kscans

Chapter 35 - Sauce and the Beast. The Beginning

Starting with Lycoris starch and Yoppa bulbs, he had recently finished harvesting naked barley, wheat, buckwheat, and potatoes. He was getting a decent amount of meat from monsters. Furthermore, he was now within reach of obtaining Pepit fruit, which contained umami components, and sweeteners like maple syrup and Stevia. When the food supply becomes stable, it is only natural for one's interest to turn to flavor.

"So far, the only thing I have that could be called a seasoning is rock salt... Monster meat is delicious even just grilled, and I have no complaints with just a salt flavor, but..."

Still, he wanted a little more variety in his seasonings. For Yuri, who had spent his previous life in the land of culinary plenty, Japan, having only salt as a seasoning, even if sweetness was to be added soon, was simply not enough.

"The five basic tastes are sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty, and then umami is added to that, right..."

Currently, he only had salty, and the only one he could add soon was sweet.

"For sourness, I can either find some suitable fruit or make vinegar from alcohol through oxidative fermentation, and for spiciness, I can make do with herbs to some extent, but..."

The problem was "umami." As a member of the Japanese people who discovered and proved this taste, he desperately wanted to obtain an umami seasoning...

"The most representative umami flavors are... glutamic acid from kelp, inosinic acid from bonito flakes, and guanylic acid from dried shiitake mushrooms... was that it?"

Besides kelp, glutamic acid is also abundant in wheat gluten, dried tomatoes, soybeans, and meats. In fact, just the other day, he had found a tomato-like tree nut called Pepit that was rich in glutamic acid, or rather, the little birds had shown it to him. Inosinic acid is produced in the process of meat aging, and guanylic acid is abundant in dried mushrooms and dried tomatoes.

"Yeah... it doesn't seem impossible to get my hands on them..."

To be honest, he wanted miso and soy sauce, but with no koji mold, let alone soybeans, there was no way he could make such things.

"...I think I remember reading an article about some chef or someone who made something like miso and soy sauce from tomatoes, mushrooms, and chicken... At this point, I don't care if it's a fake, as long as I can make a seasoning..."

Unfortunately, he didn't remember the exact recipe for the seasoning in question. Even the capable Master `Rural Life Guide` didn't seem to cover that.

But the point was, it would be fine as long as he could make an umami seasoning with the ingredients available here.

"I don't have any mushrooms on hand right now... so maybe I'll make something like a tomato puree with the Pepit fruit..."

It was a bit, or rather, a lot different in character to be a substitute for miso and soy sauce. Yuri felt a little disappointed, but then he realized something.

The umami in miso and soy sauce was supposed to be the amino acids, especially glutamic acid, created when the proteins in soybeans were broken down. If it was about protein breakdown, then why did he have to stick to soybeans? Meat was the quintessential source of protein, and there was also fish sauce, made by fermenting fish meat. Shotturu from Akita, ishiru from Oku-Noto, nam pla from Thailand, and nuoc mam from Vietnam. All were famous umami seasonings.

In that case... since it was meat all the same... couldn't he make something similar with monster meat? He was sure that in ancient Japan, something called shishibishio, or fermented meat, was known...

"...Yeah... it's worth a try..."