“The quality is better than I imagined.”
Back in the repurposed laboratory, the Food Court Operational Headquarters, I had five trays set in front of me. Cute little dishes of every shape and color sat atop each tray, brought here by our participants. However, the people I was complimenting had mixed feelings about it.
“The taste is a sure thing. But ya know, there ain’t enough meat to chew on like this.”
Regardless of the small portion of Dargan’s roast beef, the gradation from the charred edges to its red center was marvelous.
“...I somehow or other got this together with the vegetables we can use this season... But it really isn’t enough...”
Shirley brought something like a vegetable aspic that she didn’t seem terribly confident in. It was a rectangular hardened block with carrot-like orange, papaya-like yellow, turnip-like white, and asparagus-like green chunks in it.
“Please don’t consider such a plain dish to be representative of my skills.”
Plura’s dish, which he was practically sighing at, was a confection with white mousse and small berries on it. The fact that he went out of his way to make it donut-shaped, even though it was bite-sized, gave off a sense of his pride.
“He’s got a point. Any male guests will definitely finish this in one bite.”
Lilka looked at her yellow pudding while measuring it out with her thumb and finger. It looked like there was an ample amount of cheese kneaded into an egg yolk.
“...”
Ruston simply looked over the baguette kneaded with small nuts in silence. Thanks to that, I had no idea what nuts they were. From what I could see, they were similar to walnuts.
All of our members looked discontent and anxious in front of their bite-sized dishes. It really did look unreliable from the standards of luxury food here in this world. What had Shirley especially anxious was how light seasoning seemed insufficient for something this size.
“There’s such a thing as a suitable size for cuisine, so that it can be properly tasted. Perhaps a copper like yourself would not know this.”
“You don’t plan on using these as a sampler or something, do you? I’m pretty sure the nobles will just think you’re taking the mickey out of them. They’re nothing like those commoners who’ll jump at the offer of free stuff, ya know?”
My two upperclassmen were thinking that I made some sort of fatal misunderstanding. Such is my household, I guess. I did in fact consider a sampler, but in the end, I rejected the idea myself. So forgive me for that.
“No, this is fine.”
I looked over the five dishes of every color and nodded. I then received a white plate from Mia and began arranging the bite-sized dishes atop it.
The first thing I placed closest to me was Shirley’s four-vegetable aspic; I placed Lilka’s pudding adjacent to it. Together, they were something like the salad and the appetizer.
I cut Ruston’s baguette into small triangular slices and put three of them on the left to match up with the rest. Of course, I stood them up against each other to give it a sense of height. The colors on the dish multiplied with my every move.
Now for the main dish. I arranged the roast beef in the center of the plate like a rose. The color of meat instantly filled up the rest of the plate. And finally, I put the white mousse, which matched the plate’s color, to the back. The color of the small berries was brought to the fore.
As each color and shape was added to the plate, our members began pitching forward more and more.
“This will be the Food Court’s highlight menu item, the one-plate lunch.”
I spoke before my collage of cuisine. The other members remained silent. Rather than rejecting or accepting the idea, they were just kind of bewildered.
Take a determined product and create it in mass— that’s the fundamental thought behind manufacturing. The acquisition of materials and all processes up to the product’s sale are standardized to reduce risk. In the modern manufacturing world, the basic theory is to mass-produce as few varieties of goods as possible for as long as possible. The fundamentals of this are the same for foods which can’t be manufactured as industrial goods as well.
In truth, Shirley did mention her anxieties in managing an inventory for the different kinds of vegetables she had. Losing even one type would render her dish unfeasible, which really showed the risks of the storage and transportation technologies here. The extent of complexity that could be managed in this world was quite narrow.
Consequently, luxury goods here tended towards larger portions without a need for such risks; stuff like thick steaks and layered cakes. At noble banquets, they would go even further and line up such dishes which focused on size to produce a luxurious spectacle, somewhat like a full course banquet.
That was, in fact, luxurious even by the other world’s standards. However, back on Earth, where food could be so abundant that obesity was a problem among the masses, there was an entirely different form of luxury.
From a manufacturing standpoint, it’s the exact opposite approach: produce a large variety of small portions. It’s a paradigm born from a world of abundance. That’s the trigger for my idea this time. The fact that this one-plate lunch didn’t form a direct connection in me to restaurants back on Earth somewhat shows my standards of living while I was there.
A merchant should have been able to understand this. Lining up all sorts of different dishes into one plate had a different impact from sheer size. It was an entirely different form of luxury.
“What’s this? It’s so cute!” Lilka spontaneously yelled.
“Amazing, it’s like a painting on top of the plate. I’ve never seen a dish like this before.” Shirley added.