Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 28 - Chapter 3.3

3

“Well then, I guess it’s about time to get dessert ready,” I declared around half an hour later, when I saw that most of the food on the large plates had been eaten.

When I did, Ludo Ruu looked at me dubiously as he ate some baked poitan dipped in tarapa soup.

“Aren’t you being pretty hasty? We’ll be completely done with dinner before too much longer, so why not just wait until then?”

“Tonight’s dessert needs a bit more work to finish up, and I want to bring it out right when everyone’s done eating.”

“Hmm? I don’t really get it, but I guess it’s fine as long as there’s a reason.”

“Of course there is. Asuta would never do anything without thinking it through,” Lala Ruu said to her younger brother in a rather harsh tone, perhaps still feeling a bit sore because of their earlier argument. Though they most certainly didn’t have a bad relationship, I felt like they fought the most out of the seven Ruu siblings.

As I listened to them arguing behind me, I went ahead and exited the room along with Ai Fa and Tara. Ai Fa was holding a candlestick to help with visibility, and she was carefully glancing around. Though giba rarely ever approached houses, we had to be cautious of giiz and mundt at night.

“Now then, let’s finish this up quickly.”

“Yeah!”

Having made it safely to the kitchen, Tara and I got to work. And as she watched us out of the corner of her eye, Ai Fa remarked, “Hmm. You don’t seem to even be close to finishing right now. Did you not have enough time?”

“Ah, no. It seemed like it would probably fall apart if we let it sit too long, so I decided to prepare it right before it would be eaten. I sure hope Rimee Ruu likes it.”

“I know she will! I’ve never seen such a wonderful dessert before!” Tara said, brimming with excitement. She didn’t often get to cook at home, so it seemed like she was really enjoying this opportunity to prepare a delicious treat for someone important to her.

Around ten minutes or so later, we wrapped up our work. Ai Fa guided us back to the main building, and it seemed the argument between Ludo and Lala Ruu had wrapped up. All of the plates of food were now empty, and everyone was enjoying fruit wine and chatchi tea.

“That sure did take a while. I was getting worried that you might have messed up somehow,” Ludo Ruu commented.

“Don’t worry; everything is fine. And thank you for waiting, everyone.”

I walked over to Rimee Ruu, carrying a plank in place of a serving tray, which in turn had a large plate on it where the dessert we had prepared was sitting. Ai Fa took her seat again, while Tara followed after me.

“Rimee Ruu, once again, let me say happy birthday. Tara and I made this for you to celebrate.”

“Whoa!” Rimee Ruu exclaimed, her eyes sparkling brightly. Aside from a few of the men, almost everyone else made surprised noises too.

“What a delightful treat! You’re going to cut it into portions for everyone, right?” Mia Lea Ruu said, having cleared away the empty plates.

“Yes. I made it big enough for all sixteen of us to have some,” I replied as I set it down in front of Rimee Ruu.

The dish was thirty centimeters in diameter and ten centimeters tall. Under the candlelight, the white cream and red arow fruit positively sparkled. It was a whole three-tier birthday cake made with poitan and fuwano batter, slathered in whipped cream and decorated with arow.

“Amazing! How’d you get the cream to make these shapes?!” Rimee Ruu asked, looking at the whipped cream decorations. I had utilized a metal nozzle meant for transferring fruit wine from casks to jars in order to make decorative whipped cream shapes on the top of the cake.

After I had smashed the nozzle as flat as I could, I had been able to use it to make ruffles with the cream, which gave it a pretty showy appearance. Decorating food wasn’t really something anyone did at the forest’s edge, so that alone was enough to surprise them.

Then, in between the ruffles of whipped cream, I had added some arow, which looked like raspberries. Normally, arow were too sour to be eaten like this, so I had steeped them in sugar for a full five days. When I had been asked to make a dessert for Rimee Ruu’s birthday, I had gone to Yang for advice on how to make arow taste better, and this was the first time I was showing off the results.

Arow were small like raspberries, but their color was closer to that of strawberries. Those bits of bright red really stood out among all the sparkling white of the whipped cream. Yes, this was the birthday cake that I had thought up for Rimee Ruu.

“Okay then, time to cut it. Would it be all right to give Kota Ruu a small piece?”

“That’s just fine. If he leaves any extra, Jiza and I will take it,” Sati Lea Ruu said.

Kota Ruu’s eyes were sparkling with anticipation as he sat there next to his mother. He was a bit older than Aimu Fou, and it felt like he was getting bigger and bigger every time I saw him.

Taking back the kitchen knife that I had previously left in Mia Lea Ruu’s care, I carefully began cutting into the cake. With its whipped cream coating, it was incredibly soft, so it required even more concentration than it normally would have.

Its fluffy texture was yet another reason we had waited until the last minute to get it ready. There weren’t any refrigerators here in this country, so working with fresh cream was very difficult. It was one thing when you wrapped up the cream in dough like with a roll cake, but when it was on the outside of a decorated cake, it would probably slough off if we left it out for more than a few minutes.

“Here’s Rimee Ruu’s piece first.”

When I portioned out a slice onto a plate and set it in front of the birthday girl, she once again exclaimed, “Amazing!” Naturally, I had added fresh cream between each of the three layers as well. On top of that, I had kneaded some chopped up bits of ramam and minmi fruit into the batter, both of which tasted good naturally, even if you didn’t do anything special to them.

From there, I kept on cutting slices and passing them around. The women and Ludo Ruu all let out an excited “Ooh!” or “Aah!” when theirs reached them.

“Thanks for being patient. Enjoy, everyone,” I said, as nobody had touched their cake until Tara and I returned to our seats.

With an excited “Yay!” Rimee Ruu picked up a wooden spoon. Both the cream and the cake itself were very soft, so eating it that way would be no problem. And as she took her very first bite of cake, Rimee Ruu’s already big eyes opened even wider. “It’s so yummy! The poitan is really soft too!”

“I felt like the roll cakes we made before were a little too tough, so I tried out all kinds of things to make this cake even softer.”

This was the result of lots of trial and error at the Fa house over the past few days. Ultimately, I had figured out that separating the whites from the yolks of the kimyuus eggs I was going to mix with the fuwano and poitan, and then beating the whites as if I were trying to make meringue, would give me the softest end result.

Also, since we had baked it in an oven, that was how I was finally able to create something soft enough to qualify as sponge cake.

The sponge cake and whipped cream had a relatively restrained sweetness to them, and I went rather light with the cream spread over the surface, which I felt would better fit the tastes of the people of the forest’s edge. Even so, karon milk cream was very flavorful, and the apple-like ramam and peach-like minmi added some more sweetness. Plus, the sugar-steeped arow definitely added a strong accent to the dish’s flavor in addition to the visuals.

“It’s very good. You didn’t change all that much, aside from making the dough so soft, and yet...for some reason, its taste is outstanding,” Reina Ruu added. Though she wore a bright smile, her eyes were shining with more than just one emotion. “I never would’ve imagined that there could be a method to make fuwano and poitan come out so soft. This is something you came up with and mastered recently, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I worked on it in secret at the Fa house.”

“You avoided revealing it to the Ruu clan in order to surprise Rimee, right? Like when you unveiled those gratin and pizza dishes at the festival of the hunt.”

“Exactly. I figured unfamiliar dishes would make people happier.”

“I understand. But now, I can’t help but feel impatient to learn how to make this myself as soon as possible.”

I was pretty sure Reina Ruu was the only person who felt that way. Pretty much everyone else was just enjoying the birthday cake with beaming smiles.

Among the group, only one of the hunters wasn’t smiling: Donda Ruu, who grumbled, “This thing seems like it probably took a lot of unnecessary effort. I can’t say I see the point.”

“That’s true. You may well be able to achieve the same taste in a simpler form. But this dish is meant for a celebration, so I wanted it to look a bit extravagant too,” I replied, and then I hurriedly added, “I know that you hate unnecessary effort, Donda Ruu. But I believe that food can taste even better when it looks good as well. Giba dishes are also tastier when they’re served up neatly rather than sloppily, right? That’s why I went with a bit more effort here.”

“Hmph.”

“If you still find it displeasing, then I apologize. But I was only thinking about what would excite Rimee Ruu the most, so I hope you’ll understand.”

“Our clan head isn’t trying to criticize you, Asuta. There’s no need for you to look so perturbed,” Mia Lea Ruu interjected with a smile. Then she turned to her husband. “And the same goes for you. Asuta always gets worried when you make a face like that. But you aren’t really feeling angry, are you?”

“What does it matter? All I said was that I didn’t get the point of it,” Donda Ruu grumbled.

“You’re grateful that Asuta tried to make Rimee happy, aren’t you? Ah, now look, you’ve gone and got cream in your mustache!”

“Stop that. I’m not a little kid.”

“If you try to wipe it with your hand, you’ll only make a mess. Just stay still.”

And so, I got to observe the rare sight of a grumpy Donda Ruu getting his mouth wiped with a hand towel.

Next to her father, Rimee Ruu was happily smiling with an even larger amount of cream all over her face.

“Asuta, Tara, this is super delicious! Thank you so much!”

“I’m glad you like it. Aside from baking the batter, Tara helped me with everything else. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah!” Tara replied with a nod and a smile, her face coated in cream as well.

As Ai Fa silently watched the two young girls—while also eating her own slice of cake—even she couldn’t help but smile faintly.

“This really is quite good. I appreciate it very much, just like I enjoy softening my poitan bread with soup,” Granny Jiba remarked.

“Oh, right, if you don’t add any sugar you should be able to eat this alongside other dishes, so I was thinking I’d teach everyone in the Ruu clan how to make it as soon as tomorrow,” I said.

“How will it taste if it isn’t sweet, I wonder? I’m very interested to find out,” Sati Lea Ruu mused.

“Ah ha ha, you really do like poitan dishes, don’t you, Sati Lea Ruu?”

“And you say you’re not as good at making sweets as Rimee or Toor Deen, Asuta? I find that hard to believe.”

“Rimee Ruu and Toor Deen should be able to use this as a base to create something even more delicious. And if you only add cream in the middle, like with giba burgers, it shouldn’t be too hard to make.”

It was then that I noticed the oldest Ruu daughter sitting in total silence.

“Is it not to your liking, Vina Ruu?” I asked.

“No, I like it very much. But I think I might have overeaten a bit again today.”

“You still want to get even skinnier, Vina?! You know most women are seriously jealous of you already, right?!” Lala Ruu said.

“Lala, don’t be nosy,” Vina Ruu scolded.

Once all the cake was finished, everyone seemed to be feeling closer than ever. And right when I was thinking that, Rimee Ruu suddenly popped up between me and Tara.

“Thanks so much for coming today, everyone! I’m super happy!”

“I’m really glad to hear that,” I replied, sliding back a bit. Rimee Ruu quickly occupied the space I had cleared, which put her in the center of her three guests, Ai Fa included. The birthday girl’s gaze was darting all around, as if she was having trouble deciding who to look at. “Ai Fa, Asuta, Tara, I really want you all to come next year too! I’ll be looking forward to it!”

“Yeah. And you’ll come to the Daleim lands again for the day of the downfall, won’t you?” Tara replied, taking hold of Rimee Ruu’s hand. For her, that was the day when she grew a year older.

Ai Fa brought her face close to Rimee Ruu’s so everyone else wouldn’t see, and then showed the girl a dazzling smile from the heart.

“It makes me very happy as well that we could celebrate our birthdays together. I wish you good health until your next one, Rimee Ruu.”

“Yeah, you too, Ai Fa!” The birthday girl then grasped my clan head’s hand with her own.

Everyone was smiling happily, including me.

And so, Rimee Ruu’s ninth birthday came to a nice, harmonious close.

◇

After another half an hour or so of pleasant chatting, Ai Fa and I got ready to head home.

Tara was staying overnight, but we were planning to spend the night with the Ruu on the day of Darmu and Sheera Ruu’s wedding, so we were refraining from doing so today.

“Thanks, Ai Fa and Asuta! Take care on the way back!” Rimee Ruu shouted from the entrance to her house, energetically waving her hand. Tara was holding her other hand and also waving along in sync.

I then turned to Mia Lea Ruu, who had come out with us, and said, “Well then, we’ll be leaving Fafa in your care, Mia Lea Ruu. I’ll have one of the women pick him up tomorrow when we drop by on our way to the post town.”

I wasn’t comfortable with driving wagons at night, so Fafa and his wagon that Ai Fa had rode over in would be spending the night here. Tomorrow, someone who wasn’t manning the stalls would accompany us to the Ruu settlement and then return with him.

“We should play again sometime too, Brave! I’ll come over to the Fa house next time!” Rimee Ruu shouted again.

After I, Ai Fa, and our hunting dog Brave were seen off by Rimee Ruu and Tara, we hopped into Gilulu’s wagon. I lifted the flap in the back, and saw that a few of the Ruu were still waving and calling out to us.

“Thanks for everything! See you tomorrow!”

“Yeah, take care!”

“See you again!”

“Here’s to working together again tomorrow!”

As the wagon advanced, they steadily vanished from view, eventually becoming nothing but black silhouettes in the distance. When I could no longer tell who was who, I started to pull my head back inside the wagon...but just then, I noticed a figure fly out of the house and head toward us with incredible speed.

“Huh? Ai Fa, it looks like somebody’s coming after us. Could we stop for a moment?”

“Hmm?” My clan head sounded surprised, but she did as I asked.

The tall figure steadily got closer. I didn’t have to wonder who it was for long, as I soon recognized him as Darmu Ruu.

“What is it, Darmu Ruu? Did we forget something?” I asked, knowing that probably wasn’t the case. If we had forgotten something, Ludo Ruu would probably have been the one to deliver it to us. And besides, Darmu Ruu was completely empty-handed.

“Asuta, I have something to discuss with you.”

“What is it?” I replied.

Ai Fa then peeked around the side of the wagon at us as well.

Darmu Ruu furrowed his brow lightly and glared at her. “Asuta is the one I want to speak with.”

“Is it something you don’t want me to overhear?”

“I’m sure Asuta will tell you later either way, so there’s no need for you to listen in.”

Ai Fa looked rather suspicious, but she settled back into the driver’s seat nonetheless. I got down from the wagon and stepped over to the Ruu hunter.

“So, what is it? Some sort of secret?”

“On the day of the wedding, I want to have you cook.”

“Huh?” I questioned, a bit taken aback. “Y-You mean the wedding between you and Sheera Ruu?”

“Do you know anybody else who’s about to get married?” Darmu Ruu shot back, bringing the blazing blue wolflike eyes he had inherited from his father close to my face. The scar on his right cheek looked bright red for some reason.

“If that’s what you want, then I’d gladly do so...but are you sure you want me to?”

“I’m the one asking here, you know.”

“G-Got it. Then I’ll have to make a request for some chefs to assist me.”

“You won’t need any help. You should be able to do it alone.”

This was beginning to sound troublesome. And as I was starting to feel a touch uneasy, Darmu Ruu brought his face even closer.

“You only need to make enough for one person. You can do that without help, can’t you?”

“Only one person? What do you—?”

“I want you to make one of the dishes that the married couple eats as their first meal together.”

That left me full-on at a loss for words. Darmu Ruu was talking about the most important and sacred dish to be prepared for a Ruu clan wedding. At Ruu weddings, the new bride and groom didn’t eat anything for a while, instead simply watching over the proceedings of the banquet. Then, after they exchanged their woven crowns, they ate a selection of dishes prepared just for them as their first meal together.

Previously, it had been something like meat from a giba caught that day or the finest giba meat they had preserved. They would grill enough of that meat for two people, and the couple would split it up and eat it together.

For Gazraan and Ama Min Rutim’s wedding, I had prepared hamburger steak and fillets. On top of that, I had used high-quality fruit wine to flambé it, adding a little something to the presentation.

And now, Darmu Ruu was asking me to make such a precious dish again.

“Reina will be making one of the two dishes. I want you to make the other. What do you say?”

“Y-Yeah, of course. I’m incredibly honored...but why me?”

“Because that’s what Sheera Ruu wants,” Darmu Ruu replied, almost whispering, even as the blazing inferno in his eyes grew ever more intense. His scar was steadily getting redder as well. “But she thought it wouldn’t be proper to entrust such an important role to someone unrelated to us, so she dropped the idea immediately. I have already talked this over with our clan head Donda, though.”

“Oh, so Donda Ruu already gave his approval?”

“He did, and so did Reina. Nobody else knows about this, so make sure you don’t tell anyone either.”

“Huh? But Ai Fa—”

“I don’t mind if you tell her. But I will be less than pleased if Ludo or Lala get word of this.” In other words, he’d find it embarrassing if his wild younger siblings knew about all the effort he was putting in for his future wife’s sake, huh? “I plan to only inform Sheera Ruu after the wedding banquet has started, so seriously, you’d better not tell anyone.”

“Got it. I’m really glad that you’re entrusting me with such an important job,” I replied with the most sincere smile I could manage.

Darmu Ruu stepped back, looking like he was having to stop himself from clicking his tongue. “If this gets out, I’m going to punch you. Make sure you tell Ai Fa that too.”

“Understood. I’ll really be looking forward to the big day.”

Darmu Ruu turned away, and then he started walking back to his house. After watching him go for a bit, I climbed back into the wagon.

“Sorry for the wait. We’re all done talking now.”

“I see that. It wasn’t anything troublesome, was it?”

“No, it was a good thing. I’ll explain on the way back.”

“Very well,” Ai Fa answered with a nod, lifting up the leather whip and prompting Gilulu to start running forward.

Before the euphoria of Rimee Ruu’s birthday party could even begin to cool off, I had been given something else to be happy about. I stroked Brave’s back as he dozed next to me, and took a moment to consider exactly what to say when I told Ai Fa the news.