Chapter 6
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Culinary Duel: Jang Geum
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"Heh... damn."
Once the commotion had died down, Heo Yeop sat on the porch of the main hall with a blank expression.
They said that once a person's mind crossed a certain threshold, they didn't even have the energy left to get angry—and that rang absolutely true.
His five-year-old youngest son had secretly siphoned off family funds, then used that money to write a book and have it printed. Where was he even supposed to start criticizing something like that?
"Culinary Duel: Jang Geum."
Judging by the title, it looked like the kind of cheap pulp fiction peddled in the markets.
If the boy had embezzled a fortune just to indulge in trash like this, then as a yangban noble, Heo Yeop ought to break the little brat's legs.
The land was crawling with starving commoners who didn't have so much as a handful of beans, let alone rice. For a noble to set a bad example with such extravagance was a stain on the family honor.
The problem was that the culprit in question was only five years old.
He'd been learning to read for barely a month and hadn't even finished the Thousand Character Classic yet. Just a baby.
And this baby had written a book and gotten it published?
How? Why? What the hell for?
Did he love books but hate studying letters?
Or did he love writing so much that he just had to make his own?
Too many questions flooded his mind at once, so Heo Yeop gave up thinking and shook his head.
"Fine. Let's see what you've got."
The answer was right there in his hands.
Heo Yeop flipped open the first page of Culinary Duel: Jang Geum.
- Long ago, in the shadow of Samgaksan Mountain in Hanyang, there lived a girl blessed with an absolute sense of taste.
- Her name was Jang Geum.
- Jang Geum had lost her birth parents young to war and plague, ending up under the roof of her stepmother, who ran an inn at the foot of the mountain. But that stepmother had a truly wicked heart.
- Everyone in the neighborhood who knew the stepmother and Jang Geum pointed fingers and called the woman cruel, but Jang Geum never lost her smile. She always respected her stepmother and obeyed her every word.
"Hmph. How could she... That poor child had no power at all! The stepmother deserved every finger pointed at her."
The abuses described in the book went beyond anything Heo Yeop could have imagined.
She'd send ten-year-old Jang Geum to fetch and wash every ingredient needed for the business. Even when the girl's hands blistered from scrubbing, the stepmother would toss it all on the dirt floor, claiming it wasn't good enough.
Once Jang Geum got used to it and there were no more flaws to pick at, the stepmother handed her a knife. Jang Geum sliced her fingers hundreds of times, but still, the woman spent all day nagging that the cuts weren't right.
Even that she adapted to, until her knife work was flawless. Then came the fire. By then, Jang Geum had grown into a strikingly beautiful young woman, but she always went around with soot-blackened face, staying up before dawn to tend the dying embers without a wink of sleep.
And that lasted a full ten years.
Then came news of escape from the wicked stepmother's clutches: she'd fallen gravely ill and taken to her bed.
Washing ingredients by the stream at the foot of Samgaksan, Jang Geum rushed to her side the moment she heard.
"Serves her right for having such a rotten heart. Tsk."
Heo Yeop flipped to the next page in a hurry to see the evil stepmother's end.
- Jang Geum, you've suffered so much.
- No, Mother.
- Before I die, I want to eat porridge you make. Go make some.
- ...Yes.
Even on her deathbed, still planning to work the girl to death.
What a villain. Hurry up and die already so she can cross to the afterlife and spare us the sight.
- Here's the porridge I made. Please sit up and try it, Mother.
- Yes, give it here.
The stepmother spooned a bite of the porridge Jang Geum had made, her hands trembling violently. For the first time, she smiled at the girl.
Then, propping up her sick body, she suddenly knelt before Jang Geum and said,
- Thank goodness, miss. Now you can pull your weight as one person. This servant can finally close her eyes in peace.
- Wha... Mother, what are you saying?
"What the...?"
Heo Yeop was as stunned as Jang Geum at the stepmother's sudden reversal.
What kind of twist was this?
And then the revelation of her hidden birth. Dun dun duuun.
- Your grandfather and family were wrongly framed for treason and executed. You were just a baby then, and about to be enslaved, so I, your family's servant, had no choice but to flee with you in my arms.
- ...Pardon?
"Wait... she was yangban nobility? And the stepmother was her slave?"
What followed was utterly heartbreaking.
Hiding her identity, the stepmother had taken refuge at Samgaksan. By day, she'd carry the crying Jang Geum on her back, foraging for wild greens and herbs to sell. By night, she'd beg milk from strangers' doors.
Not a single day, not a single hour of rest.
After years of scraping together every penny, the stepmother opened a small inn near the mountain. She wept for joy at last being able to feed Jang Geum properly—but that happiness didn't last.
A lump the size of a fingernail appeared in her breast.
- It was breast cancer. The monk at Samgaksan who diagnosed me said ten years at most.
- How could that...
- It pained me to teach a noble lady like you to cook, but there was no other way. It was all I knew, and once even that's gone... kuh... hack!
- Mo... Mother!!
Blood poured from the stepmother's mouth.
But sensing time was short, she didn't even wipe it, plunging on with her tale.
She'd had to be harsh to teach everything in limited time. She regretted it and cried every night, but thanked Jang Geum for keeping up.
To anyone else, it might sound like a wicked stepmother's dying excuses.
But to Heo Yeop, it felt like a devoted mother's final words for her beloved daughter.
- Miss, remember this: If you don't master ingredients, you can't make proper food. If you don't master the knife, flavors won't be consistent. If you don't master fire, you can't infuse depth. Master those three, and you're at the starting line.
So that's why.
Why she'd made Jang Geum wash ingredients, wield a knife, tend the fire.
Heo Yeop even felt a twinge of admiration for the woman's words.
"Is this what the Master meant by benevolence?"
The apricot seed—that was the benevolence of the Wayfarer Apricot.
The jujube pit—that was the benevolence of the Mountain Stream Jujube.
Hard on the outside, buried in earth for ages untold, yet once sprouted, it grows faster than any tree, bursting with flowers and fruit. Did she know that endurance?
- Miss, there's no time left now. Hack... ugh... Take the money I've saved...
- I can't! Mother! Use this for medicine!! If we hurry to the apothecary, you'll recover quick!! I'll... I'll run right now!
The stepmother prepared for death; Jang Geum wailed in refusal.
Looking at her tear-filled eyes, the stepmother showed the happiest smile in the world.
- Jang Geum, this is my last request from this foolish mother. When I die, close the inn... hack... and take this money to see the wider world. This place... cough... is too small to trap you. Ahh...
- Mother!!!
- Ha, hack, ahaha, ah, ha... "Mother." What a beautiful sound.
Born a slave, dying a mother—who could call her life wasted?
Gathering her last strength, she placed her wrinkled, cracked hand on Jang Geum's cheek and spoke.
Words she'd never uttered in her life.
- Live well, my daughter.
"Sniff!"
Like Jang Geum, Heo Yeop's eyes brimmed with tears. He hastily dabbed them with his sleeve.
He knew guzzling liquor in broad daylight wasn't befitting a yangban, but he couldn't hold out without a drink.
"Ahem, hack—Aunt Eonyeon! Aunt Eonyeon, are you there? Bring the drinking tray right now!"
"Grrruh..."
Heo Yeop downed shot after shot of strong liquor without touching the snacks.
It wasn't just the Master's benevolence.
The stepmother had shown Jang Geum the loyalty a subordinate owes a superior.
Jang Geum had shown her stepmother the filial piety a child owes a parent.
Loyalty and piety transcending status had met to birth love. This was no longer mere pulp fiction.
"Alright, on to the next part."
The liquor had hit just right, chasing away his melancholy.
Plenty left to read, so Heo Yeop turned the page.
- Mother, thank you for everything.
As per her dying wish, Jang Geum closed the inn, pooled her money, and ventured into the world.
She roamed the eight provinces, tracking down famous chefs and challenging them to culinary duels to deepen her understanding of fine cuisine.
Kaesong's Cloud Sea Tower chef. Devil of Braising. Choi Hyeong-rok.
Dongnae's Drunken Immortal Pavilion chef. Essence of Great Ming cuisine. Yeo Myeong-rae.
Gangneung's Grass Hall Pavilion chef. King of tofu dishes. Heo Yeop.
"Heh heh, that rascal Gyun using his father's name so freely."
It was a fond memory.
Walking hand-in-hand through Gangneung streets, sampling foods together—now immortalized through the power of words.
And did Heo Yeop's blood run thick in the boy? His grasp of gastronomy was impressively keen.
Watching their culinary duels felt like top martial artists clashing or erudite scholars debating—pure intensity.
After years circling the eight provinces, another piece of news reached Jang Geum.
- Hey, Jang Geum. Heard the news? That retired Great Ming emperor's head chef, An Sung-jae of the Gourmet Unicorn—the absolute pinnacle—has come to Joseon.
- Really?
The qilin of fine cuisine.
The supreme honor, held only by chefs specially chosen by the Great Ming emperor among the empire's elite head chefs.
How delicious must such a person's cooking be?
- That's not all. Word is, he's holding a huge cooking contest in Hanyang. Name was something fancy—Black and White? Blue and White? Anyway, all the big names are clamoring to join.
At that moment, master chefs from across the land converged on Hanyang.