59 - I Want to Eat Miso Soup
In the end, the "Teriyaki Chicken (Nikitz) Sandwich" really was teriyaki. Since I didn't know what shoyu and mirin were called in this country, it took time to confirm, but when I asked the shopkeeper, he told me the ratio while claiming it was a secret.
...So shoyu is "shoyu," but mirin is "Nirim," huh.
Sandwiches are sandwiches, shoyu is "shoyu"... surprisingly, some things share the same names as in Japan. But then suddenly there are different names like mirin (Nirim), so you can't let your guard down.
The owner of the Three Crows Tavern, who came from across the sea, was a man true to the shop's name. Apparently, he eloped all the way from a country called Napaji across the sea to this Ivizia Kingdom. So he was knowledgeable about Napaji's seasonings, and he opened a shop that dealt in Napaji's seasonings, which are considered luxury ingredients in this country.
...Miso is "Oshimi." Okay, I've memorized it.
The "Oshimi" I'd heard about from Leonardo was also shown to me at the Three Crows Tavern, and it really was miso. Since it was an imported product and a luxury seasoning, it seemed hard to come by in the shopping district. The Three Crows Tavern owner also told me he went to the trouble of ordering it special from Napaji.
"I wanna eat miso shoup, desh!"
As soon as we got home with Leonardo carrying me, I charged at Tabitha, who was ironing Leonardo's shirt in the laundry room. By the way, the irons in this country aren't the triangular electric kind, of course. They're the type where you put charcoal or heated stones into a flat-bottomed pot-like container. I've never used one, but apparently it takes quite a bit of skill to master.
"Miso? If it's miso, I think Leonardo-sama once ordered some to try... but where did I put it? I don't think I threw it away, so it should be somewhere in the pantry..."
"Pantry... the base-ment, nyo? Can I go in, desh? I'll find it, mash."
I couldn't very well ask Tabitha, who was clearly in the middle of work holding an iron, to search for it right away. I was the only one who needed the miso.
"Tina-sama must not enter the pantry alone. Please call Bart or wait until I finish ironing."
"Then I'll go find Bart-san, mash."
With that, I turned my back to Tabitha and ran all over the first floor looking for Bart. I'd been exhausted when leaving the Menhishumi Church, but thanks to the delicious teriyaki, I'd recovered enough energy to run around the house.
I couldn't find Bart inside the mansion, so I went outside thinking he might be in the garden or the servants' annex, and spotted Bart coming through a service entrance different from the back gate leading to the fortress. Apparently Bart had gone to the market for supplies today.
"Welcome home, Bart-san"
"I have returned. This door is for servants to use, so please don't use it, young lady."
"I'm not going outshide. I'm looking for you, Bart-san, desh."
"Me is it? My, what business might you have?"
"I want to find the miso in the pantry, sho pleathe come with me."
I briefly explained what I'd heard about miso from Leonardo and where Tabitha remembered the miso being, and asked Bart to accompany me. The reason I wasn't allowed in the pantry alone was partly because I was the younger sister-figure of the master, Leonardo, but mostly because I was a small child. The basement, slightly cooler than ground level, stored food as its name suggested. There were sacks of flour weighing several kilograms stacked up, and enormous cheeses arranged by region of origin. If any of them fell over and crushed me, it would be dangerous. So normally I was forbidden from entering, and I avoided going near it. But today was different. If there was miso in the pantry, I intended to avoid danger, of course. But I still wanted to dive right in.
As expected, Bart told me to wait outside, but I somehow pushed through and stepped into the pantry. The basement, which only had windows for light and ventilation, was dim and chilly. Near the entrance there were only vegetables for immediate use, and the further in you went, the more items required temperature control or were used less frequently. I knew I'd just be in the way if I followed too far inside, so I decided to search for miso near the entrance myself. At a glance, there were only frequently used vegetables near the entrance.
"...Ah, there it is. This box."
Bart pulled out one box from the stack in the corner and beckoned me over. As I approached, thinking it was found more easily than I expected, the dust Bart had knocked off flew up and made me sneeze.
...Food covered in dust... is that okay?
The contents of the box I opened with such concern were, unfortunately, beautifully moldy.
"Oh dear. This is no good. Mold has grown all over the surface."
"...And the inside is a weird color too."
Wondering if we could still eat it by avoiding the moldy parts, I scraped the surface of the miso with a spoon. But first of all, the texture of the spoon biting in wasn't miso at all. Eventually some parts that seemed like miso emerged from under the mold, but it was a color that couldn't plausibly be called red miso. No matter how much I dug, I probably wouldn't find any salvageable parts.
"...I'm sho dishappointed, desh."
I carried the excavated box out of the pantry. At least I'd found it, so I carried what used to be miso to Leonardo, who was in the living room, to report. Leonardo made an indescribable face when shown the contents of the box, then handed the box to Bart, who had followed me into the living room. Bart received the box filled with what had once been miso and silently left the room.
"I wanted to eat misho shoup..."
When I sat down next to Leonardo, who was sitting on the sofa with his shoulders drooping, he patted my head with his big hand. Apparently he was trying to comfort me.
"If you're that interested, should I order some more? I didn't think it was that good myself, but Tina seems interested in all kinds of flavors."
But he added with a laugh that any cooking using miso should be done on days when he wasn't coming home. Still, if Leonardo, the master of the house, disliked it that much, I couldn't force the issue.
"Leonardo-san said miso is imported sho it's exshpensive, desh."
If it was expensive and Leonardo didn't like it, I had no choice but to give up. When I demurred on account of the price, he pinched my cheek with a squish.
"...I earn enough to buy food my little sister has taken an interest in. You should beg your big brother without holding back."
To my brother, who puffed out his chest saying "leave it to me," miso-simmered fish appeared on our dinner table just a few days later. Even though they said they'd order it, they just ordered from a shop dealing in imports, so it really only took a few days. The miso-simmered dish Tabitha made based on the recipe she'd apparently heard at the shop had a sharp, strong miso smell.
...It doesn't taste good.
To put it bluntly, it's awful. Why is it so awful? It's fishy and miso-stinky. Moreover, probably because of the herbs, my mouth is full of grassy flavor. It looks just like the nostalgic miso-simmered dish, but I could only imagine the cooking method was simply putting fish and unknown herbs into 100% miso and boiling it.
Leonardo, who had said to use the miso on days he wasn't coming home because I seemed to be looking forward to it, was also eating the same thing. When I sneakily glanced at him, I met eyes with Leonardo who had an indescribable expression on his face.
...Ah, so Leonardo-san also thinks it's awful. This.
This is the result after going out of the way to buy expensive miso. I feel more than a little sorry.
"Tabitha-shan, thish is the recipe the shopkeeper taught you... right, desh?"
"Yes. I made it exactly according to the recipe."
Even hearing the recipe supposedly learned at the shop, I couldn't understand where such a destructively bad taste came from. What was the cause? Or perhaps Oshimi looked and smelled just like miso, but actually tasted completely different?
...But it does taste like miso, so I don't think Oshimi isn't miso, right...?
Tilting my head in confusion, I brought a second bite to my mouth. This was premium miso I'd begged them to buy. I didn't want to leave it uneaten just because it didn't suit my palate.
"...I really don't like it after all."
Leonardo frowned as he said this, but he didn't leave any of the miso-simmered dish. Still, his eating progressed slower than usual, so it was clear he really didn't like it.
It was probably inevitable that Leonardo decided to reseal the miso after that.
"...If you're gonna sheal it away, can I ushe it however I want, desh?"
"It was bought for you, Tina, so I don't mind... but even if it tastes bad, miso is still food. You mustn't treat food like a toy."
"I wouldn't do shomethin' like that."
I puffed out my cheeks in protest at the rudeness. I'd failed at cooking many times at Aurelia's house, but I had never once treated food like a toy.
"I'll find a way to make it tash'ty, mash."
It was expensive miso, to be sure. But since I'd gotten Leonardo's verbal promise that I could use it as I pleased, I decided to use it without restraint. This world's recipe had produced a tragic dish like the miso-simmered one, but if I cooked based on my past life's memories, I should at least be able to make something that suited my own palate.
Next to Tabitha, who was washing the breakfast dishes, I rummaged through the vegetables in a basket. My first target was miso soup, which seemed like the simplest option. With miso soup, I'd made it many times in my past life, so I didn't need a recipe. I loved tofu and wakame miso soup, but at this point any ingredients would do. That's just how miso soup is. The ingredients for miso soup were just some fillings, water, and...
...Miso with dashi already in it!! There's no dashi in it! This miso definitely doesn't have dashi in it!!
I remembered the tragedy of longing for store-bought roux at Aurelia's house. Back then too, I could sort of make white sauce, but all I could make was stew with a mediocre taste.
...The only time I made miso soup from the dashi-making stage was in home economics class.
I don't remember the details, but I can recall the gist. Miso soup dashi is...
...There's no kombu or bonito flakes! Game over!!
Since miso and shoyu existed, maybe kombu and bonito flakes were also imports, but they were definitely things I couldn't get my hands on right now.
...But wait. Miso soup doesn't only use kombu and bonito flakes for dashi, right?
You could make dashi from fish bones, or from shellfish and meat too. The thing I could easily get and would work for dashi was probably pork. Fish I'd have to go to the market for.
"Tabitha-san, give me a little pork, pwease."
The miso soup you can make with pork is tonjiru (pork miso soup). The ingredients apparently vary by region, so anything goes. I took out the daikon and carrots from the vegetable basket.
...Do konnyaku and potatoes sometimes go in too?
My past life memories were fuzzy so I wasn't confident they were absolutely included, but I found some potatoes in the basket and helped myself. With all this, I felt like I could somehow make tonjiru.
"Which part of the pork and how much do you need?"
"Huh? I wonder?"
If it were supermarket-bought packaged pork, I could buy shredded pork or loin as needed. But when presented with a whole piece of pork and asked which part and how much I needed, I didn't know what to say.
"Umm... I'm reshearching how to make it tash'ty, sho for now, one pershon's portion, desh?"
If it turned out delicious, I could eat it with Leonardo, but the opposite would be bad. In case it wasn't delicious, to take responsibility and finish it all by myself, it was better not to make too much.
"One portion, I see. So, how do you intend to use it?"
"Boil it with the vegetabless and dishsolve the miso in it, desh."
"The vegetables you've chosen, Tina-sama, I see. How big should I cut these?"
"Bite-shized, sho they cook through, all about the shame shize, desh."
I could clearly tell Tabitha had no intention of letting me hold a knife. Each time I answered a question, Tabitha cut the vegetables and meat into exactly the shapes I'd described. I was just ordering things from the side.
"...I feel like thish is better than yeshterday's miso-simmered dish, mash."
The tonjiru I'd made by instinct was finished, and I ladled it into a soup plate and immediately took a sip. It looked like proper tonjiru, but being served in a soup plate rather than a bowl was somehow surreal.
...But it's like the stew I made at Aurelia's house. It's sort of tonjiru, but it feels like it's missing the decisive element?
It tasted somehow unsatisfying. This needed improvement.
"Indeed, the miso fragrance is gentler than last night's simmered dish... but it feels a bit too light in flavor."
"Let's try adding some butter," Tabitha said, and unhesitatingly dropped butter into the tonjiru. As a former Japanese person, I had reservations about butter in miso soup, but Tabitha had no such preconceptions. The improvement that came to mind from her cooking experience was simply butter.
...Whoa, the butter made it all greasy. There was already pork fat floating on top.
Tabitha took another mouthful of the buttered tonjiru and nodded with satisfaction. I tried it too, but I still thought butter in miso soup was questionable.
"...It feels a bit lacking, but it's better than yesterday's simmered dish."
I figured it had become a passably edible flavor, so I immediately served it to Leonardo, who had just come home. To me it tasted like "well, this is what it is," but apparently Leonardo also found it unsatisfying.
"Tabitha-shan said it tash'ty with butter, desh."
"Want to try adding butter?" I offered, holding out the butter I'd prepared in advance. After looking back and forth between me and the butter, Leonardo warily dropped butter into the tonjiru.
"...Oh, it's good!"
Leonardo's face lit up. He'd been making faces of distaste until now, but the moment he added butter, it seemed to genuinely taste good to him.
...So this is completely a difference in taste preference, huh?
It seemed the people of this mansion, including Leonardo, preferred rich, heavy flavors. But there was teriyaki and Japanese-like food in the city, so if I looked, there might be people who preferred lighter flavors too.
...For now, only my plate would be butter-free.
Typos and errors to be fixed later...
I once saw a foreign chef on TV adding butter to miso soup. Apparently it makes the flavor richer and more delicious. I don't have the courage to try it myself.
Fixed the typos and errors I found. There were a lot of mistranslations this time... orz