Argument
Argument
There was this meme about British food being terrible, and I never really agreed with it.
Just look at 'fish and chips', the first thing that comes to mind when you think of British food. I mean, it was a combination of fried food and more fried food. It might get greasy after a while, but it wasn't bad in itself. Unless you simply didn't like fish, that is.
When I actually tried it once, it was pretty good.
The problem was that I ate it in my past life, meaning, in Korea.
I supposed the origin of the ingredients might have differed a little, but I didn't think eating fish and chips in Britain would change the taste all that much. Sure, they might have used a bit more oil, or since they sprinkled vinegar on it the aroma might have been different, but no matter what, it was just fish coated in flour and fried. How much could the taste really change?
Even aside from fish and chips, there were plenty of British foods that were perfectly edible......or so I'd heard. Even without hearing anyone defend it, it was common for the subculture that otaku frequently consumed to depict a particular race or nation with nothing but stereotypes. Honestly, I figured British food was a similar case.
The problem was that this world wasn't 'Korea', nor was it 'Britain'. It was the 'Aetherna Empire'.
Right. A world that didn't exist in reality.
No, I suppose it would have been more accurate to say it was a world that 'didn't exist on Earth', since this place was reality enough in its own way.
But here was the thing.
The game series featuring this 'Aetherna Empire' was called 'Aetherna Chronicles', and the company that made the series was 'Millennium Company' of Japan.
And in Japanese subculture, whenever 'food made by foreigners' came up, British food always showed up at least once. Usually, the British were depicted as people who couldn't cook, and British food itself was often portrayed as something inedible for humans.
One of the motifs for the Aetherna Empire was, fittingly enough, the 'British Empire'.
It was even set during the 'Industrial Revolution', when the lives of the common people, excluding the nobility, were absolute garbage.
So yes. The food of the Aetherna Empire was mostly terrible.
Oh, the meat dishes were generally excellent. Anything you 'grilled and ate', like a steak, came out delicious.
The desserts were the same, as were the tea and cookies served during teatime.
But then again, weren't those all foods that wealthy people savored at their leisure? If you poured enough money into it, any dish could be made delicious as a matter of principle.
When I occasionally went out to get a sense of Rondarium's geography, I often bought food from street stalls or vendors. Most of the street food that cost a few pence was simply unfit for human consumption.
No, I meant it.
You'd imagine fish and chips as a fish cutlet cooked until crispy, or soggy in the worst case, alongside some fries that were decent enough whether crispy or soggy. The fish and chips in this world, however, wasn't that kind of decent food.
The Industrial Revolution.
An era when everything was transitioning into a mass-production system.
It was the era when the 'fish' that was the 'raw ingredient' for fish and chips—generally cod—was being caught indiscriminately using steam-powered ships.
And the best way to process that massive quantity of fish all at once was to toss it roughly into boiling oil and fry it.
The fish and chips in this world was made from low-quality fish distributed haphazardly and nearly spoiled, fried in equally poor oil and coated in flour solely to keep it from becoming saturated with grease. It was a dish merely cooked through by any means necessary.
The standard 'way to eat' it was generally to peel off and discard the batter soaked in that low-quality oil, and then eat only the flesh.
That's right. There was no such thing as the fish being deboned and served like a fish cutlet. It meant you had to eat the white fish flesh, which was worse than simply grilling it, while picking out the bones and pin bones yourself.
It wasn't just fish and chips. Most of the commoner cuisine in this world was made solely for survival in that exact manner.
Had I ever eaten a sandwich made by toasting sliced bread, seasoning it with salt, and then putting it between more sliced bread? I tried that bread sandwich once. It tasted like dry, dense bread that tasted of salt. Who on earth would think to 'sell' such a thing? I could maybe understand the idea of making it. I sincerely hoped it was a food that didn't exist on Earth.
After experiencing that reality once, I never went anywhere near the 'commoner food' of this world. There was curry among the dishes that came in from the colonies, but......even after coming to this world, the unfamiliar spice smell didn't suit my native Korean palate at all.
Black pudding, which had a taste somewhat similar to sundae, and sauerkraut, which was taken from Germany—another motif of the Aetherna Empire—both suited my taste quite well......but neither was a main dish. Besides, both were foods that people either loved or hated, so they hardly seemed like something a 'cool beauty' would enjoy.
"Ta-da!"
Claire, who had gone to fetch the drinks we ordered after seating us, presented us with a food so splendid it shattered my image of 'commoner cuisine'.
Actually, could we even call it commoner cuisine?
Strictly speaking, it wasn't cheap. But it wasn't priced so that only nobles could afford it either. It was the kind of food a commoner could eat if they really set their mind to it. Of course, after eating it, their diet for the following week or so would become extremely meager.
Well, this neighborhood wasn't a particularly impoverished one. At least, it was the safest area in the Aetherna Empire.
A tropical fruit, probably mango, was laid down as the base, generously topped with fresh cream, then layered with fruit again, topped generously with fresh cream once more, and then a variety of other fruits were heaped on top.
It was in a glass cup, so at a glance it looked almost like a cake.
"This is the shop's specialty: parfait!"
There wasn't just one kind; each variety had a completely different form.
"I didn't expect much when I saw the price, but this is impressive."
Alice said that in a voice filled with pure admiration.
"Right? I ordered it the first time without much expectation either!"
If the working class of the Aetherna Empire had overheard the conversation between Alice and Claire, they would have been desperate to revolt. In this world......should I call them the proletariat? Anyway, it was a dessert that was prohibitively expensive for that class to pay for and eat.
Of course, from the perspective of the nobility, it was indeed cheap food, since they 'could buy and eat it' in the first place. Even more so for Alice, who was an imperial princess.
"It's excellent. It seems not much different from what I saw back in my homeland."
The word 'parfait' was French, after all. From the standpoint of Belbur, a fictional nation whose cultural motif seemed to be a suitable blend of France and Belgium, it might have been just an ordinary dessert.
"Still, you never know until you try it."
Charlotte spoke with a slightly expectant expression.
"The bread served at the academy wasn't particularly good, to be honest."
"Huh?"
At Charlotte's words, Alice's head whipped around.
"Uh...... The academy food is bad?"
Now that I looked, it wasn't just Alice. Claire, Leo, and even Mia Crowfield were staring at Charlotte with shocked expressions.
"...... Pardon?"
And Charlotte stared back with wide eyes, as if their reaction was the truly shocking thing.
"Are you...... saying you think that bread is delicious?"
"What, isn't it delicious? Right?"
After hearing Charlotte's slightly dumbfounded voice, Alice turned to Claire and Leo with a flustered look and asked them. The two of them nodded.
It was delicious.
In fact, it might have been better than the bread I ate in Korea. Most of the bread I ever ate was factory-made convenience store bread. Bread that had been baked one by one with care was bound to be delicious.
But Charlotte was from Belbur, the 'Kingdom of Taste'. One of its motifs was even France.
France. A country where the method for making a baguette was actually established by law.
If the Aetherna Empire was the land of meat, black tea, and cookies, then the Kingdom of Belbur could be called the land of bread, wine, and chocolate.
Of course, since Britain, where confectionery and baking developed in diverse ways, was a motif, it would have been normal for the Aetherna Empire's bread to be top-tier as well, but......how should I put this? The developers seemed to want to give each nation a distinct character. The country with the most delicious bread in this world was Belbur. Enough so that it was mentioned in the Setting Guide. Meaning, personal preference aside, it was an 'official setting'.
It was probably considered 'common sense' in this world.
"Alice. Haven't you visited the Kingdom of Belbur before? Didn't you try the bread then?"
"Ah, well, no, it was delicious. It was delicious, but! Just because one side is tremendously delicious doesn't automatically make the other side bad, right? They might be 'more delicious', but still."
"No, that's absolutely not the case. The 'bread' of the Aetherna Empire is not delicious."
As a side note, true to its etymology, 'pain' in this world was a Belburian word.
"No, I'm saying they're both delicious, but the Belbur side is more delicious."
Alice, perhaps out of pride as the imperial princess, seemed unwilling to back down under any circumstances.
"Saying that the bread of the Kingdom of Belbur is 'more' delicious implies that the bread of the Aetherna Empire is 'less' delicious, which means it can be said that the Empire's bread is not as good as the Kingdom's bread. Honestly speaking, from an objective standpoint, can the food of the Aetherna Empire be called delicious? It's merely fresh ingredients grilled, steamed, or boiled, isn't it?"
"Wh, what!?"
Alice looked utterly flabbergasted.
"If you're going to argue that way, then Belbur Kingdom's cuisine, which fails to bring out the full flavor of the raw ingredients and instead covers it all up with wine, is the true crime! Don't you feel any pity for the cows that died to be eaten!?"
Belburian cuisine was famous for its frequent use of wine. It was a country with such high production that even the impoverished commoner class used wine in their cooking.
Even among the nobility and imperial family of the Aetherna Empire, the finest wine was considered to be from Belbur.
"Belburian wine is objectively the best liquor. Naturally, food made with such ingredients can't help but be the best, right? Besides, the very food we're eating here right now also originated from the Kingdom of Belbur."
"Guh......! The Empire has plenty of delicious desserts too, you know!?"
"And yet you've set aside all those 'delicious desserts', and the dessert we're about to eat is one from the Kingdom of Belbur."
"Even so, we can't just eat nothing but Aetherna Empire food!"
"I've managed to get by eating nothing but Belburian food without any particular issues."
"No, that's not what I'm trying to say......!"
"...... Sis?"
The argument that had been going back and forth between the two came to an abrupt halt.
Fighting over food was all a pointless exercise. Honestly, it was just that the British motif was prominently highlighted. After all, one of the other motifs of the Aetherna Empire was Germany.
In this world, sausages were a food of the Aetherna Empire, and the first thing that came to mind when you thought of 'sausage' was the Aetherna Empire. So why get into such a heated debate over a single piece of bread?
As long as it was this delicious, that was all that mattered.
"...... Sister, you're...... smiling......?"
The first person whose jaw dropped was Claire. Then Leo, and finally Alice and Charlotte, who were both horrified at the same time.
Mia Crowfield had an expression that seemed as though she couldn't quite follow the conversation.
"...... Sylvia?"
"I-is the parfait really that delicious......!?"
Alice murmured my name with a dazed look, and Charlotte asked me with a horrified expression.
It was delicious, of course.
Having tried the commoner food of this world a few times, I knew how to be grateful for food like this.
And that was to not argue in front of a delicious meal, but simply to humbly savor it.
If there was anyone who could eat a wonderfully sweet dessert and not smile, they either had destroyed taste buds or were utterly devoid of emotion.
...... Well, that didn't mean I'd intended to show such an expression already.
Showing a smile should be reserved for truly important moments.
Besides......
I picked up my napkin with an exceedingly princess-like motion and wiped the fresh cream from the corner of my mouth.
Then, I let out a small sigh and murmured.
"Again."
Since things had come to this, perhaps I would try every single parfait in front of me.