Chapter 20: Understanding the Broadcast (2)
Chapter 20: Understanding the Broadcast (2)
[Jessie]: So the broadcast starts today?
[Jo Ara]: Oppa, can’t you at least call us? Send us a picture.
[Lucas]: I believe you’ll do well in the second round too.
Jo Minjoon smiled as he looked at the accumulated messages on his phone and was just about to reply when he noticed the young man sitting beside him. He had dark skin and thick, muscular arms and legs. It was Marco Denver, who had advanced from New York with him. When Jo Minjoon looked over, Marco gave him an awkward smile and spoke in a husky voice that was slightly higher-pitched than expected.
“We’re both from New York, right? I just don’t really have anyone to talk to.”
“I’m not exactly a native New Yorker. But yes, I qualified through New York.”
“Well, anyway… we already know each other by sight, don’t we?”
Marco asked cautiously. Seeing such a timid attitude from a heavyset young man over 190 centimetres tall was quite a contrast. Jo Minjoon nodded. They could probably say they knew each other already, even if the atmosphere had become awkward earlier because of the argument between Kaya and Amanda.
“What did they ask you during the interview?” Marco asked.
“Let me think. Whether I was confident I could win, who I thought was a likely winner… things like that.”
There was no need to mention that he had also been questioned about whether he liked Kaya.
“Who do you think will win?”
“Kaya Lotus.”
Jo Minjoon answered without the slightest hesitation, and Marco nodded as though he agreed. “If you saw her cook in New York, I can understand why you’d think that.”
“What do the others think? Who do they expect to win?”
“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t really talked to them yet. Honestly, I think it’s too early to decide who’ll win.”
Jo Minjoon nodded, though inwardly he disagreed. Setting aside the fact that he had come from the future, he could see the contestants’ Cooking Levels. From what he had observed so far, only three of the remaining contestants were level seven: Kaya Lotus, Anderson Rousseau, and Chloe Jong.
Chloe was half white and half Asian. Influenced by her Chinese mother, who had become an American citizen, she could produce striking dishes unlike those of most other contestants. However, in Jo Minjoon’s memories, she had been eliminated relatively early. Otherwise, there was no reason his memories of her would be so vague.
Everyone else was level six. Whether it was coincidence or simply proof that the judges had successfully identified the strongest contestants, not a single level-five cook had survived until now.
Baking was a different matter. Most contestants were around level five or six, with some even lower. Apart from Anderson, who was level seven, there was only one other contestant with the same Baking Level.
That person was Marco.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Jo Minjoon looked at the timid African-American beside him. It was only a passing thought, but there was certainly no harm in becoming friends with Marco. Considering the team missions that appeared later in Grand Chef, it would be useful to be close to contestants with real ability. Besides, Jo Minjoon simply liked people who knew how to make good food. Baking and cooking were different specialities, but they had one important thing in common: both could produce something delicious.
“I’d like to try your bread sometime.”
“…How did you know I bake?”
“I’m just saying. You look like you’d make good bread.”
Marco fell into serious thought, apparently wondering whether he really looked like someone who baked well.
Jo Minjoon stood up. Marco stared at him blankly, so he explained without showing any impatience. “Let’s go to the hall. The others should already be there.”
Marco still looked confused.
“It’s time for the broadcast.”
The contestants had gathered in front of the television in the hall. Some members of the production staff were there as well. Jo Minjoon and Marco took two empty seats. Advertisements played for a while before the Grand Chef title appeared on screen, prompting scattered cheers from the contestants.
The programme began with introductions to the judges. Some people murmured as though they had expected it, while shots of various contestants flashed rapidly across the screen. Jo Minjoon’s face appeared among them, and Marco immediately grabbed his shoulder.
“Minjoon! Did you see that? You were just on!”
“Yeah, I saw.”
Jo Minjoon answered calmly, but in truth, this was his first time appearing on television, and he was far more excited than he wanted to show. His heart was pounding.
He focused on the screen. Probably not even half of the contestants who had survived were shown in the broadcast. To receive airtime, someone needed either an impressive story, exceptional skill, or a particularly unusual personality.
The first contestant to receive a proper segment was Chloe Jong. Wearing a white qipao, she presented her signature dish: basil-infused guobaorou.
(Translator’s Note: Qipao —A Chinese one-piece dress whose modern fitted form developed particularly in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s, drawing on earlier Manchu robe traditions. It became strongly associated with fashionable urban women during Republican-era China. Chloe wears a white qipao during her televised audition.)
(Translator’s Note: Guobaorou — A northeastern Chinese sweet-and-sour fried pork dish particularly associated with Harbin, Heilongjiang. It is generally traced to chef Zheng Xingwen during the late Qing dynasty, around the beginning of the twentieth century. Thin pieces of pork are coated in starch, fried until crisp, and finished with a sweet-and-sour glaze. Chloe prepares a basil variation in the broadcast.)
Even through the television, the pale brown sauce looked glossy and sticky. Because the fried meat had been tossed directly with the sauce, the coating appeared thoroughly glazed. Emily placed a piece in her mouth and blew air through pursed lips as though it were hot, but even that made it obvious she was enjoying it. The crisp sound of the fried coating could not be transmitted perfectly through the television, yet the sight of the basil-coated pieces being eaten together with fresh onions was enticing enough that no one in the room could look away.
Naturally, Chloe passed.
Watching her embrace her mother afterwards, Jo Minjoon could not help feeling a pang of envy. It would have been nice if his own parents could have been there with him. Still, there was little point dwelling on it. His parents wanted him to have a stable future. Their eldest son abandoning a conventional path to devote his life to cooking, without any guarantee of success, was naturally something that worried them.
Jo Minjoon sighed in frustration. Around him, several contestants were already whispering about Chloe, clearly beginning to view her as a threat. He clicked his tongue inwardly. It was pointless. Whether another contestant did well or poorly, whether they survived or were eliminated, ultimately depended on their own cooking. Watching someone else so anxiously would not improve their own chances.
The programme moved on to a contestant who was not even among those currently gathered in the hall. She was sixteen, a white girl whose face still retained some baby fat, and she prepared a tenderloin steak. She was eliminated.
Then the narrator’s voice came through the television.
—Even this season, Grand Chef has attracted many young challengers. Take this contestant: Jo Minjoon, an Asian competitor who crossed half the world, driven by his passion for cooking.
Jo Minjoon immediately looked up.
The screen showed him cooking. More precisely, it showed him roasting the bream. The scene of him preparing the bell pepper sauce was brief, but then the programme cut to a close-up of his face as his interview voice played over it.
—There is only one reason I came all the way here from Korea. I want to find out whether I truly have what it takes to cook.
Those were words he had said during the interview. The roasted bream with bell pepper sauce appeared on screen, and his voice continued.
—For me, Grand Chef is an appealing competition. I hope I can keep showing what I can do until the very end.
Then came the judging.
Watching the judges taste his bream made Jo Minjoon feel strangely uncomfortable. Seeing himself trying so hard to appear calm when he had obviously been nervous was embarrassing enough, but when some of the other contestants let out impressed murmurs, his discomfort only grew.
The judging continued, and it was more or less what Jo Minjoon remembered. Yet the longer his segment went on, the more confused he became. Why had the producers given so much airtime to someone who was not especially remarkable? Was the simple fact that he had travelled from the other side of the world really that interesting?
He began noticing furtive glances directed his way. Some contestants looked at him from time to time while whispering among themselves. Jo Minjoon barely stopped himself from sighing. His skills were not exceptional enough to justify this much attention, yet the broadcast was making him stand out anyway.
Still, merely appearing on television naturally made people take notice. Out of all the contestants, the production team had chosen to include him. As long as he avoided making any major mistakes, that alone might make people assume his chances of surviving were relatively high.
“Minjoon! You disappeared for a bit, but they gave you a proper segment! I wanted to be on too…”
Marco was staring at him with open envy. Seeing that expression made Jo Minjoon’s complicated feelings disappear almost at once.
“Now that I think about it, I always wanted to appear on television at least once. Looks like one of my wishes came true.”
“Ugh… I’m going to get on too.”
Marco smiled with renewed determination.
At that moment, Jo Minjoon’s gaze met Anderson’s from across the room.
He frowned.
Anderson was looking at him with an expression that was not particularly friendly. It was not outright hostility, but there was something intimidating about the look, enough to irritate Jo Minjoon.
Am I imagining it?
He had never clashed with Anderson, so there was no reason for the man to dislike him. Even so, Jo Minjoon did not appreciate the way Anderson was looking at him. His own gaze sharpened, but Anderson soon turned back towards the television.
It would have been ridiculous to confront someone over a single glance, so Jo Minjoon did the same and returned his attention to the screen.
Then he stopped blinking.
Kaya had appeared.
For a moment, the programme showed footage of her helping her mother sell fruit at the market before cutting to Kaya cooking her grilled eel. The sight of the eel glistening with oil and soy sauce as it grilled over the flame was spectacular even though Jo Minjoon had already watched it in person. He could confidently say that the sight of that eel was more beautiful than Niagara Falls.
The other contestants seemed to agree.
Everyone watched her cooking in stunned silence. These were people who knew enough about food to criticise a dish properly. They could vaguely imagine its flavour simply by watching how it was prepared, and they could recognise Kaya’s ability for what it was. To grill eel that perfectly at eighteen years old was impossible without innate talent.
The atmosphere among the contestants changed. It was similar to the reaction Chloe had received, yet somehow heavier. There was no doubt that they had begun to regard Kaya as a serious threat. Her skill alone demanded it.
At the same time, however, there was something almost dispiriting about watching her. She was only eighteen, yet she already possessed that level of ability. Worse, she had not even received elite culinary training. Her talent was the kind that made other people envy her simply for possessing it. It was something they themselves had never had, yet watching her somehow gave them a sense of loss.
Jo Minjoon understood perfectly. The first time he had seen footage of Kaya, he too had felt admiration mixed with jealousy.
He suddenly turned to check Marco’s expression and immediately laughed. Marco did not seem interested in analysing Kaya’s skill at all. He was simply staring at the eel on the screen with his mouth slightly open, looking as though he wanted to eat it.
He might have been timid, but he was certainly not ordinary either. Jo Minjoon found himself liking him.
“Do you want to eat it?”
“…Huh? What? What did you say?”
“The eel. Do you want to eat it?”
“Of course. If I could resist delicious food, do you think my body would look like this?”
Marco said it while patting his stomach.
Jo Minjoon smiled.
“Someday, we might be able to do that too. Make dishes like that. Develop that kind of palate.”
“Maybe we already have it.”
Jo Minjoon looked at him in surprise. Their eyes met, and Marco immediately seemed to lose confidence.
“Ah, no… I heard something like that on television once. That your sense of taste doesn’t suddenly appear. It’s more like a forgotten sense comes back, or something that was asleep wakes up instead of your skill simply improving… Damn, I don’t even know what I’m saying. Forget it.”
“…No. That was actually pretty good.”
Jo Minjoon turned back towards the television. The judges were showering Kaya with praise.
—This… I’m surprised. This is the best dish I’ve tasted in New York. No, the best dish I’ve eaten this season.
—For someone who isn’t even twenty to grill eel this skilfully is extraordinary. It seems God gifted you with many talents.
The compliments were hardly surprising.
The contestants continued staring at the screen. Jo Minjoon turned towards Kaya. She was leaning against the wall of the hall, watching the television with an unreadable expression. No, she was practically glaring at it.
Then Kaya looked back at him.
As always, she seemed almost supernatural in her ability to sense when someone was staring.
Her lips moved.
Jo Minjoon was familiar enough with the words by now.
What are you looking at?
Jo Minjoon silently mouthed something back. It did not actually mean anything.
Kaya immediately frowned, clearly trying to figure out what he had said.
Satisfied with the childish revenge, Jo Minjoon turned back towards the television.
Then his expression stiffened.
He was on screen again.
Why in the world was he appearing during Kaya’s segment?
The answer came almost immediately. The Jo Minjoon on the television began speaking.
—She was the best contestant here today. Better than anyone else I saw. She might even be the best contestant in this entire competition.
Martin’s voice followed.
—If you think she’ll be the best contestant in the competition, does that mean you think she’ll win?
Jo Minjoon’s recorded answer came immediately.
—If nothing unexpected happens, she probably will.