Chapter 85
Chapter 85. This Isn't Cooking, It's Art (2)
A new goal had taken shape — to defeat Brigitte in the competition and bring her into Y&P.
It was a little late at this stage to overhaul the Seasoned Chicken itself, so the target was garnishes and sauces.
Returning to Restaurant Odéon for further research, Jurgen was mildly surprised to see light seeping out from the kitchen.
"Oh? You came back?"
"Miss Brigitte herself hasn't gone back either, has she? It's close to midnight already."
"Yes! I've never had a kitchen this nice before! I'm thinking of sleeping here tonight!"
Brigitte added the quip without a care in the world.
Well — perhaps it wasn't a quip.
The kitchen that Jurgen would have turned down even as a gift might, to Brigitte's eyes, look like heaven.
The kitchen where Brigitte was bustling about was filled through and through with a wonderful aroma.
"That smell……. Is that duck?"
"Yes! I'm doing a rehearsal of the dish I'll be presenting in the finals!"
"Is it alright to tell me all of that?"
"Of course! We're all fellow chefs, aren't we!"
Leaking confidential information without a moment's hesitation to someone who would be her competition.
Jurgen had met all manner of people across all manner of fields, but meeting someone as bright and clear-skied as Brigitte was a first.
He briefly considered whether the source of her confidence might be arrogance along the lines of 'and what could you do with that information anyway?' — but……
"I'll share some with you once it's finished! Hehehe…… that's going to be delicious."
Not a trace of such an attitude could be found in her guileless expression as she swallowed eagerly in anticipation.
"Then if you'll allow me."
Jurgen gave a small smile and pulled up a chair to sit beside her.
He had grown curious about what Brigitte was making.
"Oh ho."
Looking into the pot, he could see duck legs slowly cooking in golden oil.
That would be duck fat as well, in all likelihood.
A cooking method in which the ingredient is submerged in oil and slowly cooked at a low temperature.
It was the technique known as confit.
It might be unfamiliar to Koreans, but it was a technique that carried the grandiose label of 'the most perfect cooking method in the world' on a global scale.
And Jurgen was wholeheartedly in agreement.
"Duck Confit, no less — Miss Brigitte has excellent taste. Once it's been properly cured and seared in a pan, the outside is wonderfully crispy while the inside stays beautifully moist."
"……!!!!"
Brigitte, who had been focused on the pot and adjusting the flame, turned her head with such speed that one could almost hear it crack.
It was as though the room had suddenly brightened.
Because Brigitte's eyes were shining with a brilliant light.
That wide, searching gleam was something like——
"Wow! Duck Confit! You know it!"
"Of course I do — it's one of my favourite cooking methods."
"Really? It's my favourite method too!"
The look of a veteran of a dead game who has just found a fellow player who still loves it!
"Do you serve it at your restaurant?"
"Yes! But even when I go to the trouble of preparing it, no one orders it. I try my best to explain the technique and why it's worth it, but the response is always 'why go to all that trouble?'…… But that's precisely what makes food good — the more effort that goes in, the better it tastes."
"……!!!!"
Brigitte's grievance this time struck a chord somewhere deep in Jurgen.
'Why go to all that trouble?'
The words he'd heard most often from his comrades, no matter how carefully he carved out time to cook something for them.
That was right.
Brigitte, just like Jurgen, had been a victim of Britannia's barbaric food culture.
"The time one puts into Confit is never wasted. Doesn't it produce results worthy of every bit of it?"
"Right? Right?"
Duck Confit was, at its core, a labour-intensive dish to begin with.
By its very nature a slow food — cooked gently and slowly in low-temperature oil.
That alone made it sufficiently demanding, but the trouble didn't stop there.
Duck as an ingredient has an inherently powerful gamey quality.
To bring that gamey quality under control, an extremely meticulous marinade process is required.^1^
Then that marinated meat must be slowly cooked in oil kept below 100 degrees.
Even after it is fully cooked, it must be cold-cured inside the oil.
After all that curing, the meat then needs to go through the searing process — searing the surface of the meat over high heat.^2^
A dish into which a period of several days must be invested whole — the kind of thing one could never be bothered to make at home.
"How do you do your marinade?"
"Oh, I mix northern rock salt with herbs and coat it well, then cold-cure it for a day! Ah, I tend to toast the herbs over a flame first to bring out more of the fragrance."
"Oh ho, I didn't know there was a method like that."
Though Jurgen and Brigitte had only met today, neither felt quite like strangers to the other.
"What dish are you entering, Jurgen?"
"Chicken. Among them, what's called Seasoned Chicken is my secret weapon."
"That's a dish I've never heard of? I've read just about everything in books!"
"Hm? Are there cookbooks in Britannia?"
"My grandfather was a chef, you see!"
These days, even matchmaking services pair couples who share the same hobbies.
That is how much a shared interest can act as a smooth lubricant for communication.
There had been no one around Brigitte to talk to about cooking.
For Jurgen too, this was the first time conversation about food had flowed so naturally with anyone.
A dramatic encounter that, by rights, should have been impossible in Britannia!
With such a solid foundation of common ground beneath them, the conversation simply would not stop.
"Oh, this looks just about right. One moment."
Brigitte, who had been keeping a watchful eye on the pot throughout their chatter, lifted the duck leg that had been submerged in oil.
"It's ready now. Give me just a little while and I'll have it finished."
"I look forward to it."
"Feel free to look forward to it even more! This is my signature dish, after all!"
Wiping away the oil from the duck leg with a clean cloth, Brigitte took out a pan.
She placed the leg — with the thigh still attached — skin-side down onto the pan and turned on the flame.
The moment the flame from the burner reflected in her chestnut eyes——
Brigitte's gaze changed.
What people often call the look of a master artisan.
Meaning — a devotion and philosophy towards detail.
Within that, a burning passion and stubbornness.
It was not that kind of charismatic intensity that made all of those things viscerally felt.
It was simply.
The pure concentration of a child experiencing paint for the very first time.
That purity was so solid it left no room for anyone else to enter.
Brigitte had the eyes of someone who was enjoying a perfect, self-contained game — complete entirely within herself.
-Sizzle!
On the cast-iron pan that had slowly heated through, the meat began to cook.
The layer of fat beneath the skin rendered down with a sizzle, sending the scent of duck surging even more intensely through the kitchen.
Not once blinking, all her senses focused solely on what lay in the pan, Brigitte adjusted the flame with a delicate hand.
"Done! Give it 3 minutes of resting and it should be perfect!"
The Duck Confit that Brigitte plated and presented was perfection, in every sense.
Even without any particular garnish, it already appeared complete.
"The look of it alone is extraordinary……"
When he dragged the tip of a knife across the exterior skin, golden-brown with the Maillard reaction, it produced a clear, ringing sound that tickled the ears.
In contrast, the flesh inside had been cooked so tenderly that when he grasped the leg bone and pulled, it slid free without the slightest resistance.
Even cutting through it with a knife felt like slicing through warm butter.
And ultimately the taste……
Jurgen closed his eyes.
Thyme, bay leaf, rosemary.
Beneath the crispy skin — the pleasantly concentrated flavor of the duck, the fat layer, the juices, the harmoniously blended fragrance of the herbs, the texture melting softly away.
Ahh.
A certain memory stirred back to life.
A worn checkered tile floor with the feeling of years behind it. Red velvet seats. An old table and brass fittings. Wood paneling adorning the walls. Etched glass partitions. A chanson playing faintly in the background.
A classic splendor that evoked nostalgia for a Belle Époque era that never even existed.
"Ah, that's right, this place……"
Before Hanbin had ever crossed over to this world.
A small bistro he had stumbled into, drawn in by the smell, on a business trip to Paris.
The Duck Confit he had encountered there by chance had given him a joy he had never anticipated.
A memory he had left forgotten for a very long time.
When he came back to himself, a single tear had traced its way down his cheek.
A truly accomplished dish was one that could move even a person's heart.
"……This is rather embarrassing."
Embarrassment aside, he had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Brigitte's Duck Confit was without flaw.
A taste that transcended time and space to conjure something almost like a dream.
A taste that truly struck a chord.
"What's embarrassing?"
Brigitte, who had been watching Jurgen with an expression of 'I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, what kind of reaction will this get?!?!?!' right up until the moment the Confit entered his mouth — was……
"Hm? Why are you facing the other way?"
"Oh! There was something over here. Was it delicious?"
"I don't think it was because of that……"
"It absolutely was! Oh right — I didn't see anything, so please don't worry about it!"
She was sitting with her back turned entirely toward him in her chair.
Even now, mid-conversation, she was showing Jurgen the back of her head.
"Actually…… My grandfather told me that when a man cries, the considerate thing to do is to pretend you didn't see."
"I don't mind. It was simply that Miss Brigitte's food was that moving."
"Really? Then can I turn back around now?"
"Of course."
Only then did Brigitte turn back around with a swift pivot.
The kitchen was rather dim, so he hadn't noticed — but Brigitte herself was also on the verge of tears.
"And what's the matter with you?"
"To think there's someone who would shed tears over my cooking! I'm so moved! If it's not too much trouble, could you possibly write me a detailed review?"
"After being treated to food like this, of course. I could fill a whole book."
Jurgen told her freely — how deeply the Confit he had just eaten had moved him, how brilliantly the contrast between the crispy skin and the tender flesh had built its layers, how rich a concentration of flavor the meat had developed over 72 hours of cold-curing inside the rendered duck fat.
"These are expressions I never once imagined……! To think my cooking was a taste that could be described in such wonderful words!"
Born in a culinary wasteland and never having received proper recognition for that very reason, Brigitte seemed simply delighted by the act of receiving a review at all.
Seeing that, Jurgen felt his own desire stir.
"I'm nowhere near your level — but I find I have no choice but to show you something in return."
"Oh! You don't mean you're going to cook? That Seasoned Chicken, is it?"
"That's right. It's getting late — will you be alright?"
"I'd wait until daybreak if I had to!"
"It won't take quite that long."
Jurgen rolled up his sleeves and set about making the Seasoned Chicken.
Since the chicken had already been brined and the sauce prepared separately and brought along, it didn't take long.
"Thank you for the meal!"
"Well then — what do you think?"
"Mmm mmm mmm! Oh, this is incredibly delicious! Wow……! It's amazing. To think chicken could be interpreted this way! I've done just about every dish there is, but this is a concept I've never once attempted! And above all……"
Brigitte showed enormous enthusiasm for the Seasoned Chicken.
There was one part in particular that tickled Jurgen's heart.
"……This is a very clever dish!"
"Oh — what gave you that impression?"
"Hmm, how to put it — it touches on something primal, I suppose? The taste is intuitive and direct. It's a flavor that anyone, regardless of age or gender, simply cannot help but enjoy! Ah, I see! Jurgen, this dish is aimed at the 'masses,' isn't it!"
"Hmmmm……!"
This discernment. This sharpness.
"But……"
"Go ahead and say it."
"By my standards, the balance feels slightly tilted toward the stimulating side. An overwhelming, intense pleasure is wonderful — but personally, I think I find depth that one can contemplate more interesting."
An opinion that could only be offered by a high-level 'creator' rather than a 'consumer.'
"I understand what you mean. But would you hear my opinion as well?"
"Of course!"
Perhaps the only two people in all of Britannia who could fully understand each other — the two of them talked and talked, losing all track of time.
-Creeeak…
Neither of them noticed someone peering in through the gap in the kitchen door, biting down on their lip, and slipping away.
FOOTNOTE
1) Marinade: A seasoning liquid prepared for marinating ingredients, or the process itself.
2) Searing: A cooking method in which the surface of meat or other ingredients is cooked over high heat.