kscans

Chapter 84 - Chapter 4: Part One, Yellow Sugar

The Belmini Company’s kitchen was on the first floor of the house, next to the warehouse. It wasn’t as large as Dalgan’s meat workshop or Plural’s confectionery studio, but it was still big enough to have three or four pots going at once. For a business where cooking wasn't the main focus, it was quite impressive.

It was nothing like my own kitchen at home, which gets completely filled up if I’m just making French toast by myself. I heard Natalie's kitchen was about the same size as mine.

"Huh? I thought you said you finished the last refining yesterday."

I spoke to Natalie, who was kneading a linen-wrapped bundle on the counter as if it were clay. The third round was done. That’s what I’d heard, which is why I came.

"Yes. But I wanted to try it one more time. Um, I'm sorry for using your precious sugar."

"No, you don't have to worry about that," I said, my eyes falling on her bright red fingers. Working with water in this season couldn't be easy.

The winter timing was perfect, with the ideal temperature and humidity for sugar crystallization, but I was making her do all the work of wetting and kneading the sugar alone. The rest of us, myself included, had our own businesses and academy classes to attend.

"You've let me borrow this wonderful kitchen, and I'm even getting to use such high quality beans."

Natalie bowed her head to Sherry, who was standing beside me.

"That's right, we have Belmini-san to thank for that."

"...You can just call me Sherry. Besides, this is a calculated business move. I told you, I can't just stand by when there's a chance to create new demand for our beans."

"You're making Natalie work this hard. You're sure this is really going to work, right?"

Vinaldira emerged from the back of the kitchen, holding a linen cloth. Her gaze was as wary as ever, which was only natural since I was having them perform a process they had never even heard of before.

Yes, we had gone through a lot of trial and error just to get to this point. At first, we even struggled with choosing the right weave for the cloth to wrap the sugar in. There was that terrifying moment when our precious sugar kept leaking through the fabric, dwindling away before our eyes.

We only managed to get through it thanks to the help of Vinaldira, whose family dealt in fabrics.

"Vina. You tasted it yourself and you were convinced, weren't you?"

"W, well, yes, but... the volume shrinks so much... And Natalie's hands."

Our gazes all focused on her reddened fingertips.

"It's really all right. More importantly, please have a taste."

Natalie removed a weight from a wooden box at her feet. She took out a yellowish, discolored bundle. A black liquid had pooled beneath the cloth. This was the sugar she had manually refined by repeating the process of kneading and pressing three times.

When the cloth on the counter was unwrapped, a pale yellow, hardened solid emerged. Anyone who didn't know about white sugar, like I did, would be astonished by the difference from the raw black sugar.

The sample size was small. After all, the base ingredient was sugar. We were getting it cheaply through a connection at Plural Company by trading it for our honey, but the cost was still nothing to sneeze at.

I reached out and touched the fine yellow crystals that had been crumbled onto a plate.

"Yes, that's the taste."

It dissolved instantly on my tongue, leaving only a faint hint of black sugar's flavor. I could tell the degree of molasses removal and the size of the crystals were perfect.

We had makeshift tools and limited ingredients. Still, I had to hand it to Natalie for recreating it this well just from the scraps of knowledge I'd passed on.

"Wow. This is completely different from black sugar. Plural-senpai is going to regret not being here," Rilka commented.

To enhance the sweetness of the anko, we had to increase the purity of the sugar.

Sugar is made by boiling down sugarcane juice. This means it retains plenty of plant-derived components. For example, sugarcane juice is acidic.

The process of neutralizing it with lime, removing the scum, and filtering out sediments removes impurities and increases the percentage of sucrose, a compound of glucose and fructose. This much was already being done in this world. The result was what they called black sugar.

To make white sugar in an industrial society, you would mechanically remove impurities using a centrifuge. The separated byproduct is molasses, a black, tar-like liquid. I remember seeing them mix it into the fruit fly food in my university's research lab.

It might be possible to mechanize the process here using the water wheel we used for our honey, but I had no idea how long the adjustments would take. I had high hopes for bearings in the future, but we hadn't yet been able to make them large enough for a water wheel.

In any case, we had no choice but to do it by hand at the trial stage. The method I proposed was a sugar-making technique developed during the Edo period. It’s how they make what is known as Wasanbon, which is said to be the perfect sugar for Japanese sweets.

Even though it’s done by hand, the basic physicochemical process is the same. Sucrose crystallizes, so you separate the crystallized sucrose from the liquid waste molasses.

What Natalie was doing just now, kneading the sugar in the cloth while adding water, was that very process.

In Wasanbon making, this is called the togi, or refining stage. Then, you place a weight on it to press out the liquid molasses. By doing this three times, you transform black sugar into a yellow sugar that retains just a slight amount of molasses.

It was somewhere between black sugar and white sugar, perhaps leaning closer to white.

Of course, Japanese Wasanbon is made from a different variety of sugarcane, so this was likely a different product in practice. But there was no doubt we had created a high purity sugar with a moderately retained molasses flavor that was, by the standards of this world, exceptional.

"It's delicious, but this is an unbelievable luxury, isn't it?"

"...Yes, it gets reduced to a quarter of its original amount," Natalie replied to Rilka. That waste molasses from before was still sweet when I licked it. I had heard that Wasanbon loses a little less than half its volume during refining. Our yield was even lower than that. Still, considering we'd arrived at this point through remembered knowledge and trial and error, I thought it was a fine achievement.

With this, our hopes were high.

"Alright, let's use this Wasanbon... this yellow sugar, to make the anko."

◇◇

"It's ready."

A short while after the aroma of simmering beans filled the kitchen, three bowls of anko were placed before us. They were made with sugar that had been refined once, twice, and three times, respectively.

"Mm. This is incredibly delicious, Natalie."

Vinaldira's voice was filled with surprise after she tasted the anko from the end bowl. Natalie’s eyes were wide as well.

"Even just one refining makes a big difference, but the third time is the best, after all."

I guess they don't call it Wa-'san'-bon for nothing. The 'three' must really be necessary. Considering the balance of cost and flavor, one might argue for just two rounds, but I think it's best to follow the wisdom of our predecessors here. Even if they are predecessors from another world.

"Next is the amount of sugar."

Apparently, the recipe Natalie had perfected with black sugar used a one-to-three ratio of sugar to cooked beans. Of course, I didn't know any anko recipes. I vaguely recalled that cakes used about a one-to-one ratio of flour and sugar. I simply had her try doubling and tripling the amount.

"This, this is it. This is true anko," I exclaimed, almost shouting as the flavor filled my mouth.

"......" "......"

Natalie and Vinaldira, who had tasted the anko made with triple the sugar just as I had, both froze, their hands clamped over their mouths.

"...Because the sugar's flavor is so clean, you can clearly tell that the bean's flavor has meaning. It definitely has a different kind of value than honey. I never knew it could be this delicious," Sherry said, a blissful look on her face.

"It's also thanks to you letting us use the best beans. The grains are uniform and unbroken, so the flavor doesn't get muddled when they're simmered," Natalie said, finally lowering her hand from her mouth. I see, so things like that have an effect too. As expected of a vegetable expert. That's right, at its core, this is a bean jam.

"Still, Vinder-san, this is the first time I've ever tried comparing things all at once like this."

"It's best to compare them at the same time, under the same conditions."

It was an approach similar to a scientific experiment.

By testing the sugar's purity and quantity, we had effectively tried nine different flavor variations. For us, who didn't know the anko recipes of my original world, this was likely the most efficient way to arrive at the correct answer using this world's ingredients.

This was especially true when your measuring instrument is the human sense of taste. By using the method of comparison, you don't need to be a culinary genius. It’s a verifiable process.

Of course, trying to do this for real would require a huge amount of ingredients, equipment, space, and manpower.

"For the finer adjustments, we'll have to rely on Natalie-san's palate. So, what do you think, Rilka? This should work, shouldn't it?"

I asked Rilka, who had remained silent after tasting the reborn anko.

"Hmm. It's certainly gotten incomparably better. But the texture still bothers me a little."

"I see. Well then, on to the next step."

It was the only dissenting opinion. We ought to respect it.

"What?! You're still not satisfied even though it's this delicious?"

Vinaldira and Natalie exchanged glances. Well, the next part wasn't going to be that difficult or complicated.