The Terror of a Familiar Taste: Toast (1)
"Haa... haa..."
Tak-tak-tak-tak—
I had been whipping my hand in a trance to force a white, sticky liquid into existence, and somehow twenty minutes had already gone by. From the muscles at the base of my fingers through my forearms and up into the deltoids of my shoulders, every last bit of strength had drained out of me. Even so, the furious motion of my hand did not stop. Now and then I trickled in a little more oil, checking the thickness as I stirred.
Chwak, chwak, chwak—!
I added a splash of World Tree essence as well, to kill the peculiar fishiness of raw egg and lend the mixture a clean fragrance. In place of vinegar I used lemon juice, lightening the oil's heaviness as much as I could. Now, if I salted it a little at a time and brought the seasoning into balance...
"Aaaah!! Done!"
It wasn't the thick, glossy body you get from a factory on modern Earth, but it was mayonnaise with plenty of viscosity all the same. I scraped what still clung to the whisk with a finger and tasted it.
Whoa. I can't handle this.
Seogeok, seogeok—!
An emulsion sauce: oil and lemon juice, which refuse to mix on their own, bound together with the help of egg and acid. Because the main ingredient was oil, a rich, heavy energy wrapped itself around my tongue in slick, greedy coils. The violence of that flavor got the better of me. Before I knew it, I had cut a raw carrot and started dipping.
Crunch, crunch—
Mm. Delicious. How long had it been since I'd eaten like this? Even the plainest raw vegetable became a perfectly decent snack the moment you dunked it in mayonnaise. Looking forward to the endless dishes this sauce would open up, I registered the mayonnaise in Mana Market.
Shwaaa—...
It was the opposite of the sensation of mana draining away when I bought ingredients from Mana Market. An energy I couldn't put a name to seemed to well up and fill my body. That strange satisfaction was dangerously addictive, I'll say that much. Once the ketchup was finished tomorrow, I would have to remember to register that too.
All right, then. Time to actually make the toast.
Chwak, chwak, chwak—!
First I cracked a heap of eggs, picked out the chalazae, and beat them thoroughly into an egg wash. I divided it between two bowls. Into one I mixed milk; the other I left as it was, seasoned only with salt and sugar. Then I soaked thick-cut slices of bread in the milk-and-egg mixture and let the liquid seep all the way through.
French toast is a dish invented so people could eat stale bread without grimacing. Look only at how it came to be, and it is the same idea as medieval folk soaking hard loaves in soup. The difference was that my French toast was going to be ruinously soft, and sweet besides. Ideally it should rest for at least an hour, but today I would have to settle for pushing the cooking to the very end of the order.
While the French toast aged, I prepared the sauce for the ham-and-cheese toast. The sweet-and-tangy sauce from Isaac Toast that every Korean has tried at least once. Yes — that one. According to the stories that circulate online, you need kiwi dressing to get the flavor. Kiwi dressing does make the taste easier to hit, but it isn't essential. Out here I couldn't find pineapple, let alone kiwi. Kiwi's country of origin is, surprisingly enough, China, and it only became widely known in the early twentieth century. In every sense, an ingredient nearly impossible to come by in a medieval fantasy otherworld.
The Isaac Toast sauce. The name is too long to keep saying, so I'll just call it that sauce.
What people register as stimulating in that sauce is the sweetness and the tang, and the body that binds the two into something heavy and whole. Secure the elements that can satisfy that flavor, and leaving out the kiwi aroma wouldn't be a problem.
Saga-gak— Sagak—
I heaped sugar into a little mayonnaise and worked it together thoroughly with a spoon. Spread on bread fresh from the pan, the heat would melt the sugar anyway...
Salkang, salkak—!
Mixing it only to this faintly grainy stage was plenty. The texture now was — how to put it — like sand with the tiniest splash of water worked through it for a bit of sensory play. Thick, just barely holding together. Add lemon juice a little at a time until the consistency comes right, and it would be finished.
Chuk—
I dipped a bit of the sauce and tasted it. Sweet, salty, tangy — close to that sauce, but something was missing. One spice to carry a little more aroma, and I thought it would be fine...
Oh. What if I put this in?
While I was turning over what to add, something flashed through my head. From the bag I had packed at home, I took out a small glass bottle. Inside was a powder of crushed leaves, dried crisp, a deep green. At a glance it looked like dried parsley, but it was nothing other than leaves of the World Tree.
World Tree leaves were excellent at killing odors, but their scent was so strong they were difficult to use for anything general. So I had dried them outright, crushed them fine, and set them aside on the thought that I might use them the way one uses parsley. I stirred about a spoonful of the powder into the sauce, and tasted it again.
"Got it!!"
Astonishingly, it was the sauce from the Isaac Toast I used to eat. The brightness and green fragrance that lemon juice alone could not supply filled in, and the flavor fell into perfect balance. Undried World Tree leaves were dominated by a cool mint scent, but drying had faded that aroma considerably. The warm, sweet nuance hidden beneath the mint, though, had concentrated instead, becoming a spice entirely unlike the raw leaf.
Wasn't The Giving Tree actually talking about the World Tree? The author of that story must have been from Nuardel. I offered my thanks for the World Tree's grace and went back to cooking.
Chiiiik—!
I slicked a well-heated pan with butter and poured in a thick layer of the egg wash I had beaten earlier. The original recipe puts sweet corn in the egg omelet, but I didn't have any, so I left it out. The protein of the egg wash set firm with a sizzle. Cook it long enough to take on color and the texture turns tough, which doesn't suit ham-and-cheese toast. Now I only had to toast the ham and the bread as they were, and lay the cheese on raw when I assembled it. Ham-and-cheese toast: done.
I wiped the pan once, then laid in a generous amount of butter again. Unlike the egg omelet, which I had cooked over medium heat, this time I turned the flame down to low. Then I lifted out the French toast that had been soaking in the milk-and-egg wash.
Jureureuk—
Milk and egg had soaked all the way into the heart of the bread. The moment I picked it up, the slice started to collapse under the weight of the wash, so I got it into the frying pan in a hurry.
Chijijijik—
It must not come out as if it had been deep-fried, and it must not take on too fierce a Maillard crust either. I had to cook a slice three centimeters thick all the way through the center, and if the browning set in too fast there was a real risk of burning. Butter, unlike cooking oil, scorches the moment the heat climbs even a little, so I had to be all the more careful. Still, once the flame is set to low, it isn't a difficult dish.
When I was little, the smell of sesame oil struck me as so delicious that I ate the oil raw. Of course it was only fragrance — oil with no flavor at all — and I was disappointed.
Ah, the memory of sesame oil, nutty and greasy both!
The way I see it, Western butter sits in exactly that sesame-oil position. Heat it until it melts, and the nutty, sweet aroma is enough to roll your eyes back in your head. For the record, I have a childhood memory of thinking butter must actually taste sweet, taking an enormous bite, and spitting it straight back out. Anyway, the flavor of egg wash sizzling away in butter was turning even my brain soft and fluffy.
What if I scattered sugar and honey over French toast cooked tender and pillowy, and simply surrendered to the sweetness?
"Game over. Shutter down."
A flavor I could boldly claim was the ultimate sweetness — every bit of sugar you were meant to eat that day, taken in at once. The surface of the French toast, patiently browned over nothing but low heat until a faint, pale gold of Maillard appeared. To cook it through to the center I put the lid on, and I set the burner so low that I caught myself thinking, wait, is it really all right to go this weak? This thing isn't even out? There is residual heat in a pan that is already hot, so the flame has to be nearly a candle to be just right.
While the French toast finished looking good enough to eat, I assembled an egg-and-cheese toast without the ham for Eilenna, and the original ham-and-cheese for myself. That sauce, spread on bread toasted golden in butter; then the egg omelet, the ham, and shredded cabbage; a gentle layer of cheddar; the other slice of bread laid over the top. Done.
There is a saying that a familiar taste is a frightening thing. I don't know who said it, but they are right a hundred times over.
A tremor ran through me.
Before my eyes sat the supreme menu of a modern Korean toast franchise, completed. While countless toast shops had risen and fallen without a fight, Isaac Toast had held its place with quiet dignity. A flavor like a field of flowers — the kind that made you understand how such steadfastness was even possible. I was so afraid that tears spilled from my mouth in thin streams and my hands began to shake...
Ah. The French toast.
I had nearly blacked out and burned it. I moved the French toast — the one that had gotten the full benefit of the oven effect under the closed lid — onto a plate as well. French toast, to be eaten alongside sugar, syrup, jam, and every other accompaniment you could name.
My stomach growled.
I had stopped by the academy first thing in the morning and still hadn't eaten lunch, so I was starving too.
"Lady Eilenna, it's ready!"
Arms full of finished toast, I headed for the table.
Gulp—!
And there she was: a lovely elf swallowing madly, for a reason entirely separate from hunger. Eilenna waited with her eyes gone soft at a rapturous smell she was encountering for the first time in her life.
After the shopping, Eilenna had sat down at the table to rest. Back in Nuardel she could work the vineyards from morning through the afternoon and still tend the brewing at night without tiring. The moment she stepped beyond the World Tree's influence, her stamina had broken sharply.
Clatter, clatter—
Worn out this easily — what kind of sightseeing in the capital was she even talking about? Jinwoo, tired as he was, had thrown himself into the cooking because it was work that had to be done. And her?
Haa... I'm pathetic.
Kang Jinwoo's friend, and a fine partner — in her own mind alone. She was the elder, and far from guiding him, she had gotten excited on her own and worn herself out on her own. As she wandered that swamp of self-reproach, a nutty smell suddenly pushed its way into her nose. Butter, egg, and milk, each finding its proper place and cooking just right. It was not an unfamiliar smell, and that was precisely why it worked.
Sniff, sniff—
At that fragrance seeping into her exhausted body, Eilenna found herself sniffing without meaning to.
"Lady Eilenna, it's ready!"
And then Kang Jinwoo was coming toward her to announce that the food was done. Wait. It had definitely been butter, egg, and milk... The closer Jinwoo came, the more this sweet, fluffy aroma asserted itself. What on earth was it?
Thump—!
A variable. A vicious ambush, hiding inside a smell she knew and striking where she had no guard up. She was hungry, yes — but she had been captured by that unexpected sweetness.
"H-hehh..."
"Before you eat, let me explain first. This is..."
Kang Jinwoo, both hands full of toast, set the plates on the table and launched into one explanation after another. But Eilenna's focus had already gone completely sideways.
"I'll write the recipe down for you later as well, but French toast is one part milk to three parts egg wash..."
I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat.
"You cook it over the weakest low flame until both sides take on a pale brown. To finish, lid on, three minutes..."
I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat.
Kang Jinwoo explained the French toast recipe with all his heart and soul. None of it reached Eilenna's ears. In this moment her sight, her hearing, and her sense of smell had all been assigned to the plate of golden toast. Only the single thought — I want to eat — filled her.
When no answer came back no matter how he went on about the recipe, a puzzled Kang Jinwoo glanced over at her.
"Huuurk!"
"Jinwoo... can't we eat first and talk after?"
"R-right. Here, please."
The face he beheld was a crystallization of desire he could hardly put into words. Overwhelmed by that hunger, Kang Jinwoo gave permission to eat.
Haaaap—!
Eilenna's two snow-white hands gleamed with the butter of the egg-and-cheese toast. She took a firm hold so it would not wobble — tak — and bit off a great mouthful. And in that instant—
"Oh?"
When the thick blanket of bread broke against her teeth, she caught the fresh, green fragrance of the World Tree. At that scent her reason returned, and before her eyes the World Tree of Nuardel — the place she was certain she had left only days ago — shimmered into view. The feeling of being doused with cold water in the middle of a fantastic dream.
A tremor ran through her.
Eilenna swallowed the toast in her mouth, chewing it down carefully as she suppressed an emotion she could not name as joy or terror. Sweet and tangy, and thanks to the dried leaves of the World Tree, a sauce fragrance that was refreshing without going too far. A heavy oil sauce with real body held fast to a brightness that might otherwise have flown away. Salt and sweetness, allotted just right to every ingredient, raised the completeness of a dish as assembled as toast. Bread softened by the flavor of butter; a tender egg omelet cooked to a precise doneness, consistent all the way through. And yet the crisp crunch of raw cabbage, arriving midway, refreshed the mouth, so that egg-and-cheese toast could be eaten without end.
Nyam, nyam — gulp—
Eilenna did not pause for a moment. She finished one egg-and-cheese toast in a flash, and she understood.
This... is a dangerous flavor.
Bread, butter, and egg: a classic combination. Ordinary ingredients, a pile of tastes she already knew — and yet once they passed through Kang Jinwoo's hands, the story changed. A flavor shocking enough that, for an instant, she hallucinated the hometown she had left behind. Eilenna had learned it. The terrible fear that a familiar taste possesses.