You Won't Know How It's Made (1)
“The day the snow fell like a storm, my beloved mare Shalia passed on to the gods’ side on the road to Booktoria. Then, while seeking help at a farmhouse, I happened to meet that old friend once more.”
“Oh! So the gods arranged for you to reunite with an old friend.”
“Indeed, it was divine providence.”
“The horse was the guide, then.”
Everyone marveled at how something so coincidental had also felt inevitable.
“The friend I met that day still remembered the words I once spoke. He had brought tomatoes back, grown them, and even saved the seeds.”
“Oh! To travel all the way to Arean just to keep a promise to a friend and gather seeds!”
“He must have been quite the remarkable friend.”
Lord Berk enjoyed the rapt attention his story was receiving. After all, he was the center of it. When the mood was right, he knew how to make himself shine even brighter with his words.
“And this friend, rather embarrassingly, had taken to calling the tomatoes ‘Berk Tomatoes.’”
“Oh! So he remembered Lord Berk from their meeting long ago and named them after you.”
“Precisely. Back then I had hidden my identity, so he had no way to find me. That is why he tried to spread the tomatoes bearing my name far and wide, hoping it would lead him to me.”
“How beautiful. It is like something out of a storybook! The thought of naming something after a friend just to find him again is simply wonderful!”
The more sentimental noblewomen’s eyes grew moist, as though they were witnessing the hero of a tale in the flesh. Their reactions delighted Lord Berk.
“So, were these Berk Tomatoes truly delicious?”
“Of course. I swear, they tasted unlike anything I had ever eaten before—new, and the kind of flavor that makes you want to keep eating.”
“I would love to try a Berk Tomato that bears your name, Lord Berk.”
“It is an honor that such a lovely lady wishes to taste a tomato named after me. Hahaha. Unfortunately, it is the middle of winter right now.”
“Ah, so they cannot be harvested yet.”
“Indeed. At the moment they are being grown in front of a warm hearth, so only a very small quantity is being produced. When spring comes, I shall obtain seeds and share some with you, my lady.”
They say one expert recognizes another. The noblewoman who wanted to taste Berk Tomatoes and Lord Berk who offered to share the seeds exchanged meaningful glances without a single word spoken.
“Then, since you claim there are none available now, your story lacks a certain credibility…”
It was Vincent, the eldest son of House Alfred. Watching his sister and Lord Berk trade looks had been too much for him to stay silent.
“Are you not simply spinning tales of a fruit that does not exist to win favor with the ladies? Come spring you could just plant something else and claim the crop failed.”
Several of the noblemen present nodded in agreement. Lord Berk’s rather indiscriminate interest in women had earned him enemies.
“Hahaha. Why would I tell such a lie? It would only tarnish my own reputation.”
Lord Berk spoke with confidence; he had eaten the tomatoes himself only days ago and seen them with his own eyes. He had also expected some pushback.
“My friend’s home lies on the road between Booktoria and the capital, Daiven. When spring arrives and I pass through, I shall make sure you can all taste Berk Tomatoes.”
Faced with Lord Berk’s self-assured demeanor, Vincent had no choice but to close his mouth. He had spoken up only to come away empty-handed.
“Besides, I have heard that the three Alfred brothers are quite accomplished. No matter how busy city affairs may keep you, you ought to travel and broaden your horizons. Water poured into a narrow vessel can only take the shape of that vessel.”
Lord Berk had just implied their knowledge was as limited as water in a small bowl. Vincent and his brothers bristled at the insult. Because Booktoria sat on the road to Daiven, nearly all the kingdom’s goods passed through it. It was no capital, yet being treated like a backwater town stung. They wanted nothing more than to knock Lord Berk down a peg.
They racked their brains for something he would not know. Yet every local specialty they could name was already familiar to Lord Berk, who traveled the entire kingdom as though it were his own home.
“Lord Berk, have you perhaps tried any hard confections?”
Unable to stand Lord Berk’s smug expression any longer, the youngest Alfred brother, Scolid, spoke up.
“A confection, yet hard? Such a thing exists?”
Lord Berk’s puzzled question was echoed by Scolid’s own brothers. After all, confections meant to be enjoyed after meals or between courses were supposed to be soft. The idea of something deliberately hard left everyone baffled.
Patras, the second son, thought his ailing younger brother was pushing too hard just to avoid losing. He assumed Scolid was inventing a nonexistent hard confection the same way Lord Berk had supposedly invented tomatoes.
“Do you mean a confection that turned out hard because the attempt to make it soft failed?”
“No, that is not it. It was nothing like the confections we know. It was something entirely different—a mysterious treat whose very name we do not know.”
“Young Master Scolid, was it? Since I cannot show you the Berk Tomatoes right this moment, you are trying to counter with a hard confection that does not exist?”
Even those who had not caught on before now understood. They realized Scolid had only brought it up to humiliate Lord Berk.
“Not at all. I did not mention it to insult you. I can swear it on a noble’s honor—hard confections most certainly exist.”
“Oh? Then I would very much like to try one. When might I have the chance? Since it is a confection, you could have it made and brought over at once, could you not?”
“Unfortunately, our family’s chef cannot make them. Still, I shall send someone within the next few days so that you may taste one.”
“Oh, so the chef must live quite far away. I look forward to it.”
While Lord Berk remained composed, the other nobles and the brothers were genuinely surprised. Scolid, who was often bedridden and rarely left the estate, somehow knew of a hard confection none of them had ever heard of.
“Scolid! How do you even know of such a confection?”
“Someone who visited our house left it as a gift. At first I was puzzled because it was so hard, but after trying one I ended up eating them all in no time.”
“Who was this visitor?”
“I do not know their name. However, the deputy butler, Junker, knows. If we send Junker to fetch the person who made them, that should suffice.”
“Good. Since it is a confection Lord Berk does not know, I hope it knocks him down a notch.”
“Ah, why is my ear itching so much today? They say the left ear means someone is badmouthing you and the right means praise, right? Both are itching, so what does that mean?”
“Master! The neighbor wants to trade meat for something. What should we do?”
“Trade? What do they want in exchange for the meat?”
Wondering if the tomatoes had already become known, I hurried outside. A man who looked like a farmer was holding a whole pork leg a little shorter than his own forearm. When he saw me, he bowed politely.
“I’m Yohan, from the third house over. I heard you have plenty of hay. Would this do for a trade?”
Yohan explained he had not slaughtered any of last year’s piglets because he wanted to raise them as large as possible, which had left him short on hay. Since we still had plenty of bean stalks and wheat straw in the storehouse, we traded them for the pork leg. I considered roasting the whole leg, but something about it felt lacking.
“Yohan. Since you raise so many animals, do you happen to have a meat grinder? And some pig intestines too?”
“Are you thinking of making sausages?”
“Yeah. Winter is not over yet, so I thought I might try making some. Do you have them?”
“Yes. We make them ourselves, so I’ll bring everything over as soon as it’s ready.”
Wanting to keep things mutually beneficial, I sent Michelle over to help at Yohan’s house and asked Tilt and Jack to deliver some hay. By evening, Tilt arrived carrying a grinder and the intestines. The grinder was a simple rotary model made entirely of iron.
“These are sausages from Yohan’s house.”
The sausages Michelle brought back after helping were nicely smoked to a brownish color. Even at a glance they looked springy and firm. They were typical bratwurst meant to be grilled.
“Wow, they look delicious. If I had known, I would have gone with Michelle to watch them being made.”
Sezanne seemed fascinated, as though she had never seen sausages made before.
“Sezanne, it is better you do not know. Look at that grinder.”
Sezanne, not understanding what the problem was, examined the grinder from every angle, yet still seemed confused. Watching her, I realized I had forgotten that my standards of cleanliness and this village’s standards were completely different. In the modern world I would have said never to use a grinder with bits of old meat stuck in it and rust on the blades. But by this world’s standards, it was apparently just fine.
There was even a German proverb about cleanliness:
“The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep.”
Because no one could tell where the meat had come from or when the animal had been slaughtered, and because the intestines used for casings were not properly cleaned and still smelled of dung, the proverb had come into being. Even after food safety laws were enacted in the 1920s following the Industrial Revolution, cleanliness issues like these still occurred frequently.
Deciding to teach them a cleaner way, I scooped clean snow, boiled it, and had the intestines rinsed again in the hot water. I also removed the grinding blades from the grinder and had those washed as well.
“Lord Sadalla favors cleanliness. Food must be made delicious and clean if one wishes to receive blessings. Preparing food is the same as offering a sacrifice to the god, so one must always be mindful.”
“Om mani padme hum!”
When in doubt, selling the god was the best move. I sliced the traded pork leg with a knife, fed it into the grinder, and ground it four times until the meat became a fine paste. Then I added salt, pepper, green onions, and onions before stuffing the cleaned intestines. The finished sausages were simmered for twenty to thirty minutes in hot water that was not quite boiling. The pink sausages turned white as they cooked. Once done, I laid them on the cold snow outside to cool quickly, giving them a nice snap from the sudden temperature change.
“Now we are finished.”
Without any nitrite to act as a color fixative, the result was Weißwurst with a short shelf life.
“Yanne, you do not have to do that.”
Yanne had started clearing one side of the fireplace, apparently having seen something similar in the village.
“Huh? If we want to store them for a long time, should we not smoke them?”
“Right. Smoking gives them that tasty brown color. I heard they grow mold if you do not smoke them.”
Sezanne had never seen it herself, but she had heard enough to chime in.
“Yes, that is true for ordinary sausages. But we have Sezanne here. We can just freeze them with ice magic.”
“Huh? With my magic? Then how do we store the frozen sausages? Ah! The inventory!”
“Exactly. We cook them in boiling water, cool them on the snow to give them snap, then freeze them for storage.”
“Wow! I have never seen anyone use magic like that before.”
“Hahaha. Now that you have learned, you can use it that way too. Come on, freeze them!”
Just as Sezanne was about to freeze the Weißwurst with her magic, Col began barking outside. Soon after, the sound of a carriage entering the yard could be heard.