kscans

Chapter 305 - Yuri's Diary, An Anecdote About Chestnuts

Year 5, 9/14, Cloudy. I heard Sena's condition has stabilized, so I went to visit her with Audel-san and Dona. I brought some wood honey confit as a gift, and they seemed happier with it than I expected. After we left, Audel-san asked me about storing chestnuts.

"A method for storing Ritz nuts?"

"Aye. I was thinkin' perhaps you might have some good ideas, Yuri-kun."

According to Audel-san, chestnuts are an important food in End Village, so when the season comes, the whole village goes out to gather them. The collected chestnuts are divided fairly among the participating households.

"We dry 'em in the sun 'til they're hard as rocks, then we grind 'em into flour for storage."

They apparently mix it with wheat flour to bake bread. This way, they can be stored for two or three years, but...

"It certainly keeps well... but it doesn't feel like we're eatin' Ritz anymore."

"Even though they're perfectly good Ritz, they're not delicious like that."

"I see..."

I can kind of understand. It's a shame to treat sweet chestnuts as just a filler for wheat flour. They had apparently resigned themselves to only being able to eat the nuts fresh during their season, but after seeing the wood honey confit (marron glacé) I brought for Sena, it seems they thought there might be another way.

"Ah, no, I'm not bein' so presumptuous as to ask you to share your wood honey. I was just wonderin' if maybe you knew of any other storage methods."

"Other methods, you say?"

"Aye, knowing you, Yuri-kun. I'm sure you harvest a ton of Ritz nuts, don't you?"

"Not what I'd call a ton..."

It seems Audel-san knows my magic bag has a large capacity, but he doesn't seem to think it's that ridiculously large. He probably thinks that normally, one would prioritize storing perishable items like meat in a magic bag, and would store highly preservable things like Ritz nuts without using one. In reality, everything is lumped together in my Storage, but...

If I'm harvesting a large amount of chestnuts with a limited magic bag capacity, there's a high probability I'm storing them some other way. But while I mentioned eating acorns (Dag and Shika) after soaking them in water, I didn't say I was using chestnuts as a staple food. ...In that case, chestnuts must be a supplementary food, and I probably don't grind them into flour like they do in End Village. So it wouldn't be strange for me to know a way to store the chestnuts whole... is that what Audel-san was thinking?

...It's true that I got carried away and propagated too many chestnut seedlings, which led to a whole lot of trouble, but...

*

"Yuri! Do something about that awful smell!"

Marshia complained with a look of utter intolerance, and I knew the reason why...

"You see, Ritz nuts are an important food source."

"Yes, yes, I'm well aware of that. But..."

With that, Marshia turned and pointed behind her.

"Was it really necessary to plant this many! That's what I want to say!"

Yeah... I regret getting carried away and increasing the number into the triple digits. And I also feel bad for forgetting that they grow fast, as the saying goes, 'Peaches and Chestnuts in Three Years, Persimmons in Eight.' As a result, the massive number of cutting seedlings, partly due to my use of wood magic, quickly came into full bloom, and...

"The whole village is filled with that awful smell!"

...Chestnut flowers do have a bit of a... smell. I'd forgotten. And after the suffocating stench comes the, well, literal, result.

"And the Ritz nuts... what are you going to do with them all? The two of us can't possibly eat them all."

To appease the fuming Marshia, I thought about revealing my information on Chestnut Shochu, but... I didn't know the detailed brewing method. Apparently, Chestnut Shochu is outside the scope of 'Rural Life,' so Rural Life Guide-sensei didn't help me. And Appraisal-sensei won't give out detailed information unless it sees the real thing.

In the end, I gave up on the Chestnut Shochu and appeased Marshia with wood honey confit instead. It also worked for preserving the nuts. At that time, I also looked up methods for preserving chestnuts...

*

"Audel-san, have you ever heard of 'sand chestnuts'?"

"'Sand chestnuts'... no, I've never heard of it."

"If you bury Ritz nuts in damp sand, you can store them until around March of the following year."

You have to soak them in water beforehand to kill any insects, and they might start to sprout after March. But for now, shouldn't this method be sufficient?