kscans

Chapter 164 - The Giant Turnip

"Hmm… I’ll be imposing on End Village again this time, so I should probably bring some kind of souvenir."

He would give something separately to Old Man Audel, where he would likely be staying again, but he felt he should also bring a souvenir for End Village. It would be impossible to bring enough souvenirs for an entire village, no matter how small, so introducing a new crop seemed appropriate. But what should he bring? Dona would probably be happy with a Mapel seedling, but it takes time to grow, and the effort to collect and concentrate the sap is considerable. With one or two Mapel trees, it was doubtful whether they could meet the village’s demand. Pepit was also a candidate, but tomato-based crops could be very polarizing. Besides, in the case of Pepit, since he had not collected any seeds at present, he would have to give them seedlings. If he brought them now, when the fields were still covered in snow, they would just be at a loss. In that case…

"Speaking of sweet, I guess there’s pumpkin? It didn’t seem like they were growing it in End Village."

The Boka, or pumpkin, that Yuri found at the abandoned village site was less sweet compared to the pumpkins of his past life in Japan. It was far from the level that would satisfy Dona. Still, he had been selecting and cultivating the ones with even slightly better taste, but they were still no match for what he had eaten in his past life. If there were no other means, then that would be that, but now that he had obtained the technique of inducing mutations with light magic, or at least the beginnings of it, he had a desire to create a more delicious variety before giving it to them.

"In that case… I guess it has to be Suzuna."

Like the Boka, the Suzuna was something he found at the abandoned village site, but in this case, a tetraploid variety had been created by chance. The taste and yield were not bad, so he could just bring this to End Village.

"I’ll bring the seeds and… I’ll pull up a few for samples…"

In fact, Yuri had left most of these Suzuna in the field without harvesting them. This was because these Suzuna, like the turnips of his past life in Japan, were biennial crops and could be left in the ground to overwinter. Therefore, rather than harvesting them all at once, it saved effort to pull them up when needed as a winter vegetable. …Of course, he would have to correctly locate and dig out the Suzuna from the snow-covered field, but he could just put up a pole for that. And most importantly, this was a type of snow storage and was an effective way to maintain the quality of winter vegetables.

When the temperature drops, winter vegetables have the property of increasing the sugar concentration in their cells to prevent them from freezing. As a result, the vegetables just before being covered by snow have a high sugar content and a sweet taste. Storing these sweet winter vegetables in the snow is a method called snow storage. No light shines into the snow-covered area, the temperature is almost zero, while the humidity is close to one hundred percent. In such an environment, winter vegetables enter a semi-dormant state, so they do not consume the energy source for metabolism, namely sugar. As a result, the vegetables are preserved in a sweet state. Yuri knew this from his past life’s knowledge, so he did not clear the snow from the winter vegetable field, but rather tried to cover it with snow. …Of course, some of the Suzuna were harvested early and used for a certain purpose…

"There were liquors made from daikon and sugar beets… so Suzuna and feed turnips should also turn into liquor if fermented. The feed turnips have a harshness to them, but… I feel like that wouldn’t matter if I make shochu… and shochu doesn’t need to be aged…"

Astoundingly, this twelve-year-old was planning to make shochu using some of the Suzuna he had stored in his Storage and the remaining feed turnips he had bought in Laurenzen. The unfortunate trigger was his realization after finishing the distillation and storage of brandy that "shochu can be drunk with a shorter aging period than brandy." He had been thinking of using apple wine for it when he saw the Suzuna and the feed turnips he had finished taste-testing. Most of the feed turnips were unsuitable for consumption and would be turned into fertilizer as they were. He figured he might as well try using them as a brewing ingredient. The Suzuna had become quite sweet, but not enough to be fermented as they were. A process to convert the starch into sugar was necessary. He needed brewing koji mold or Rhizopus, but…

"This time, I’m mixing bean koji and apple wine yeast to see if fermentation will proceed… but it looks like it’ll take a little more time even in the heated test chamber. I don’t think it’ll be ready in time for the Great Market…"