“I’m not sure, but I think you could make the noodles with the recipe for sponge cake, just without the sugar. I have a feeling they’re practically the same.”
We borrowed Sumo’s kitchen and began to cook based on Miss Haru’s hazy memories.
We started with the “men” part of the ramen.
“Once it’s ready, we stretch it out like byooooo.”
When Mr. Sumo’s big hands stretched the dough, it flopped apart.
Are you supposed to stretch it or roll it out?
I may not look like it, but I’m pretty good at making cookies. I’ve never seen dough used like this, though...
“But I’ve seen them getting stretched before! Ramen noodles are long and thin!”
Miss Haru explained it with all her might, but if she doesn’t know the correct way to make them herself, how were we supposed to get it? We were all getting frustrated.
These “men” noodles were supposedly long, thin, and curly. I made up my mind to ask her—if she was sure she wasn’t making an indecent joke.
“Kiyori, how big of a pervert do you think I am? I really just want to make the noodles. Ugh, why isn’t it working? I know they use flour...”
“Flower?” Miss Lupe reacted to the unfamiliar word.
“Oh,” said Miss Haru. “I mean vloua,” she restated.
She has to convert things that are similar in her world as she’s explaining. Yes, Miss Haru is the one having the most frustrating time. We’ve got to support her.
“What if we put aside the ‘men’ for now and started with the ‘ra’?”
I felt like that was a pretty constructive suggestion, but Miss Haru jabbed back, “What’s ‘ra’ supposed to be?!”
Well, how would I know?
“Actually...what is‘ra’?” Miss Haru jabbed at herself, too, cocking her head. I started to really wonder what we were trying to make. “But yeah, you’re right. Let’s make the soup first. That must be the ‘ra.’”
Apparently ramen is soup with noodles and other ingredients in it. Once she explained it that way, I felt I could sort of picture it. In Miss Haru’s world they have things like soup and stew, too, so I figured it had to be something similar to those.
Incidentally, we make soup by simmering and seasoning something like fond root or chikenbown nuts.
“I’m pretty sure they used the bones of an animal to make the stock...”
Miss Haru’s murmur gave me goosebumps. I’d never heard of anyone eating such a thing. Miss Lupe and Mr. Sumo glanced at each other in surprise.
“Huh? Hold on. Where I lived it was normal. It’s really good! I’m not kidding.”
Still, the shock was too great. Eating meat is one thing, but using the bones? Common sense for us was giving the bones to a processor to be ground down and returned to the earth.
Come to think of it, I heard that Miss Haru had been using an animal bone to play an instrument until Miss Lupe carved her one out of wood. Cultural differences can be quite surprising...
“...Sorry. I was kidding. Fond root is fine.”
Perhaps because we were so startled, Miss Haru backed down.
The soup would be made using our method. Honestly, everyone was relieved. When you take your time to cook the fond, it makes a really delicious soup. If you boil it too long it gets oily, so you have to be careful, but done right the resulting soup is truly sophisticated.
We never did figure out what the ra was. But we used the daizu sauce Miss Haru likes so much to season it.
“The noodles aren’t fried. You boil them.”
I had never heard of boiling cake dough before. Mr. Sumo spread out the dough from before, cut it into thin strips, and put them in boiling water.
In the pot, the noodles shredded and stuck together and ended up looking prettyunappetizing. Our faces probably grew more and more awkward as we watched them.
When the “men” seemed done, we put them into the soup. And I guess that was it? Really, there were supposed to be all sorts of other toppings, but “there’s too much freedom to choose, so I have no idea.”
What’s freedom, I wonder?
Anyhow, we went back to the “terrace.” It was finally time to eat.
The atmosphere was tense as Miss Haru took her first bite and then said, “Blorgh!” Then she laughed, “Ha-ha. What is this? There’s no way. Ramen is really just impossible.”
We laughed because Miss Haru was laughing. And we decided not to taste it.
We sure made a weird thing, huh?
That’s what we said as we laughed before the shock of Miss Haru suddenly crying.
“...I’ll never get to eat it again.” The “noodles” slipped between the prongs of her fork into the soup. She covered her face with both hands and seemed to wring her voice out as she said, “I want ramen so baaaaad...”
We’d seen Miss Haru cry before. She does suddenly burst into tears sometimes. I think it started after Miss Shequraso passed away. I think she’s stopped bottling things up in this world; she’s not simply enduring it all anymore.
But that’s all I know about that—because the world she remembers when she starts crying is one that we can’t even imagine.
“Haru, we should probably get back to the shop, don’t you think?”
With Miss Lupe supporting her, Miss Haru went back to the shop, murmuring “Sorry,” and “Thanks,” to us as she left.
Mr. Sumo and I just stood there (although he stood more heavily than me) facing the bowl of “ramen.”
When I looked cautiously up at his face, it was red, and he was biting his lip.
“Huh? Wait a minute.”
Mr. Sumo thudded back into the kitchen. I had a bad feeling, so I excused myself and ran after him. He was holding the bones of a chicken over a large pot of vigorously boiling water.
“You mustn’t!”
Bones are to be returned to the earth. We take only the lives and the meat of birds and beasts; the rest must be given back to God, the source. They provide nutrients for the plants. That’s what our God teaches. As a Sister, I can’t allow them to be eaten.
“Miss Haru comes from a country with a different culture. We mustn’t imitate it.”
Mr. Sumo put the bones back where he found them. But his large body was still trembling.
I gently touched his back. Touching a man for non-healing purposes is surely improper, but I felt like I had to. “We can’t make ramen. Let’s just give it up.”
Mr. Sumo didn’t answer.
For some reason I didn’t want to leave, so I stayed there sitting in the kitchen with him until the cafe closed. I’m not sure how much his father knew about what was going on, but he left us alone.
As the cafe quieted down, I thought about another world. The world Miss Haru and Mr. Crimson came from must be less hospitable than this one. It must be so hard to live there, with so many monsters and so little food, that they even have to eat bones.
This “ramen” food must have been a meal for special occasions. Thinking of her bitter days in poverty, which no doubt shortened her life span, brought tears to my eyes. The only thing she had to look forward to was that soup.