Magic Chili Powder
The moment Haru bit into the strawberry Hana had given her, her eyes went perfectly round.
Juice burst with every chew, far more than any ordinary strawberry had a right to hold, and the sweetness was several times richer. Each bite seemed to fill her mouth with strawberry fragrance until it rang through her whole head.
No matter how good it smells, a strawberry is still just a strawberry. That thought flipped a full one-eighty. The berry Hana had handed her was that delicious. Farmers who had spent decades raising strawberries might well have wept if they tasted it—wept, and wailed that everything they had grown until now had been a waste.
"Haru, well? Delicious, right?"
Hana said it with absolute confidence. Just as she claimed, a strawberry this good was a rare thing to come by anywhere.
"It's so good, Hana."
Haru said it while lamenting her own meager way with words. If a gourmet had heard her, they might have leapt up in outrage, calling it far too plain and paltry a review.
"Wait just a second, Haru!"
With that, Hana toddled off toward the field. Some of the plants stood about as tall as she was, so once she slipped in among the greenery, only the top of her head poked out. The sight was unbearably cute. Plants taller than she was...
After Haru had waited a little, Hana came back with a basket packed full of chili peppers. From what Haru had heard, peppers were a difficult crop to raise, but that didn't seem to apply to Hana. Then again, nothing was impossible for a child who could grow plants like this in a single week.
"If we grind these into chili powder, it'll be incredibly delicious!"
The amount she had brought was very small, though, so Haru stroked her head as she answered.
"Hana, I don't think this much will be enough."
Hana nodded as if she already knew.
"If you go inside, there's way more than this! Take a look, Haru!"
At those words, Haru stepped into the garden plot. Just as Hana had said, it was packed with vegetables and fruit that hadn't been harvested yet. They hung so thick and heavy that the stems bent under the weight, nearly brushing the ground.
Set beside the same plants grown anywhere else, the yield had to be more than triple. Every plant Hana raised was laden with fruit. She had seen it before: anything touched by Hana's power tended to set far too much. That was why, even on the same acreage, the plants Hana created produced three or four times the harvest—an extraordinary output. Experts had gone so far as to say that if only this variety could be improved, humanity would never have to worry about food again.
There was, however, one enormous drawback. To grow Hana's plants, you had to stay within a certain range of her. Being able to raise them anywhere was the great advantage, but if they could thrive only inside a limited area, all those advantages vanished.
"Haru, let's take strawberries too! We should eat them with the people at the office."
"You really are kind, Hana."
At Hana's words, Haru went back into the garden and found stems heavy with strawberries. Just looking at them made her mouth water—maybe because she had already tasted how good they were.
"Hyah! Hyah!"
Hana was harvesting with cute little battle cries. Haru picked alongside her, glancing over now and then, and caught Hana's mouth working. She was pretending she wasn't eating any, but it seemed she simply couldn't let a strawberry this good go to waste. Haru was dying to sneak one herself, the way Hana had, but she held back with superhuman patience. She could eat them once they got to the office.
Between them they picked enough strawberries for the whole office staff to feast, then headed in with a basket each. Hana walked with her shoulders proudly squared, thoroughly pleased with herself. She was unbearably adorable. If she had been wearing her dinosaur pajamas, the cuteness might have doubled. It was a genuine shame she wasn't in them now.
When they reached the office hallway, Haru and Hana rinsed the strawberries under running water, then stepped inside. They had already confirmed there were no bugs or anything of the sort on them, but washing them once before eating still seemed like the better idea.
"Oh my. What's this?"
Bora had been hard at work when the sweet smell of strawberries reached her. She rose from her seat and came over, and the rest of the office staff got up one after another as if spellbound, drawn in to eat.
"These are strawberries Hana grew! Please, try one!"
"I grew them! Eat lots!"
Hana balanced the basket brimming with strawberries on her head and carried them around to the staff. One by one they popped a berry into their mouths and chewed with bewildered faces. They had bitten in expecting an ordinary strawberry, only to look startled at how much better it was than they had imagined.
"This strawberry tastes way too good."
"Every time I chew, the juice just—it feels like my mouth is bursting."
Most of the staff who tried Hana's strawberries came away with the same impression Haru had earlier. They were simply too delicious.
"Hehe!"
Hana only laughed and kept handing them out. Chances to taste a strawberry this good did not come along often.
Haru had the peppers Hana had given her ground into chili powder. Of course, she left the actual milling to a shop, and the mill owner asked where on earth she had found peppers this fine. Even to a craftsman's eye, the powder from Hana's crop looked extraordinary.
Haru looked at the powder in the container. Set beside the chili powder they already had at home, the difference was staggering. The scent alone was different. Store-bought powder from the supermarket gave off nothing but a plain spicy smell, but the aroma of the powder from Hana's peppers was deeply unusual. There was heat in it, yes, but also a sharp little prickle, like carbonation. It was supposed to be spicy, and yet a cool freshness came with it—a strange sensation.
The grains themselves looked like the fine sand of a desert: soft, tiny, delicate particles.
Haru put it to the test at once. She took out a pot, filled it with water, set it on the gas range, and brought it to a boil. Then she dropped in one of the packs of ramen left over at home, sprinkled in the soup powder, and closed the lid. The ramen she ate every day all tasted more or less the same, but today was different. Haru practically sang for the noodles to finish cooking as fast as possible.
When she lifted the lid, steam curled up, and a perfectly cooked bowl of ramen was born. She didn't stop there. She stirred in the chili powder she had brought home, added the other vegetables, and finished the bowl.
The smell is wonderful, and so is the color.
That was Haru's verdict on the ramen she had made herself. She had only added a spoonful of chili powder, and yet it had transformed into something you might be served at a luxury hotel.
First she lifted her chopsticks, raised a mouthful of noodles, and slurped them down. Her eyes flew wide. This flavor was no longer in the realm of ramen. It was in the realm of art.
"It's good! It's so, so good!"
Even as the words of wonder left her, Haru never stopped working her chopsticks. She usually had such a small appetite that a single pack of ramen was a struggle, but with ramen like this, she felt she could manage two. In the blink of an eye she had polished off the whole bowl. She set her chopsticks on the table and could do nothing but marvel. The flavor deserved it. Even so, once the noodles were gone, the broth remained.
Haru picked up a spoon, meaning to taste it. If the noodles had been this good, how good could the soup be? Holding that expectation close, she lifted a spoonful of the ramen broth and drank.
She nearly dropped the spoon. What could she even call this taste?
The chili powder's deep, savory heat filled her mouth. An umami so intense it was as if someone had dumped MSG straight in stimulated her tongue. She had clearly put in nothing but ramen and chili powder, and yet a flavor that could not be explained by those two things alone spread through her mouth.
Without a word, Haru scooped rice from the rice cooker and stirred it into the broth. If ramen this delicious existed, breakfast, lunch, and dinner of nothing but ramen would be more than enough. Even if you offered a fortune, could any ramen company chase this flavor all the way to its heels? It was a taste that could never be imitated. Haru overate until her stomach was taut and round.
She had no choice. Leaving even a scrape of ramen made with this chili powder would have been a sin. That was how impossibly good it was.