Warehouse Shelves
AFTER we polished off our umeboshi pulp pizza, I saw Techi off as she headed back to work. Then, once I was done brushing my teeth and doing the dishes, with Kon by my side, I made my way to the warehouse next to the house. I’d been adding an assortment of food into the warehouse fridge and freezer units periodically—well, more like whenever something came up—and accordingly, the area should have gotten somewhat dirty, so we were going to work on that.
Since the warehouse, fridge, and freezer units were used for food storage, hygiene was of the essence. With Kon as my trusty assistant, I carefully worked through the warehouse so that I wouldn’t miss even a tiny spot. After dealing with visible debris, I also disinfected exposed surfaces with an alcohol spray as the finishing touch.
Rinse, repeat, recycle.
After roughly two entire hours, we finally finished most of what I’d set out to do, and I let out a sigh of satisfaction and relief. But the next moment, Kon, who’d advanced into an area with rows of shelves that were at a slight distance from the fridge area, let out an “Ah!” of surprise. He darted over to the shelves with his tiny feet.
Looks like the cat is finally out of the bag, I thought as I chased after him. Kon charged ahead like a miniature rocket until he reached the deepest part of the shelves area—a block alongside the warehouse wall. He nimbly scaled up the shelf ledges before coming to a stop next to four preserve jars and staring unblinkingly at them.
“I know what these are!” he cried, pointing at those jars. “I can smell them! They’re confit, right?! Right?!”
I gazed at the preserve jars, which each had labels listing their date of preparation, the ingredients used, as well as a general flavor profile. “Yep. Got it in one. They’re confits. I don’t know whether it’s accurate, but I read that confits become even tastier after you age them, so I decided to try it out. And well, I’ve got such a magnificent warehouse in my backyard—I figured I might as well use it, so I lined them on the shelf.”
When Gramps had been alive, the shelves in the warehouse had been jam-packed with preserve jars and pots. All of them had hidden some kind of delicious treat within, creating an awe-inspiring, diverse collection of preserves like a treasure trove. Even now, the spectacular sight was etched in my memory.
One day, I wanted to revive that stunning scene. That said, I hadn’t made much progress on the empty shelves so far because the preserves I’d made either didn’t have too long of a shelf life or weren’t at a standard I was satisfied with—until I’d made the confits a while ago. The confits had turned out to be a huge success that excelled in both taste and preservation, and it had been a beautiful day when they’d become the very first preserves to line up on the shelves.
“Let’s see. Ohhh!” Kon scanned the labels on the jars. “You made them on the same day, but you changed up the seasoning a bit for each one, huh? There’s different herbs, there’s different amounts of salt… Ah, there’s even one with soy sauce!” He then turned around to face me and gave me a big, sunny grin.
Kon had likely witnessed that spectacular scene and enjoyed Gramps’s little treasures as well. I didn’t know whether his eagerness to see the shelves return to their former glory was just as profound as mine, but he must have wished for it somewhere within his heart, which probably led to such a brilliant smile.
I returned with a smile of my own as I said, “I think the next preserves to line the shelves are umeboshi. After that, hmm… Fruits preserved in syrup sounds like a nice idea.”
Hearing that, his smile widened even more. But then, the next moment, he tilted his head adorably and asked, “You’re not gonna put up any jam?”
I hummed in thought. “The thing is, I’ve never made jam for storage at room temperature, at least not yet. It’s apparently not too complicated—I only have to use more sugar, sterilize the bottles properly, and make a vacuum seal.” I shrugged. “But I usually store my homemade jam in the fridge, so it’s a bit intimidating to suddenly start doing something else. That’s why I’m thinking of experimenting a little when I have time by buying tiny preserve jars and filling them with only a smidgen of jam. If I make a giant batch right off the bat and it grows moldy, it’d be really wasteful.”
“I see!” Kon chirped. “So there’ll be confits, umeboshi, fruits in syrup, plus jam on the shelves! Sounds like it’d be colorful and pretty.” Then, he frowned slightly. “But that’s not a lot. Most of the shelves will still be empty.”
“Ah, well… Yeah. If I succeed and make jam that can be stored here, I suppose making lots and lots of jam with all kinds of fruits is an option, but I’ll still reach a limit eventually. Plus, making food that I haven’t got plans of eating isn’t really the best thing to do…” I mulled over it. “I could put up the amount of jam that I’m going to eat within the year and renew the selection annually. But in that case, the best I can do is fill one row, and that’s me being optimistic.”
I continued, “Likewise, I could make a collection of confits with different types of meat, but I’d run into the same problems… Sheesh, how in the world did Gramps manage to fill up these big shelves to the brim?”
Kon and I did a turn, looking over the shelves that lined up within the warehouse. The structure of the warehouse was something like this: one section was a plain storage area, while another section was dedicated to the fridge and freezer units. Walls separated these two sections, and the current area we were in was somewhat like an aisle sandwiched between two walls. On both sides of this aisle were rows of shelves, and each shelf generally had three tiers—top, middle, and bottom. Okay, so if I want to fill all these shelves with jars and pots… How many dozens of jars and pots will I need? Maybe even hundreds?
Simply purchasing these vessels would already be challenging enough, not to mention making the preserves that would fill them. Stocking up all these shelves wasn’t going to be a one-year or two-year project—it would take way longer than that, perhaps five years or even ten years.
Crossing my arms, I began contemplating the problem seriously. “If I simply wanted to occupy the space itself, it’d be a piece of cake, but the problem is that I’ve got to think about shelf lives too. Let’s see, what I want are preserves that can be stored in room temperature like this warehouse… They have to be simple enough for an amateur to make, and if possible, I’d prefer the preservation process to actually contribute to the food somehow, like how confits become more flavorful as you age it…” I sighed. “Finding recipes that fit the bill isn’t going to be easy.”
As I spoke, I sifted through my memories and recalled the types of preserves I’d eaten with Gramps during my childhood. If I remembered correctly, most of it had been tsukemono—Japanese pickles. Specifically, Shiozuke, preserves pickled in salt, misozuke, food preserved in miso, or nukazuke, food pickled in rice bran and brine.
Nukazuke… I’ve honestly been reluctant about testing it since managing the rice bran mixture sounds quite demanding, but if I’m determined to pack these shelves until they’re full, it’s something I’ve got to tackle one way or another.
What else did we eat? Jam, fruits in syrup, and pure syrup… Hmm… I’m pretty sure we’ve enjoyed a big variety of things, but the details just aren’t coming to me. I sighed.
During the Great Disaster, we should have only eaten preserves for a significantly long time, and we’d polished off the majority of the preserves decorating these shelves. But for some reason, my mind was drawing a complete blank when I tried to pull up the details in the memories from the time. Instead, one question after another flashed through my mind. What kind of food had been placed on these shelves? What had Gramps been doing in this place? What kind of preserves had he made?
I was deep in thought as I walked down the aisle sandwiched between shelves, reaching out to gently caress the shelves and sniffing the cocktail of scents that lingered on them.
Though I was making sure to clean them regularly, the many years of use meant that they had absorbed a diverse assortment of scents in every nook and cranny. I could detect the faint hints of seasoning such as salt and miso. Possibly mimicking me, Kon hopped all over the shelves and had whiffs wherever he went.
The two of us continued our scent tour as we walked forward until we reached a certain shelf near the warehouse entrance. A distinct, pungent odor stung my nose. Realization dawned upon us immediately, and we exchanged knowing glances.
It was both an astringent and familiar scent—a distinct smell I had to put up with whether I wanted to or not after I’d become a working adult. Indeed, it was the smell of alcohol.
Both of us let out an “Ahh” of realization in sync.
“Come to think of it, Gramps had a fondness for alcohol,” I muttered. “I see, so he lined up his homemade drinks here.”
“Grampa Tommi was almost drinking every single day, so that makes sense.” Kon nodded. “The smell on him was super strong at night.”
My adventures at Gramps’s house were during my childhood, and Kon was a child even now. I’d never tasted the alcohol on the shelves personally, and Gramps had never given me the details about what kind of drinks they were. However, considering the potent and widespread smell of alcohol, I had a good guess about how extensive his collection had been.
For a while after that, Kon and I were enveloped by that scent as we shared nostalgic stories about Gramps, talking animatedly as we reminisced upon those wonderful days.