Chapter 19: Understanding the Broadcast (1)
Chapter 19: Understanding the Broadcast (1)
In the waiting room, the judges sat on a sofa looking over the items spread across the table. They were simple enough: photographs. More precisely, photographs of the remaining contestants. There were twenty-seven in total.
Emily looked through them and asked, “Is there anyone you think stands out?”
“This one. He has the strongest grasp of the fundamentals.”
The photograph Alan chose was Anderson’s. Emily tilted her head.
“Anderson? Doesn’t he lack creativity? He knows how to make food taste good, but his cooking feels like something you could come up with in three minutes.”
“I wonder. We don’t know whether he’s deliberately holding something back. At the very least, his technique is excellent. You were impressed when you watched him make that catfish steak.”
“So what if I was impressed? He used all that skill to make a boring dish. Ordinary people might enjoy it, but to me, the flavour was exhausting. It felt like something I’d already eaten a thousand times.”
Anderson had served catfish steak with onion purée. Remembering the taste, Emily frowned again. It had carried that unpleasant familiarity of something she had encountered countless times before. Anderson was a chef without surprises, and Emily was already tired of that kind of cooking.
Alan looked at her and replied calmly, “If someone has enough skill, individuality tends to follow sooner or later. Either way, I’m betting on him. Out of this chaotic group, I think he has the best chance. What about you, Emily?”
Emily smiled and extended one long, slender finger towards another photograph.
Kaya Lotus.
“I’m betting on her.”
“…Kaya Lotus? She certainly has skill…”
Alan frowned. Kaya was undoubtedly an appealing contestant. Her signature dish, the grilled eel, had approached the level of a master. There were probably very few people anywhere who could grill eel the way she did.
However, there was still a problem.
“Her cooking has no framework. No clear identity. If I had to compare her to a dog, she’d be a mixed breed.”
“You heard her interview. She grew up in a market. That freedom in her cooking is her identity. At least, that’s what I think.”
Emily’s voice was firm. She seemed to have genuinely taken a liking to Kaya. Alan did not bother arguing. Judging food was ultimately subjective.
Instead, he turned towards Joseph. Joseph had yet to say anything, but he could already guess what Alan wanted to ask.
“I still don’t know,” Joseph said.
“Even so, there must be someone you’ve taken a liking to.”
“I wonder… I like both contestants you chose. Aside from those two, Chloe also left an impression. And…”
Joseph trailed off, his gaze resting on one of the photographs.
Alan followed his eyes. When he realised who Joseph was looking at, he sounded genuinely surprised.
“Minjoon? You’re actually keeping an eye on him?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m keeping an eye on him. He simply seems like the kind of person who always manages to produce the best his current ability allows. I’m curious about what kind of dishes he’ll make once he improves.”
“…That’s unexpected, honestly. He has decent fundamentals, but the contestants still remaining are around the same level. And compared with Kaya or Anderson, he’s clearly behind.”
“Of course I’m not saying he’ll win. His skills are lacking compared with Anderson and Kaya. I’m interested in him as a chef, that’s all. I want to see how that young man develops.”
Joseph looked down at Jo Minjoon’s photograph.
The reason he expected something from Jo Minjoon was simple. Twice now, Minjoon had produced dishes that seemed to exceed the level of his raw technique. His knife work and control of heat still had weaknesses, but his recipes were remarkably complete and almost entirely free of flaws. That was why Joseph rated him highly.
“At the very least, I think he’ll make something better than a boiled running shoe.”
“Tell me the truth. You like her, don’t you?”
Martin’s question came out of nowhere during the interview, just as it had before. Jo Minjoon could not immediately understand what he was getting at. He frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Kaya Lotus. Her.”
Martin grinned teasingly.
Jo Minjoon sighed, but before he could answer, Martin continued.
“Don’t tell me again that you only like her as a chef. No matter how you look at it, trading dishes like that was a little too intimate. I was getting embarrassed just watching.”
“…Like I told you last time, it isn’t like that. It’s just admiration from a fan.”
“Mr. Jo Minjoon, let’s be honest. Kaya only just appeared on this programme. She’s cooked twice. How could you already be a fan?”
Jo Minjoon had no answer.
He could hardly tell Martin that he had watched Kaya on television in the future and had been her fan ever since.
Jo Minjoon thought for a moment. What would be the wisest answer? More importantly, what would be the easiest?
The conclusion was simple.
He would let Martin do whatever he wanted.
“Fine. Edit it however you like.”
“…What?”
“If you want, you can edit it to make it look as though I like her. It’s not as if there’s someone else I’m dating, and I’m not married. If it makes the programme more entertaining, I’ll accept it.”
Martin stared at him strangely.
It was true that he had asked about Jo Minjoon’s feelings towards Kaya for the sake of the broadcast, but only because Minjoon genuinely looked interested in her. Now he was saying that was not the case at all?
Is he only denying it because he’s embarrassed?
From Martin’s perspective, that was the most natural conclusion.
“…You really don’t like her?”
“I already told you I don’t. I admire her entirely as a chef.”
“Even so, she’s beautiful. Her personality is a little harsh, but she’s attractive enough. Don’t you see her as a woman?”
“…Is seeing her as a woman the same thing as liking her?”
“No, obviously that’s a little different…”
Martin looked at Jo Minjoon with an increasingly puzzled expression. He was genuinely difficult to understand. Was Minjoon actually telling the truth? Had he somehow become a fan of someone he had only just met? Were Kaya’s grilled eel and tangsuyuk really enough to inspire that much admiration?
No matter how long Martin thought about it, there was no way to see inside another person’s head. He sighed and changed the subject.
“So how did the tangsuyuk you traded taste? Was it better than your catfish meatball stew?”
“I think the overall level of the dishes was about the same.”
“How many points out of ten?”
“Seven.”
Jo Minjoon answered without hesitation. He did not pause to think or reconsider.
Martin remembered what the cameraman had told him. During the preliminaries, Jo Minjoon had apparently said his bream dish was worth seven points as well.
What exactly was he basing these scores on?
“What does seven points mean?”
“It’s about the best I can cook right now. For someone like Kaya, seven points is probably around her average.”
“I still don’t understand how you’re calculating that. Is there some special standard?”
“The recipe, the level of execution, and the freshness of the ingredients. Things like that. It’s difficult to explain properly in words, but there’s one thing I’m confident about.”
Jo Minjoon’s eyes sharpened. He spoke with more certainty than ever.
“My scores are accurate.”
“…I wonder. Even with the same dish, wouldn’t the evaluation change depending on who eats it? I don’t think you can assign an absolute score.”
“Of course personal preference exists. But if you exclude individual taste, I believe my scores are objectively accurate.”
“Then I’m curious to see how you’ll rate the other contestants’ dishes from now on. Fine, let’s move on. You came all the way here from Korea. Are you confident you can win?”
At that question, Jo Minjoon fell silent.
For a while, he stared at the empty glass table in front of him before finally speaking.
“I’ve never had certainty about anything in my life. When it comes to cooking, even less so. The reason I came to Grand Chef was to find that certainty.”
“…What kind of certainty?”
Jo Minjoon answered in a quiet, earnest voice.
“Whether I’m allowed to become a chef. I wanted to prove that to myself. No… I want to prove it to myself.”