You Won't Know How It's Made (2)
Yunkel, the vice-butler of the Alfred family, listened to young master Skollid’s request and immediately recalled the young magician from that day.
“Pardon? You want me to find the magician who gave us the box of confections and bring back the person who made them?”
“Yes. Go to him and bring the one who created the snacks he brought as a housewarming gift.”
“He was a magician with farmland near the main road leading to the capital. I’ll leave at once.”
“Yunkel. This concerns our family’s honor, so make certain you bring the person who made those hard confections.”
“Understood.”
Before setting out, Yunkel heard the full story from the maids about what had happened at the welcoming banquet for the visiting royalty from the capital. The family’s pride had ended up riding on those hard snacks. Determined to protect the Alfred name, he took one of the harvest workers as a guide and departed immediately.
“This is the place.”
No one came out to greet them, so they stepped down from the carriage and walked straight to the front door. Just then the door opened, and a boy stood before them.
“What business do you have?”
“I’ve come to see the magician you serve. He’ll remember me if you say it’s Yunkel, vice-butler of the Alfred family. We met once before.”
Listening from behind the door, Jinu’s face twisted into a scowl. This bastard told me to just take the straw and bean stalks, and now he’s back to complain. There was no way he could speak politely.
“If this is about the harvest leftovers, then at that time…”
“Ah, Magician Jinu. Please don’t worry. It isn’t about that matter. It’s because of this.”
Yunkel held out a small wooden box. Jinu stared at it, puzzled.
“It’s the box of confections you brought when you visited our estate.”
“Oh! So you’ve come because you want more of them?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Realizing it wasn’t about the harvest issue, Jinu’s expression cleared at once. He smiled and invited Yunkel inside.
He served tea along with brown-sugar toast and brown-sugar hardtack, but Yunkel’s eyes looked strange. It was as if he were seeing both kinds of snacks for the first time.
“The truth is, I didn’t get to taste them last time. Our third young master ate them all, and he liked the flavor so much that I’ve come to buy more. Naturally, if you teach me how to make them, I’ll offer additional compensation.”
“I see. I have plenty already prepared, so I can sell you as much as you want. I’ll share the recipe as well.”
“Thank you.”
Yunkel had been carrying a heavy burden because the family’s honor was on the line, but now that things were proceeding smoothly he felt the weight lift. Only then did the aroma from inside the house reach his nose.
“Oh, I just finished making sausages. Would you care to try some?”
It was nearly dinner time, and the way Yunkel’s nostrils kept flaring made Jinu offer him a meal. Becoming friendly with a noble house’s butler could only be beneficial.
He asked Michelle to have Yohan run the grinder, then sent for milk since they had plenty of goats and cows. Jinu himself peeled and boiled the potatoes. Luckily potatoes were in supply, though Michelle said they had almost no flavor and therefore weren’t a popular crop. When potatoes first reached Europe, their black, dirty appearance when dug from the ground had put everyone off; here too, people rarely ate them unless the situation was unusual.
“You’re cooking yourself? Don’t tell me you made that brown-sugar toast and hardtack with your own hands as well?”
Yunkel couldn’t help asking; it was odd to see a magician preparing food when women were present in the house.
“When it’s a special dish like today, I demonstrate it first. Sezanne, light the fire!”
Normally she would grumble about being given annoying chores, but with a guest present she lit the flame without a word of complaint.
Sezanne’s fire heated the milk Michelle had brought, and into the pot went the Weißwurst that had been prepared earlier.
“Fascinating. The sausage is white—that’s unusual—and you’re boiling it in hot milk instead of grilling it. That’s unusual too.”
“Hahaha. It’s all about texture.”
While the sausages simmered, Jinu lifted out the fully boiled potatoes and began mashing them. He was making mashed potatoes.
“Yanne, plate the sausages. Drizzle ketchup over them. Slice the tomatoes thinly lengthwise and place two slices on each.”
As Yanne arranged the sausages, Jinu added a pinch of salt and the mashed potatoes to the milk that had boiled them, stirring vigorously. The potatoes absorbed the milk and loosened into something closer to a runny French purée than ordinary mashed potatoes. He thickened it slightly with flour, shaped portions into neat rounds in small bowls, and set them on the plates. The main course was complete.
Mashed potatoes were considered the finest of all Western side dishes, and the plate certainly looked far more generous.
“Lord Jinu, did you just instruct that girl to place tomatoes on top?”
“Yes, I did. Have you heard of them?”
Yunkel was genuinely startled. The very reason he stood here now was because of the fruit from the Arean Continent called tomato.
Then is this magician Jinu the friend Lord Berk spoke of? How…
“I have heard the name. Then these are Berk tomatoes?”
“Correct. You heard it from Lord Berk. These are indeed Berk tomatoes.”
“Hohoho.”
A thrill ran through Yunkel. Such coincidences did not simply happen. The thought struck him like lightning: the gods had arranged this. That both Lord Berk’s tomatoes and the hard confections the Alfred family had staked their pride on had come from the same person—it could not be mere chance.
At the same time he felt relieved. Since everything originated from one man, it would be impossible to declare a clear winner between the tomatoes and the black-sugar confections. On the other hand, he felt rather pleased. Among nobles there were endless little pride battles over who had tasted tomatoes and who had not; he had now eaten them before most of his peers.
“In fact, the reason I came today for the black-sugar confections is also because of these tomatoes. In the capital…”
“Let’s eat first and talk afterward. It won’t taste good once it cools.”
“Ah, yes, of course.”
The three of them—Jinu, Yunkel, and Sezanne—sat at the table. Jinu demonstrated first, cutting the sausage with knife and fork, spreading the runny mashed potato over it, then eating it with the tomato or dipping it in ketchup. Yunkel and Sezanne followed his example, piling the mashed potato onto the sausage and trying the ketchup as well.
“Oh! It’s so tender. You ground it three times in the mill, didn’t you? Even someone with bad teeth could eat this easily. But is this truly potato? I never knew it could taste so rich and savory.”
Sezanne was impressed by the smoothly ground sausage, yet she marveled even more at the mashed potatoes. Because the potatoes had been added directly to the milk that had boiled the sausage, the meat juices and the milk’s creamy richness had soaked into them completely, making the dish both soft and deeply flavorful.
Yunkel felt the same. Though he did not work in the kitchen, he knew potatoes were used as an ingredient. Usually they were baked or boiled and served with bread to maids and laborers—food for the poor. Eaten together with sausage like this, however, the soft texture was superb. The white sausage was so tender that, aside from the casing, it required almost no knife at all. Both dishes slid down effortlessly.
Then he tried the much-discussed tomato with his fork.
Crunch! It felt as if his mouth had been refreshed. Its softness washed away the lingering flavors of sausage and potato. Not merely sweet but bright, carrying the clean scent of fresh grass, the tomato cleared the palate and invited the next bite.
The sauce called ketchup did the same, adding a pleasant sweet-and-sour note that kept the rich sausage from feeling heavy.
When he had first been ordered to find the confection maker, he had felt stressed about taking on a troublesome task. Yet this single plate of food had swept all that tension away.
Still, a new worry took its place. Looking at it objectively, the hard confections—the brown-sugar toast and hardtack—seemed to fall short of the tomato. The black-sugar items fit the theme of “hard confections,” but the tomato did not. Tomatoes could be turned into many different dishes. Even the ketchup contained them. If a winner had to be chosen, the tomato that allowed for such variety would likely prevail.
Since everything had come from one person, the only acceptable conclusion was that superiority could not be determined.
“Magician Jinu, may I speak with you first?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
Jinu had already finished his sausage and mashed potatoes, so he was perfectly at ease. Yunkel explained that Lord Berk had arrived in Booktoria at the Magic Tower’s invitation, and that a matter of pride had arisen between the Alfred family and the tomato and black-sugar confections that had crossed over from the Arean Continent.
“Hmm. I had no idea things would develop this way.”
“Neither did I. Yet perhaps this is a kind of trial.”
“A trial?”
“Yes. I do not believe it was coincidence that both the tomato and the black-sugar confections came from you, Lord Jinu. Perhaps the god had a purpose. Perhaps he made Lord Berk’s cherished horse stumble and arranged for you to purchase this very farm that had been wagered in the bet.”
Jinu thought the man was spouting nonsense, but Sezanne, listening beside him, wore an expression of pure astonishment.
“I-it’s true. Now that you say it, it makes perfect sense. I kept wondering how you could become entangled with both Lord Berk and the Alfred family. But hearing Mr. Yunkel, I see it now. This is an arrangement by the gods.”
“No, Sezanne, that’s not—”
“Master! It really does seem God Sadalla is watching over us!”
When even Yanne joined in, Yunkel’s conviction became absolute. He shot to his feet, knelt before Jinu, and bowed his head low.
“Lord Jinu. The god desires peace and harmony, not strife, jealousy, or envy. Please help the Alfred family.”
“Please stand up. This is too much. I don’t even know what I could do to help.”
“Please help us.”
Having a noble family’s butler kneeling and begging was uncomfortable. Yet the thought that this, too, might be a quest left Jinu with little choice.
“I can help, but I have no idea how. I only made food that tastes good. I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to do for you.”
“Master, that’s it! The eating part!”
Yanne stepped forward and set the black-sugar confections on the table.
“Master, they only know about the tomato and the black-sugar confections among themselves. They want to show them off and decide which is superior. If that happens, either Lord Berk or the Alfred family will have to lose face.”
“True.”
“But if we place dishes that use tomatoes alongside the black-sugar confections on the same table, they won’t be able to declare a winner, right? It would be like both sides tie—or both win.”
“Exactly! That’s it. Could you create a dish that uses both ingredients so they won’t have to fight over pride?”
“A dish that uses both tomato and black-sugar confections?”
For a moment all sorts of tomato-based and confectionery dishes flashed through Jinu’s mind, yet nothing that combined both ingredients came to him. Seeing his face harden, Yunkel cried out even more earnestly.
“Please help us so they do not have to battle over pride!”