Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 26 - Chapter 5.1

Chapter 5: The End of the Rainy Season

1

After the tea party in the castle town came to a successful close, our next few days at work passed quietly.

Our menu using the rainy season vegetables received a favorable reception, with both the stalls and inns doing relatively well. Apparently, Milano Mas and Naudis were actually seeing even more customers now than they’d had at the start of the rainy season.

The number of passersby we were getting in the post town was about the same as it had been for the last several weeks, though—far fewer than what it had been before the rainy season, due to there not being any travelers entering or leaving town for the time being. But over the course of the last two months, I had steadily gotten used to things being that way. The liveliness of the past felt like a distant memory at this point.

We also visited Dora’s house in the Daleim lands on the twentieth of the red month, five days after the tea party in the castle town. Since our afternoons were good and open, we had chosen a day before a day off for that.

After finishing up work at the stalls, everyone who was planning to join us headed straight for Dora’s house. The basic plan for the day was to prepare dinner alongside the women from Dora’s family, though there was a bit more to it than that. The real reason for our visit was both to treat them to a meal made with giba, and to impart the recipe for cream stew made with traip.

Part of our group would be staying the night, while the rest were going to head back after dinner. We had a large number of people coming to this dinner party, so we felt it would be a bit too much to ask them to put all of us up for the night. Dora, of course, had said not to worry about it, but since we knew that the farmers had a lot of problems to deal with during the rainy season, it was kinda hard for us to take him at his word on that. In fact, a big part of our motivation for coming was to reward them for all their hard work with some delicious food.

All in all, six of us were coming directly from the post town—me, Toor Deen, Yun Sudra, Reina Ruu, Rimee Ruu, and Sheera Ruu—with Ryada Ruu and Bartha also meeting up with us to serve as our bodyguards. The Ruu had recently taken time off—five days ago and ten days ago—so they couldn’t do so again today, which left us with those two for guards, as they were pretty much always available.

Also, even though they normally never worked the stalls at the same time, Reina and Sheera Ruu were both with us today. Since it was the day before a day off, there was no need to do prep work for tomorrow, so we were able to have the two of them join us in town without it causing any problems.

Ai Fa would be coming later, around when the sun set (after finishing her hunting work), accompanied by Granny Jiba and some others. Rimee Ruu and Granny Jiba in particular had been really insistent about being part of this visit to Dora’s house. Naturally, the two of them also wanted to stay the night, so Ai Fa and I ended up being a part of that group as well. Since it was rare to get the chance to sleep in the same place as the two of them, I had gone to my clan head to persuade her that she should take the opportunity to do so. Ai Fa’s mouth had kept on shifting as I spoke to her, but in the end, she had accepted.

When our first group arrived at Dora’s place in the rain, we were met by the smiling women of his household, who we hadn’t seen in some time, and then we headed over to the kitchen right away.

“It’s really been a while, hasn’t it?” I said. “Since the Ruu clan’s banquet back in the silver month, I believe.”

“That was three months ago now, huh? I was really shocked when I heard you were suffering from Amusehorn’s breath...but you’re looking all better now, Asuta,” Tara’s mother said to me.

The other women were Tara’s grandmother and her eldest brother’s wife. The mother and wife wore radiant smiles, but the grandmother’s expression remained as dour as always.

The other old person in their family, Dora’s uncle, was quite elderly, but he was nowhere to be seen, since he still helped harvest and cultivate onda during the rainy season. As for Dora himself, he had headed over to his fields right after wrapping up business in the post town, so Tara was the only other person around. The young girl had swiftly grabbed Rimee Ruu’s hands upon seeing her, and the two of them were now smiling brightly at each other.

“I heard you’re going to teach us how to make something delicious using traip and kimyuus meat today. Tara’s been going on and on about it for days now.”

“Yeah. If you end up liking it, I hope that you’ll try making it yourselves.”

The only real lessons I had given them were when I had shown them how to make condiments like ketchup and mayonnaise when I last visited. That was because I had thought it would be pretty arrogant of me to barge into someone’s house and try to tell them how they should cook.

Still, they could make delicious cream stew even without using giba meat, and Tara had been very eager about the prospect of her family learning how to prepare it. It had been several months now since we had first started interacting with them around the time of the revival festival, so I thought it wouldn’t be too presumptuous to teach them one recipe.

“There sure are a lot of you. It would probably be difficult to fit all of us in the kitchen at once, so what should we do?”

“Well, if it’s okay with you, I figure we can switch out personnel based on what we’re doing at the moment. We’ll have four of us in the kitchen at a time, while the other two wait outside.”

“Hmm, but won’t the two who are outside be bored?”

“If you like, you could talk to them out here while they wait.”

When I said that, the grandmother, who had been listening silently up until this point, suddenly went all wide-eyed. In Dora’s household, the mother and wife were always the ones who prepared dinner.

“Were you speaking to me just now?” she asked. “There’s no fun to be had in talking with an old biddy like me.”

“That’s not true at all. If you don’t mind, we have all kinds of questions about the Daleim fields and vegetables that we’d love to ask you,” Sheera Ruu proposed with a graceful smile. “There’s so much that we don’t know when it comes to vegetables, so we would be very grateful if we could borrow your knowledge.”

“Yes, and I’d like to ask a lot more about your lives here in the Daleim lands too,” Reina Ruu added. She and Sheera Ruu were set to be the first ones on standby.

“So, would you be willing to speak with us for the next hour or so? That should be about how long it’ll take to finish the prep work for dinner.”

After that, we left the two young Ruu women in the main hall with the two guards and the grandmother, while the rest of us entered the kitchen. Of course, there were still seven of us between our four and the three from Dora’s household, so it was quite crowded.

When the mother noticed Tara had come along into the kitchen with Rimee Ruu, her eyes widened and she remarked, “My, you accompanied us to the kitchen, Tara? It’s dangerous being around the stoves.”

“But there’s work to do that doesn’t need fire, so I can help with that!” Tara answered with a joyful smile.

It was hard to deny the girl anything after seeing a smile like that, so smile lines formed around her mother’s eyes as she replied, “Oh, very well.”

“In that case, let’s start by boiling the kimyuus bones!” Rimee Ruu loudly proclaimed, acting as the teacher for the group. As it happened, a big part of why Toor Deen and Yun Sudra wanted to join us today was so that they could learn how to work with kimyuus bones. Up until now, they had only heard about the lesson Mikel had given the Ruu clan on the topic secondhand.

Since she had taught people how to make cream stew before at the Sauti settlement, Rimee Ruu was pretty much an expert on the topic at this point. She even played a big part in preparing the stew the Ruu clan served at the stalls, alongside Reina and Sheera Ruu. Though her official position was the same as Vina and Lala Ruu’s, Rimee Ruu was already one of the leading figures in running the Ruu clan’s business.

We proceeded to boil a bunch of kimyuus bones under Rimee Ruu’s guidance, while also boiling traip and making milk fat from karon milk, which we had told Dora to have his family set aside last night. We had Tara shake up the bottle filled with the separated fat, and she looked like she was really enjoying herself as she did.

“My, what are you doing there?” the mother suddenly called out in a fluster.

Ryada Ruu had just walked by the latticed window clad in a hunter’s cloak fitted with a hood. He stopped and looked over at us through the drizzling rain. “It is my duty to guard you. I’ve heard that outlaws never attack during the day, but still, there’s no point in having two guards inside the house.”

“But aren’t you cold? The Daleim lands are safe enough, and thieves and outlaws wouldn’t come out in this rain to begin with.”

“I used to be a hunter, so I’m accustomed to the rain. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” With that, Ryada Ruu disappeared from view, dragging his right leg a bit as he went.

“He used to be a hunter, but now he’s not? He looked like such a fine, strong man, though,” the mother muttered with a look of concern.

“Right,” I replied with a nod. “The muscles in his leg were injured, so he retired from hunting. But there’s no way he’d have trouble dealing with outlaws.”

“Hmm... Giba hunting is quite a difficult job, isn’t it? I have a lot of respect for your people for how you’re able to bring them down.”

“Still, he was such a fine-looking gentleman. You don’t see folks like him in town very often,” the brother’s wife chimed in.

Her mother-in-law’s eyes opened wide as she remarked, “My, it’s pretty rare to hear you say such things! I feel bad for my son, if you’re comparing him to a fine man like that.”

“Th-That’s not what I meant. Do you really think I’d fall for someone who has to be at least as old as my parents?”

“Ah, right. He did look quite young, but I suppose he probably is about the same age as me and my husband. I’d feel really bad if I compared him to my man, though, so I won’t even try,” the wife remarked, and the pair shared a chuckle. Naturally, they were just joking around. I was glad to see that they were comfortable enough around the people of the forest’s edge to say stuff like that in front of us, though.

We kept on boiling the bones and chopping up vegetables after that, though we took a bit of a break from the latter task in the middle, since finishing the bone stock would take around two hours. Once those two things were done, we would be finished with the prep work for the cream stew.

During that gap when we weren’t cutting vegetables, we had Reina and Sheera Ruu swap in so they could get started on the giba meat. I remained in the kitchen, while Toor Deen and Yun Sudra stepped out. All that was left to do with the bones was scoop off the scum, so Rimee Ruu and Tara also took a break.

Considering how shy Toor Deen was, it was good that she would have Bartha with her out there to give her a bit of backup. Rimee Ruu and Tara being around would really liven things up as well.

“Hello there. Things weren’t too awkward out there, were they?” the mother asked.

“Not at all,” Reina Ruu replied. “We were able to learn about a lot of things that should be useful to us. It was a little rough for Sheera Ruu, though.”

“Ah, Reina Ruu, um...” Sheera Ruu muttered, her face going red as she tugged on Reina Ruu’s arm.

Turning to send her cousin a look, Reina Ruu gave a little “Hee hee.”

“What was rough? Did that old woman say something rude to you?”

“No, but she asked when Sheera Ruu was going to wed, since her twentieth birthday is coming up. People at the Ruu settlement get on your case about not getting married by that age too.”

“Oh, you’re single? You look like such a lovely young lady that I assumed you must have long since been wed,” the mother remarked as she looked Sheera Ruu over. “But then again, your body does seem to be a little girlish. Your hips are narrow, so I could see you having a bit of trouble delivering a child.”

Sheera Ruu hung her head, her face turning scarlet. When she saw that, the mother laughed and said, “Sorry about that. Still, men are sure to come flocking to a fine girl like you. Just make sure you stand up for yourself. Don’t lose your head and let some random guy catch you in his net.”

“Right...” Sheera Ruu replied in a terribly faint voice. Then she shot Reina Ruu a reproachful look. The latter simply smiled impishly in response. It was as if she had decided to take up the role of a rascal in the absence of her younger brother and sister. Honestly, it was rare to see her act so playful.

“By the way, Sheera Ruu is the daughter of Ryada Ruu from before,” I added.

“My,” the mother remarked, her eyes opening wide once more. “I said something rather rude with your father right over there. I didn’t mean anything by it, so I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“O-Of course.”

“You’re a pretty one and a great chef, so I’d love to have you marry my younger son. It’s a bit sad that there can’t ever be any talk of marriage between you, no matter how well you get along.”

“That’s true. We see the forest as our mother, so it’s quite difficult for us to marry outsiders,” Reina Ruu said with a reserved smile.

Even so, Shumiral had become a member of a clan at the forest’s edge, and Yumi dreamed of marrying into our people. A year ago, that would have been unthinkable, but if we kept forming bonds with outsiders, maybe those barriers would eventually come crashing down. Only the gods and the forest knew what the future held for the people of Genos and the forest’s edge.

“Well then, let’s get to cooking. Since we have the opportunity, I was thinking of preparing a dish we don’t serve at the stalls,” Reina Ruu said, and we got back to work. Outside the door, I could hear Rimee Ruu and Tara happily laughing away.

A little before sunset, everyone else who was expected to visit Dora’s house arrived. The late group included five people: Ai Fa, Granny Jiba, Ludo Ruu, Darmu Ruu, and Cheem Sudra. Ludo and Darmu Ruu were there to serve as guards for the members of their family who would be staying the night, while Cheem Sudra would escort everyone who was leaving back to the forest.

That added up to a total of thirteen guests from the forest’s edge. It was a crowd of around the same size as the ones we had for our visits during the revival festival. Furthermore, there were eight members of Dora’s house present, and Granny Mishil had been invited as a special guest as well. Dora had extended an invitation to her when he heard that Granny Jiba would be attending.

“Hmph, to think that we’d end up meeting again before either of us kicked the bucket.”

“Yes, so we are... I’m happy to see you again, Mishil.”

The two were extreme opposites, but here they were talking to one another. There were two large tables in the main hall, and the people of the forest’s edge and folks from Daleim were all interspersed around them.

“All right, let’s dig in! I sure am glad we’re having soup, after being out in that chilly rain!” Dora called out, kicking dinner off. After the people of the forest’s edge said their premeal chant, everyone picked up their utensils.

Reina and Sheera Ruu had prepared cubed giba meat stew, croquettes, and minced meat cutlets.

Cubed giba meat stew was a special sold at The Great Southern Tree on only one day out of every ten. And as for the fried dishes, croquettes and minced meat cutlets took too much effort to make for us to serve them at the stalls. The croquettes had at least made an appearance at the welcome banquet, however. Those dishes had been prepared out of consideration for Dora and Tara, who were regulars at the stalls, as well as Granny Jiba, whose teeth weren’t very strong.

Then there was the traip cream stew that Rimee Ruu prided herself on. The dish only used kimyuus meat, so it was going to be a new experience for Dora and Tara as well.

Finally, Dora’s family had prepared a variety of side dishes, including a stir-fry and a stewed dish with lots of the Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and mayonnaise we had taught them how to make. They had been made with large amounts of the rainy season vegetables—traip, reggi, and onda—so personally, I was really looking forward to trying them.

“So this is the dish Tara’s been excited about. I finally get why she was making such a fuss!” the older brother commented with a relaxed smile.

The younger brother, meanwhile, looked even more excited as he slurped on the soup. “It’s really good, even though it doesn’t have giba meat in it. Doesn’t that mean you and the others should be able to make it too, mom?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure. We could probably handle the bones and traip, but the karon milk seems a bit tricky.”

“I’m begging you here, please try to find a way. Before the rainy season ends and we can’t use traip anymore.”

“Oh, you can make a delicious version of this that doesn’t need traip. Actually, it was more like we came up with this version after we tried adding traip to see if it would work,” I interjected while enjoying the delicious flavor myself. “If you ever forget the steps or the amounts to use, feel free to reach out any time. We see Tara and Dora on a daily basis, so we can pass a message along through them whenever.”

“We might end up asking you questions every single day at first!” Dora warned with a hearty chuckle. Then, when he took a bite of the minced meat cutlet on his plate, his eyes shot open wide. “This is delicious too! I thought it was a giba cutlet, but when I bit into it, it was like a hamburger!”

“Right, that dish is called a minced meat cutlet. It’s difficult to make a lot of them, so we haven’t had a chance to sell them at the stalls.”

“They’re all so shockingly good! I feel like all of my exhaustion from work is being wiped away just like that! It reminds me of the day when we were invited to the Ruu settlement.”

The day he was referring to was the time when we’d held a friendship banquet for them—the tenth of the silver month, if I recalled correctly. It had been more than three months since then. Dora’s family from the Daleim lands, Yumi and Telia Mas from the post town, Mikel and Myme from the Turan lands, Roy and Shilly Rou from the castle town, and even the traveling performers from the Gamley Troupe had all come as guests. When Dora brought it up, memories of that lively night came rushing back.

Seated next to Dora was Ludo Ruu, who was happily chowing down on his favorite: the croquettes. Rimee Ruu and Tara were sitting beside one another next to him, looking adorable.

Reina Ruu was sitting with Granny Jiba, who was quietly chatting with Granny Mishil and the other old folks. Sheera, Ryada, and Darmu Ruu were also contributing to the conversations that were going on around them from time to time.

Dora’s sons seemed to have really hit it off with Bartha and Yun Sudra, who they were seated across from. And next to Yun Sudra was Cheem Sudra, who was displaying a serious appetite despite his small figure.

As for me, I was seated between Ai Fa and Toor Deen across from the two wives. Though the women on either side of me were silent, the ones across from me were chatting away, so I was really enjoying myself.

“We owe this wonderful time we’re having tonight to you recovering from your illness so well, Asuta,” Dora loudly declared after drinking some fruit wine. “Oh, but it’s not like I’m ignoring everything our friends from the Ruu and the other clans have done. But if something had happened to Asuta, I don’t think any of us would be feeling very festive.”

“Don’t go dragging the mood down with such a grim subject. Have you been drinking too much?” Dora’s wife interjected from the seat behind his at the other table, elbowing her husband in the back.

“I haven’t even finished a single bottle. As if that would be enough to get me drunk. I’m just trying to say that I was really worried about Asuta!”

“Everyone here feels the same way. There’s no need to go shouting about it like that.”

I felt terribly grateful to hear that. More than a month had passed since I had come down with that illness, and I had fully recovered now, but I hadn’t forgotten how blessed I was that things had turned out so well. I was able to enjoy moments like this one because I was back to good health now.

“You really did make the rainy season vegetables into something delicious, just like you promised, Asuta. This time of year can be a real pain, but it feels like it’s been surprisingly fun this time.”

“Yeah. It’ll be over in around ten days or so, right?”

“Yes. The rains might linger for another five days or so longer than that, but there’s only half a month left at worst. It’s almost time to say farewell to this vexing weather.”

It was certainly true that there was a lot of trouble that came with the rainy season, not the least of which was the terrible illness I had suffered from. But even so, it wasn’t like it was all bad. As I looked around at everyone enjoying the meal, I strongly felt that way once again.