard Kaya give a faint smirk before continuing in something closer to her usual voice.
[But don’t worry. Whenever something happened before, I always dealt with it. Of course, you helped me a lot, but now I can do it myself. No, I have to do it myself. That’s why I called. If something comes up in the news later……there’s nothing for you to worry about. I wanted to tell you that.]
“………The news? What do you mean? Did some huge scandal happen?”
[No, it isn’t anything that serious…… Anyway, I don’t want to tell you. If I explain it, I’ll start wanting to rely on you. Just tell me what it’s like over there. I’m curious about what you’ve been doing.]
“I’m sorry. I want to, but I stepped away in the middle of filming, so I can’t talk for long. Maybe tonight…… Where are you right now?”
[Australia. Brisbane.]
“The time difference……… Damn. I just checked. It’s twelve hours. You’re practically on the other side of the Earth.”
He forced a laugh. Until only recently, she had been right beside him, cooking and eating together.
Kaya spoke.
[I’ll wait. Call me when it’s night there. If I can answer, I definitely will. I want to talk to someone. I can’t really be myself around the people here……… It’s kind of suffocating.]
“Okay. I will. But don’t wait around too much.”
[If it’s night for you, it’ll be morning or afternoon for me anyway. Don’t worry.]
“Right. I won’t.”
[……You don’t have to agree with that too.]
Her dejected response made him laugh despite himself. After hearing Rachel talk about feijoada and her old friend Douglas, his shoulders had grown strangely heavy. Now they felt just a little lighter.
“I’ll call you.”
The call ended.
Jo Minjoon stared at the screen with a smile for a moment. Then his expression gradually changed.
He tilted his head. Just what had Kaya been talking about?