Is a Calzone Pizza? (1)
The banquet ended in roaring success.
The guests invited to Winterhome departed the castle and returned to their places, and the great hall that had been so lavishly decorated was restored to its original state within a single day thanks to the servants and maids who cleaned through the night.
Only then could the staff of Winterhome finally rest.
The cooks included.
Under ordinary circumstances that would have been unthinkable. The kitchen was already short-handed because of the recent expedition; with manpower so thin, every cook could not simply take time off at once. Someone still had to prepare meals for those who remained.
Yet the banquet had proceeded without a single mishap and had produced results beyond expectation, so Alfred granted the cooks both a reward and an exceptional day of rest. Of course even that rest was staggered by rota, and they still had to draft servants and maids to fill the gaps—but the cooks savored the long-awaited sweetness of free time all the same.
Karem, naturally, was not among them.
He was, after all, Catherine’s personal chef—assigned not to the main kitchens of Winterhome but to the Mage’s Tower. And the only person he cooked for was one. So when the other cooks half-seriously begged him for help, he turned them down flat.
“…Uuuugh. I’m dying.”
And now he was half-dead himself, sprawled across the bed in his own room. His joints ached and throbbed; every muscle from scalp to toes prickled and stung. The tension that had held him upright for days finally snapped once the banquet was over, and the exhaustion of those sleepless nights crashed down all at once.
People say that when you are too hungry or in too much pain you cannot sleep. Karem was not quite that bad, yet he still woke and dozed roughly six times before the morning sun rose.
Somehow he managed to open his eyes when morning came. His lids felt as heavy as lead, and whenever he tried to move an arm or a leg to sit up, they only trembled and seemed to sink deeper into the mattress.
He rolled his eyes around the room. The once pitch-dark chamber had begun to take on a faint bluish cast—still closer to black than anything else, but proof that the sun was rising.
A few months earlier he would simply have flopped back down. Now, though, it was the tail end of summer, and his internal clock was screaming that it was time to get up. Yet the bed felt unusually soft today, and the cool air pressed down on his fatigue-soaked body like a weight, refusing to let him go.
Ah, I have to get up. If I want to cook for our Lady Atanitas I need to get up right now.
His body, however, only groaned like a low-grade undead—guoooooh—and refused to move.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.
Someone rapped on the door.
“Karem Hubae. Are you awake?”
“Guoooooh—”
“Hmm. Exactly as my contractor and I predicted.”
Mary stepped inside carrying a lamp and nodded as though she had known all along.
“Wh-what… aaah…”
“Ah—that you would be sprawled out like a vampire doused in holy water and unable to rise. You worked yourself far too hard for someone so young.”
“Uuuh… uuuugh—”
“Mm. You haven’t even the strength to speak properly. Open your mouth.”
Mary produced a small glass vial from her clothes. The clear bottle’s contents caught the lamp-light and glowed with a luminous yellow.
Pop—!
She uncorked it and poured the liquid into the mouth of the zombie-like Karem, who could only moan.
“There, there. It’s a potion. Drink it all down in one go.”
“Th-thiiiisss…”
“Mm, asking what’s in it? Lion-butterfly wings, amber ground-bees, lantern fireflies, and a few other insects besides—”
“Mmph? Mmph-mmph? Mmph-mmph-mmph??????”
“There, there. You said yourself you’ve eaten plenty of bugs before. Just think of this as an extension of that.”
“Mmph! Mmmph! Mmph!”
“Ah-ah. Don’t open your mouth. My contractor said you must finish every last drop.”
He wanted to shout that he had never eaten those insects because he liked them, but the next words made him swallow obediently.
A faintly salty-sweet taste that somehow reminded him of a sports drink, plus a cool, refreshing sensation that filled his entire mouth and throat. The yellow liquid—containing at least three kinds of insects—was, infuriatingly, truly delicious. Delicious enough to make him homesick.
Karem emptied the vial and gasped for air.
“Pwah! You’re telling me there were bugs in that?”
“An unexpected reaction. You find it tasty?”
“Well, it suits my palate at least. Tastes will differ, though.”
“Hmm. Nearly every ingredient was an insect, as far as I know.”
Mary sealed the empty bottle with its cork and examined it for a moment.
“Well, that isn’t important. In any case, the effect seems as swift as my contractor claimed.”
“Effect… oh. Now that you mention it…”
“Would you care to try standing?”
“Uh… uuuh.”
The throbbing joints, the prickling muscles—the body that had felt a thousand catties heavy—were gone without a trace. He felt as refreshed as if he had simply overslept. Experimentally he moved limbs that now seemed light enough to fly.
“What exactly did you just feed me?”
“A stamina potion. You worked so hard these past few days that she said you would need it, and told me to deliver it first thing this morning.”
“Whew—you didn’t have to feed it to me yourself.”
“You could barely speak, so there’s no need for false modesty.”
Mary tucked the vial away and gave him a sidelong glance.
“Still, you pushed yourself far too hard at such a young age. Why not rest a little today? I shall take care of your duties for you.”
“Ha. Do you really think I’ll fall for that?”
“Whatever do you mean? I am merely offering pure-hearted assistance to my junior—”
“Who wouldn’t notice you trying to steal my work the moment you get the chance?”
Tsk!
Mary clicked her tongue loudly and openly even though the person in question was standing right in front of her.
“My plan was perfect, too.”
“You do this the second I let my guard down. Of course I’d notice.”
The open disappointment in Mary’s eyes left Karem speechless. You really could never relax around this workaholic house brownie.
At any rate, the fatigue had vanished completely. Without a second’s hesitation Karem strode out of the room, crossed the dark corridor in a few steps, and entered the kitchen right next door.
A huge pot of mushroom soup was simmering gently—clearly breakfast for the mages of the Mage’s Tower—and a mountain of well-risen bread dough sat waiting.
“Bread dough? You’re baking?”
“Yes. We ran out of bread two days ago.”
“You could just collect bread from the main kitchen—”
“I did go down after the banquet yesterday, but the baker has taken several days of leave.”
“So you’re just going to bake it yourself?”
“It’s been quite a while since I last baked bread, so I prepared the dough late last night.”
Still… bread dough.
Looking at the great mass of it, something stirred inside Karem as well. Honestly, with the tedious, unconfident kneading stage already finished and a ready-to-use dough sitting right there, what chef could resist?
“Mary. Do we have any leftover tomatoes or paste from the banquet?”
“No tomatoes, but about half a jar of paste remains.”
“That’s enough.”
“It should be sitting alone in its usual spot in the storehouse.”
“Got it.”
The answer was obvious, then.
Time to make pizza.
He returned laden with the remaining tomato paste, garlic, onions, assorted herbs, various cheeses, and beef. Mary, who had just finished shaping the dough and was about to slide it into the oven, tilted her head.
“Are you making a sauce?”
“Fresh tomatoes would have been nicer, but we’ll just have to improvise.”
“Pasta, then.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“Pizza. Pizza.”
“Ah—the Servianus dish.”
Making pizza was extremely simple: spread sauce over a flattened dough, add toppings, bake. Done. The process was so straightforward that it was eaten across every social class in Servianus—this world’s rough equivalent of Italy—and Karem himself had tasted it several times in Winterhome’s main kitchen. Of course, back then there had been no tomato sauce.
Yet, as with any baking, simplicity of process did not mean ease of execution. Depending on the dough and the oven temperature, you had to keep shifting the pie’s position for even heat and watch it constantly until it was fully baked. Without a modern push-button oven, even the Mage’s Tower kitchen was beyond Karem’s skill for a proper pizza.
Except for one variety.
He sautéed minced onion and garlic in Akusare mushroom oil, then added the tomato paste, various spices, and a splash of water. He mixed in the browned ground beef and simmered it into a sauce. Immediately afterward he grated an enormous mound of cheese. The light seasoning of the sauce was deliberate: salty cheese plus salty sauce would have produced a salt brick rather than pizza.
While the bread baked, Mary watched Karem’s every move. Not pizza, not pie… something closer to pelmeni?
But the curiosity in her eyes quickly curdled.
“Um… once I’ve made this much, all that’s left is baking. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“…You’re calling this pizza?”
“Yes. It’s pizza.”
“In what possible way is this pizza?”
Mary bent to rearrange the dough inside the oven with a skewer, straightened, and continued watching the process of the object Karem insisted was pizza.
He flattened the dough widely—necessary so the sauce would cook quickly. He spread the prepared sauce evenly across it—no one wants a pizza with bare patches. He buried half the surface under a thick layer of cheese so that no sauce showed—something felt off, but she kept watching. Then he folded the dough in half and crimped the edges… and that was where any resemblance to pizza ended.
“No matter how you look at it, this is a pie.”
“It’s pizza.”
“Even being generous, it only looks like baked pelmeni. It rather resembles those empanadas I saw before—though those were fried in oil.”
“It’s a calzone. Stick this in the oven and bake it a bit, would you?”
“It still looks like nothing but pie to me. Until it’s golden brown?”
“Yes.”
Every time Mary called it pie, Karem corrected her. Yet he could not entirely blame her reaction. Even in his previous life the question of whether a calzone was pizza or pie had sparked debates as fierce as Korea’s eternal “dunk or pour” argument over instant noodles. The debate would probably never be settled until the world—or at least the birthplace of pizza—ended. Having first encountered calzone as pizza, Karem simply insisted on the label out of sheer habit.
Would the same argument reverse-flow back to the original world if this ever got out?
While he sank into deep contemplation, the rich aroma of freshly baked bread began to seep from the oven. Mingled with that deep bread scent was something new—an appetite-stirring acidity and the savory fragrance of cheese.
Mary squeezed her eyes shut and drew a long breath. Just as a cat cannot walk past catnip, how could a house brownie ignore the smell of fresh bread? Yet she was a professional. She must not touch bread meant for others. That was why she had baked her own portion separately in the first place.
But when the fresh, tart aroma and the rich cheese scent rose together with the bread, her heart began to pound. Come to think of it, this did not seem like pelmeni or pie after all.
“Karem Hubae. I correct myself.”
“Yes? Correct what?”
“A calzone does appear to be pizza.”
“Want one when it’s done?”
Mary did not refuse. She merely offered a token resistance, declaring she would eat only after Catherine’s meal was finished.
Attached Materials
- Calzone -
A picture drawn by ChatGPT.