Chapter 5
(Kyle Calendar
Year 498-499: Age 5-6)
To Overcome
the Bumper Harvest
Translator : PolterGlast
The time of being five
years old passed by in the blink of an eye.
After the successful
presentation of the waterwheel and the initial plan got on track, there were
still many things I had to do.
Things to do before
the bumper crop.
That was to prepare
for the great famine that would come the year after the bumper crop.
When the price of
wheat plummeted due to the bumper crop, I desperately wanted the Solis baronial
family to buy up large quantities of cheap wheat.
Fortunately, the
production of flour had improved dramatically.
In response, I began
planning (experimenting) to make preserved food (something like dried pasta,
something like dried noodles) using the flour.
The first person I won
over was the head chef of the Solis baronial family.
This time, I became a
regular in the kitchen of the mansion.
"Now it's the
kitchen, huh?"
My parents gave a wry
smile but turned a blind eye.
"Oh, kid, you're
here again?"
The head chef,
Miguel-san, was a very friendly, but rugged-looking, tough old man who seemed
unrelated to cooking.
He was originally a
warrior who had fought alongside my father in the same army, and it seemed they
were very close.
He was skilled at
cooking and had demonstrated his techniques even in the limited conditions of
the battlefield.
After suffering battle
wounds that made combat difficult, he took his cooking skills as a profession
and became the head chef at my father's invitation.
I had been visiting
Miguel-san in the kitchen for some time.
"Are there any
dishes that use rice?"
"Is it possible
to obtain rice?"
"Do seasonings
such as soy sauce and miso exist?"
Once I remembered
them, I started searching for ingredients for the "Japanese food" that
I desperately wanted to eat.
I didn't have any
clues at the moment, though.
That's why I have been
going in and out of the kitchen many times since I was a child. So, he spoke to
me very casually.
"Yes, I was
wondering if we could somehow make preserved food with this."
I showed him something
made by kneading, stretching, and drying flour with water and salt, and
consulted with him.
"Well now...
that's a strange thing. Was it something mentioned in a book somewhere?"
"Yes, I read a
story about how they make something like this in some country and use it as
preserved food...
We'll be able to make
a lot of flour from now on, but I thought that wouldn't be enough..."
"I see, if this
works well, it could be used even on the battlefield... right?"
Miguel-san's murmur
was exactly what I was aiming for.
He was an expert in
both preserved food for the battlefield and cooking in general.
Here, too, I was able
to borrow the skills of a professional. My knowledge from the past life isn't
really a cheat, just by knowing it.
Knowledge of mere
fragments of results is completely different from knowledge gained through
accumulated learning and experience.
From here on, it was
the beginning of trial and error.
Drying the noodles
themselves seemed surprisingly easy at first glance, but we had no choice but
to experiment with the salt ratio, drying method, and time, borrowing
Miguel-san's wisdom.
Not to waste food was
the promise I made to my parents when starting this experiment. All the
ingredients used in the experiments, including the failed ones, invariably
ended up as my meals.
Since then, my meals
had become a special menu centered around noodles.
Something like dried
udon was completed faster than I expected...
However, I noticed a
problem for the first time at this stage.
The dried noodles...
weren't very tasty!
The reasons were that
there was no soy sauce in this world, so cooking methods had to be adapted to
the local seasonings, and the texture when boiled was different compared to my
previous life.
Well, for people who
don't know udon, maybe there's no such awkwardness?
Thinking that way, I
made prototypes and tasted them, considered the issues and made improvements,
repeating the process over and over.
The head chef also put
in various efforts to adapt this udon-like dish to the tastes of this world. As
a result, both the taste and texture somehow reached a passing grade.
Furthermore, he
developed recipes using the seasonings of this world. We somehow managed to
finish before the bumper crop.
I wanted one more
push...
I remembered reading
in the history of Japan's Warring States period in my previous-previous life
that soldiers would carry preserved food tied to their waists when moving to
the battlefield.
I had a flash of
inspiration when I was thinking about how convenient it would be if dried
noodles could be easily carried and easily cooked on the spot like instant
noodles...
Bamboo! There were
also dishes in Japan that used bamboo tubes as cooking utensils. They could be
used as a substitute for mess kits or for steaming, and furthermore, bamboo had
antibacterial properties. I remembered such things.
Fortunately, bamboo
also exists in this world. In fact, endless bamboo forests spread at the border
of the great forest, a dangerous place where monsters appear.
Here, there is even a
warning that one should never carelessly enter the bamboo forest beyond, as it
is the habitat of monsters.
Bamboo forests have a
strong reproductive capacity and spread rapidly if left unattended. It was
thought that if bamboo forests spread, the habitat of monsters would also
expand.
Bamboo forests were
managed to prevent them from spreading further than they already had, and
regular logging was carried out. The logged bamboo was distributed as material.
However, because
bamboo was associated with monsters, it wasn't used much. There was plenty of
material, but the demand was low. In fact, there was almost an excess.
So, could we use green
bamboo as both a storage container and a cooking utensil?
I had the master
craftsman's workshop share some green bamboo, cut it into appropriate sizes,
made holes in it, and tried filling it with dried noodles.
It made a rattling
sound when I shook it... like a fortune-telling stick container.
When I tried boiling
it by putting the whole bamboo in the fire, I realized that boiling was
possible and draining was also possible, but I couldn't take out the noodles
without breaking the bamboo!
How could I not have
noticed something like this? Was I too impatient...?
In the end, it was a
failure.
I looked for something
like water-resistant oiled paper or waxed paper for the lid, something that
might exist here, and used that.
Together with
Miguel-san, I repeatedly tried cooking by putting the bamboo tubes directly
into the fire, and he also developed dried seasonings that could be carried in
the tubes.
A preserved food that
could be carried, and served as both a cooking utensil and a bowl – the
udon-like noodles were completed with a decent taste.
Decent... but far more
delicious and convenient than the preserved food that had been eaten on the
battlefield until then.
With this, I had
somehow laid the groundwork for a proposal under the guise of wartime
logistical stockpiling.
The shape had changed
slightly due to the paper lid, but I decided to call this "Omikuji Dried
Noodles" (fortune-telling dried noodles).
At this point, I was
ecstatic, but I didn't realize the challenges related to the bamboo tubes until
a little later.
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