It was time to start experimenting with the vegetables I’d put aside from the initial harvest—everything that was too sweet, acidic, or plain to eat in their natural form. The plan was to hopefully turn them into seasonings and other cooking necessities since all I currently had was salt and fish sauce—better than nothing, but I was desperate to cook something that wasn’t just grilled, savory meat.
There were two vegetables I was particularly excited about.
The first was a flavorless potato-like tuber, which looked better than it tasted: starchy. If I could extract that starch and turn it into a solid, I would hopefully end up with something equivalent to the powder we used in Japan to make tempura batter, thicken soups, and much more—and for once, this was something I did know how to do. I started by peeling off the thick skin, then I grated the whole potato to shreds using a grater I’d quickly made earlier precisely for this task. I could make basically anything out of the silver ore by now, and the grater was so effective—and sharp—that I had to be extra careful so I wouldn’t lose a finger. Next, I wrapped the shredded potato in a cloth, tied it in a knot, and placed the whole bundle in a bowl of water. Then came the hard part—massaging the bundle like my life depended on it. Sediment began to color the water, at which point I wrung out the cloth, squeezing it until the water turned cloudy. Once it seemed like nothing else was coming out, I removed the bundle, and let the bowl sit.
Now came the exciting part. Twenty or so minutes later, I very carefully poured the water out of the bowl. This was the moment of truth; if there was something left in the bottom of the bowl, then I was well on the way to my starchy dreams. If not...well, then I’d failed.
“It’s there!”
With most of the water gone, I could see a soggy, white sludge in the bottom of the bowl. It was a good sign. I added more water and stirred, left it for another twenty minutes, then drained it again and repeated the process a third time. The final result was a pure-white sludge, which I dumped onto a plate and dried with magic, leaving me with a hardened clump. I crushed the lump into a powder. It looked perfect; now I needed to test it. I used the powder to coat some appropriately sized chunks of meat, sprinkling them with a touch of salt for flavor, and gently lowered them into a hot pan of oil. I made ten pieces in total for the trial run. Finally, it was time to taste it.
I shed a tear as the delicious, nostalgic flavor hit my taste buds.
A spider plopped down from the ceiling above, looking at me and the deep-fried meat curiously.
I feel like more and more of you can make webs now... Hang on, that’s not the important thing here! You gotta keep this a secret, okay? I don’t have enough starch to go around yet!
I bribed the spider with a piece of my precious meat, which seemed to work.
The rest of the day was spent grating, massaging, and drying the rest of the bland potatoes. I was exhausted by the end of it, but more importantly, I now had a decent stash of the starch powder. It wasn’t until I collapsed into bed that I remembered the existence of magic.
Why the hell did I do it all by hand?! Idiot!
The next day, I returned to the kitchen to continue my experimenting.
And don’t forget to use magic this time. Idiot.
Back in Japan, we had a type of sugar made from beets, and beets, as far as I could remember, were a sweet yet bitter vegetable—just like the one I’d tasted after the harvest. To me, that bittersweet taste had been the taste of anticipation. If they could make sugar out of beets, then I should be able to make it out of whatever this was.
The vegetable itself was a little unappealing to look at; it was purple and covered in lumps.
It looks like it should be poisonous, really... Maybe this isn’t such a good idea?
I shrugged.
Well, won’t know until I try! So... How do I try, again?
I had only a faint idea of the method. My mom had tried to make beet sugar once after seeing something about it on the television, and I’d caught glimpses of the process, but I wasn’t certain about any of it.
It was definitely something to do with boiling. I think. Eh, I’ll give it a go. I’ve got enough for a couple of failures.
I was pretty sure that she’d boiled the beets first, so I cut one of the purple vegetables into small chunks, which would hopefully allow more of the sugar to be extracted. I transferred the chunks into an iron pot and heated it to a boil. Before long, scum floated to the surface. It was bitter to the taste, so I scooped it out and dumped it, leaving the rest of the pot to boil.
An hour passed without any further changes—no scum, no sugar, no nothing. Just less and less water as it evaporated.
Looks like it’s no good. Guess I’ll leave it for a little longer... Ah.
The water had started to turn purple.
I spooned out a dash of the liquid onto a small plate and let it sit for a while. Nothing happened.
It doesn’t look like it’s gonna thicken or crystalize. I could try evaporating it, but it’s all liquid, so I’m pretty sure I’d just end up with an empty plate.
I decided to put the pot back on the boil for a bit longer. Thirty minutes later, the liquid was an even deeper purple—and, more importantly, it was thicker, closer in consistency to honey than water. I removed the pot from the heat and picked out the mushy chunks of vegetable, before leaving it to cool. All that was left to do was wait, and...
Oh, it solidified. Cool!
I chipped off a chunk of the purple glass-like block and tried it.
Sweet.
It was sweet—sweeter than any sugar I’d tasted before but with a mild, earthy tang.
I did it! It worked!
Now it was time to turn the rest into sugar—with magic, rather than by hand like yesterday. I did a test run first, using magic to boil the mixture and strain out the scum and mush. Unfortunately, while the resulting liquid looked the same in terms of color and consistency, it wouldn’t solidify, no matter how long I waited. Apparently, magic and sugar-making weren’t compatible—much to my dismay.
I spent the rest of the day slaving over a hot fire, constantly stirring the pots to make sure they didn’t burn. It was sweaty, exhausting work, but by the time I’d strained the final pot, I’d made a huge amount of sugar. I transferred it all into a massive iron pot—okay, it was more of a cauldron. I’d made it on a whim before realizing that I’d probably never need a cauldron, so I was glad to have found a use for it.
Dinner that night was sweet-and-savory broiled winged lizard. Really, it would have been better with rice, but I still didn’t have any, so I boiled up some of the leafy vegetables to go with it. The wolves soon appeared in the kitchen behind me, probably lured in by the smell. The hunger in their eyes was terrifying, so I doubled the amount I’d been planning to make.
I spent most of the meal staring pointedly into the distance in an attempt to ignore the violence around me.
Every time I come up with a new recipe, I feel like the peaceful, relaxing dinnertime of my dreams gets farther and farther out of reach...
And on the topic of peace—I needed to make some more fish sauce, and soon.