Chapter 91
Chapter 91. There Has Never Been a Taste Like This (2)
Dishes were presented to the judges in the order they were completed.
"I am Miles from The Grand Albion Hotel. My dish is Roast beef using doe tenderloin."
The judging process was as announced in advance.
Minister of the Royal Household Cromwell, Minister of Internal Affairs Fontaine, and Fifth Princess Luiza would each taste in turn.
"Hmm, well done. However, it does not seem like a dish outstanding enough to be offered to the royal court. 3 points."
"It was delicious. Thank you for the meal. 7 points."
"It is not tasty. 2 points."
Brief comments accompanied scores that were tallied together.
The Roast Beef just submitted by the hotel's Head Chef earned 12 points in total.
"My signature dish earning just that score! That cannot be right!"
"My good man, I lived in the Bellua Republic for ten years. This is undercooked. On top of that, you failed to suppress the characteristic gamey odor of venison. Don't speak rashly — go back."
Fortunately for Miles, who had entered this competition with great pride, he was not the only one to receive a harsh evaluation.
Each participant put forth a signature dish containing their best, but……
"I am Oliver of the Finch Viscount Family. The dish I will be presenting today is a meat pudding passed down through generations of our family. It is made with beef kidney, oysters, and dark ale……"
"Urp……!"
"Someone fetch that man! He has attempted to poison Her Highness the Princess!"
"Wh-, what?! No, no it isn't!"
Farces like this……
"I am Henry of the Tower of the Sea. I have placed boiled lobster atop gently cooked cod, piped a champagne cream smoothie over it……"
"It was delicious. 4 points."
"Your Excellency Fontaine…… it was delicious, so why is it 4 points?"
"I do not care for seafood."
And farces like that.
Not a single dish exceeded 20 points until only these three remained — Y&P Trading Company, Auguste's Restaurant, and Brigitte's Dining.
Minister of the Royal Household Cromwell dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin and furrowed his brow.
He had studied abroad in Bellua and had developed a certain eye for fine food, which was the reason he had been invited to this panel.
"This will warrant reprimanding Supply Committee Chairman Baron Kinsley. Is it not precisely because the qualifying round was handled with nothing but a document screening that this state of affairs has come about?"
"Is that so? I thought none of it was bad."
"……Your Excellency, are you serious?"
"Yes, the skill was comparable to the royal kitchen's chef."
"That would mean that royal kitchen chef's cooking is dreadful…… Hm, never mind."
Fifth Princess Luiza was in a full sulk, whispering to Lily.
"Lily, what is all this! I had set such great expectations for a culinary competition that I even skipped breakfast this morning in preparation."
"Please maintain your composure, Your Highness."
Just then.
The audience stirred.
"Oh, it is finally Auguste's turn."
"Just watching the way he prepares things is so mysterious — I wonder how the taste compares?"
It was because Auguste was making his way toward the judging panel with a dignified stride.
"The dish prepared by Auguste's Restaurant is a transparent Terrine."
The moment Auguste lifted the plate cover and the dish was revealed —
The eyes of every last judge went wide.
"Oh, a proper Terrine at that."
"How beautiful."
"Wa, waaah……! How pretty! It is like a jewel box!"
True to Princess Luiza's words, Auguste's Terrine was beautiful — as though jewels of various colors had been placed inside a crystal and set firm.
In terms of appearance alone, one might say it suited dessert far more than a main dish.
"Ahem, to speak of this Terrine — the Consommé used to make the jelly was drawn from pheasant stock…… Inside are Black Truffle mushrooms personally harvested by Six Heroes member Isolde Blackwood, scallops from the Eastern Sun coast, the shoots of White Asparagus, and……"
"That is too long. Summarize it briefly."
Auguste's expression, for this had only been the beginning, turned sour, but —
"……Various vegetables are included."
"Hmm, I do not care for vegetables."
One cannot show such feelings before the princess of an entire kingdom.
Forcing a smile, he stepped back.
"How does one eat this?"
"Simply as it is — it has been divided into easy portions so it can be taken in a single bite."
"Well then, let us taste……"
Lord Cromwell, brimming with anticipation, stabbed the Terrine with his fork and placed it in his mouth in one bite.
And then……
"Oh, ohhh!!!"
The moment the cold jelly touched his lips it began to melt away, and together with a warm radiance spreading before his eyes, a hazy vision came to him.
This place was……
'Mamaaa~!'
The Bellua Republic's embassy residence, where Cromwell had spent his childhood.
His father had barely been scraping by as a diplomat to make ends meet, and Cromwell too had attended an international school in a foreign land — his difficult years abroad spent without even a personal driver.
The embassy residence had only six bedrooms, far too cramped for a whole family to live in, and it had been such a hard time that rather than a personal attendant, he had to share a single servant with his scatterbrained cousin.
Yet it was also a memory where warm feelings coexisted.
Whenever Cromwell returned home after class, his mother — having finished her exhausting rounds of Social Circles for the day — would leave the housework to the servants and cook for him herself.
'Is my son home? Mama has prepared dinner for you again today.'
'Yeaaaah, what is it, what is it?'
'It's Terrine. Your favorite, my darling.'
His mother's Terrine had been a steadfast comfort to see him through those dreary years abroad, a food steeped in memory.
'Is it delicious?'
'Yes!'
'By how much?'
'The most in the world! Mama's Terrine is the most delicious thing in the world!'
'Really?'
A warm dinner table shared between mother and son.
Now no longer the boy who knew nothing, but a middle-aged man who had taken up a ministerial post in a kingdom — Cromwell answered his mother.
"Not anymore. Mother."
Auguste's Terrine was……
A taste so perfect it could not be compared with what his mother had made.
As the cold jelly melted at the temperature of his tongue, it opened a feast of flavors concentrated within the rich stock.
Carrot crunching pleasantly, asparagus, silky soft Scallop, pheasant tenderloin pulling apart gently into tender strands.
Every flavor harmonizing in exquisite sweetness — the pinnacle of fine dining!
Cromwell realized he had been holding his breath and let out a long exhale.
"10 points. A more perfect Terrine cannot exist."
It was a satisfied exhale.
"It was delicious. My score is 9 points."
"Auguste, was it? It was pretty, and a taste quite unlike anything else. 9 points. I have deducted 1 point for too many vegetables."
Lily and Princess Luiza also gave Auguste's Terrine a generous score.
28 points in total.
The audience was set alight by Auguste's overwhelming performance, which put a 10-point gap between him and the current second place.
"Oh, 28 points!"
"I too would very much like to try that dish. The taste is of course intriguing, but it is simply too beautiful aesthetically……"
"Baron Rangill, might one reserve a table at the restaurant right away?"
"Ahaha, please, compose yourselves. I shall invite you all."
Even Baron Rangill, who outwardly played at being composed, was leaping about inside and raising a toast.
"Nothing has been decided yet. The Duck Confit still remains, does it not?"
At that point Ambassador Saint-Germain threw cold water over the excitement.
"However remarkable a Confit or whatever it may be, at the end of the day is it not food made by some commoner girl?"
"Well — the preparation process was textbook in every respect. On top of that, she added the variation of aging the duck in duck fat. There is a more than sufficient chance of winning."
"Hmph, there is no need to watch and see."
Drawing every eye in the room like the tail of a tropical fish, Brigitte stepped forward.
"I am Brigitte of Brigitte's Dining! I have prepared Duck Confit!"
"Hmm, it looks and smells absolutely splendid. The taste, one wonders……"
"Oh, so much meat. I shall commend you for it."
The judges tasted the Confit made using only duck legs.
"……"
"……"
"……"
And then — silence.
The only thing that hung over the judging panel, where commentary should have been given, was silence.
"What is it? Why has everyone suddenly gone quiet……"
"They have all stopped moving?"
The bewildered guests soon realized one truth.
"They are eating! They are still eating!"
"Wh-, what?"
"It is only that they are moving so fast…… one can barely make it out……!"
The judges said nothing.
But they were not doing nothing.
With a blur of quick movements that left afterimages, knives and forks working —
As though finishing every last piece of this dish were the most important task of their lives —
They were indulging in the Duck Confit down to the very last morsel.
"T-, to think a dish like this could exist……!!! What exactly has the Confit I have eaten until now been……!!! 10 points! 10 points!"
"It is a dish I would very much like to serve to Hanbin as well. 10 points. Thank you for the meal."
"Mmmm! 10 points! 10 points! Bring more Duck Confit to me at once!"
And so the resulting score was 30 points.
"Waah! Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Brigitte, her face deeply flushed, bounced up and down and bowed repeatedly at a 90-degree angle.
"A perfect score? A perfect score?"
"What — does that mean…… Auguste lost?"
"That duck dish is really to that degree?"
Amid the audience stirring once again —
"This cannot be! My, my Terrine losing to a Britannian chef!"
Filled with indignation, Auguste opened his eyes wide and headed to the table where Brigitte had been cooking.
It could not be.
Surely there had been some manner of irregularity or error that had produced this result.
Auguste roughly shoved the remaining extra Duck Confit left in the pan into his mouth.
Auguste, who had been prepared to overturn the entire Royal Competition and everything along with it —
"……Ah."
Froze on the spot.
It was because Auguste, who had taken pride in his own skill and walked the path of a cook, was able to feel it.
"Ah……"
Beyond the wall. Beyond that horizon.
A paradise of duck placed on the other side of an unfathomable height.
Had he ever eaten Duck Confit this magnificent in the Bellua Republic?
What's more……
It was not simply that the taste was outstanding.
This was Britannia.
Those eating the food were people accustomed to Britannia's immature food culture.
Terrine was fundamentally a cold dish.
Meaning it was a dish that ran counter to the primal human dietary instinct of finding comfort in warmth.
And yet Auguste had submitted his signature Terrine.
Because his opponent was, at most, a Britannian chef.
He had been too busy showing off his own skill without considering in the least the people who would be eating the food.
But this Duck Confit was different.
With Britannian ingredients, an intuitive and unambiguous flavor — it had been offered so that even a Britannian person could enjoy it with ease.
That care and consideration was plainly felt from the very method of preparation.
'Warmth' was held within it.
Auguste, 28 points.
Brigitte, 30 points.
The difference between the two was 2 points, but a gap greater than that existed.
Namely —
"……The heart that thinks of the one eating……"
The reason he had begun cooking.
Yet with his skill honed and a great restaurant to run —
The original heart of a cook, worn and eroded by the years and the winds of time, was contained in this plate.
Hot tears streamed down Auguste's cheeks.
"You said your name was Brigitte?"
Auguste pulled his toque down to cover his eyes as he asked.
"Yes!"
"That was truly a magnificent dish. A dish that does not consider the one eating it is of no value whatsoever."
"No, no! The Terrine looked incredibly delicious too!"
"I, Auguste, hereby acknowledge my defeat. I shall come to eat your cooking without fail one day. Would that be alright?"
"Of course!"
From an audience's perspective, the thrilling underdog comeback is always a joy.
The drama of an unexpected commoner girl defeating the formidable front-runner Auguste.
The sportsmanship of Auguste — who had displayed arrogance throughout — tasting the Confit and humbly acknowledging defeat.
At the satisfying spectacle, thunderous applause rang out.
"This culinary competition thing — it was quite entertaining, considering I expected nothing from it."
"It makes me want to try that Duck Confit as well."
All except one person.
"Th-, th-, this…… What the hell, this is outrageous……!"
Barring Baron Rangill, who had turned pale as a sheet foreseeing the grim future of a family in a very poor state — it had been a satisfying competition for everyone.
"And with this, the winner of the 1st Royal Culinary Competition is Brigitte's Dining……! Ah, there is one dish remaining. I apologize for the confusion."
Even the Court Official was thrown into confusion by the atmosphere that seemed to have wrapped everything up already —
"With a score of 30 points, is it not already over?"
"No matter how you look at it, how could mere Chicken beat Duck Confit?"
"Even so, shouldn't we taste it? It is a matter of fairness."
With the audience grown lukewarm —
Step. Step.
The final participant made her way slowly toward the judging panel.
"Penelope Rosemore of Y&P. The dish to be submitted is a Half-and-half Chicken served with Gravy Sauce and Mashed Potato."
It was Penelope, who had completed her dish as the very last entry.