Chapter 58 – Meatball vs Dumpling
Meals at the domus had always been repetitive. In truth, most poor households lived the same way – their tables plan and unvaried, for they could not afford the luxury of diverse ingredients.
The Domus Lucis in Wyrnfield was no different from other domus in the outskirts, except for one advantage: a generous landlord. He was willing to waive the rent and would donate surplus or rejects from his estate’s orchard. This allowed the domus to distribute some of those provisions to the poor in the parish, especially during winter.
Even so, the domus was not wealthy. The clergy still had to manage their budget carefully, particularly in the colder months.
Things began to change when a ragged schoolmistress named Jade Lysmere arrived – a young woman of unknown origin, said to have been rescued from drowning in the Lysmere River.
From then on, favourable reports about the Wyrnfield Domus began to circulate within clerical circles.
How to run a ragged school efficiently.
How to start small ventures to support the domus financially.
How to guide students away from wrongdoing by offering them honest ways to earn coins…
Some clergy frowned upon these practices, seeing them as too profit-driven. Yet under the young schoolmistress’s guidance, the domus was gradually expected to achieve a steadier flow of income – allowing it to better support and educate the poor, rather than leaving them idle.
Miss Jade’s name may have meant little to the middle and upper class, but among the working people and the poor, she was both known and well regarded.
Ironically, she herself had no idea.
Not that she cared. What surprised her more was the absence of troublemakers in her class – and even in the school as a whole.
No one had pointed out the reason to her. But in truth, the students were too occupied earning coins through the opportunities she had created to resort to sealing or mischief. If she happened to know any teachers from a proper school, they would surely let her know how troublesome their students could be.
Jade did not care, Jade considered her duty as a teacher fulfilled, and Jade cared more about her meal, which was the main reason why she often gave Sister Geenia suggestions on how to improve meals at minimal cost.
The nun welcomed these ideas. Though servants of the Light were expected to practise temperance – wanting and dressing plainly to reflect inner radiance rather than indulging worldly desires – she still appreciated a bit of variety beyond the usual rotation of recipes.
Ordinarily, Jade was more than happy to try whatever creative meal Sister Geenia had come up with. The nun was a capable cook, wasting nothing while filling everyone’s stomach – even as the number of mouths had increased from twenty to nearly three hundred.
But today, even the well-regarded Miss Jade hesitated when she saw the bowl placed before her.
“Meatballs”, one that did not resemble anything she recognised, floating in stew.
Western meatballs, in her understanding, were made of minced meat mixed with chopped onions and shaped into balls; they had a rougher surface where visible meat fibres could be seen. These had a smoother surface that looked nothing like minced meat.
East Asian meatballs, on the other hand, were made of minced meat mixed with starch or various flour; they were usually pale, greyish, or brown, with no visible meat fibers. These, though somewhat greyish-brown, had vague strands of meat running through them, giving them a somewhat suspicious appearance…
“The grey parts look strange” Jade heard a nearby student whisper to her friend. “Mama says grey meat is bad. The Sisters aren’t giving us bad food, right?”
“...” Jade had never felt the cultural gap so sharply before.
She scooped up a “meatball”, took a bite, and frowned in confusion.
As expected, it wasn’t bouncy at all.
She had braced herself for something mushy, but instead, it was firm – almost chewy, like a rice cake. Lightly seasoned, with a hint of onion and something else… It somehow tasted familiar…
“Oh! It’s flour!” The same student exclaimed, her tone suddenly bright with realisation. “It’s not really a meatball, it’s meat dumplings! I shouldn’t think badly about the Sisters. They gave us good food!”
“...” Jade glared at the meatball on her spoon. From this angle, it even resembled the logo of the Apple company.
She had never expected that one day, someone would point at a meatball and tell her that’s a dumpling. Yet, she had to admit, the version made by Sister Geenia and Josh did taste like one.
Still, adjusting her concept of a meatball into a skinless, round shape dumpling was not easy.
She finished it and decided to treat it as an entirely new kind of food. Something unrelated to either meatballs or dumplings as she knew them.
“Sensei.” Josh sat down beside her. He took a quick bite of the round piece in his bowl, nodded in approval, then turned to Jade, “Taste alright, doesn’t it? Sister Geenia finalized the recipe after just three trials – remarkable!”
“Yeah, tastes good,” Jade replied. Ignoring the fact it was neither a proper meatball nor a dumpling, it was acceptable. “Though I suggested selling them at the stall, we don’t have a spare stove or pot, right? Maybe we should just keep it as an extra dish for the students. Do you think we can finish it before the meat spoils?”
Josh shook his head. “I heard this won’t be the last batch for the season.”
“Why?” Jade frowned. “I mean, has the demand for meat dropped? Why is there so much going unsold?”
“The farms are reducing their herds.” Realising Jade likely knew little about such matters, Josh explained, “Keeping large numbers of cattle and sheep requires too much labour and feed, and animals are more prone to illness in the cold. So farms expand their herds in summer and reduce them in winter to cut costs and troubles. This is when meat becomes abundant – and cheaper.”
“Well, can’t they preserve it somehow?” Jade asked. “Like smoking or salting it?”
“They do. These are what’s left after salting.” Josh shrugged, “I heard some places smoke and dry the meat, but that requires specific wood, and the climate here isn’t ideal. It’s too humid, the meat would grow mould before it dries properly.”
Jade let out a “tsk”, struck by the sheer volume of leftovers. If Sister Geenia deemed it fit for cooking, then it must still be usable – but even so, the amount of meat that must have been salted before this stage was beyond her imagination.
“Um, has Father arranged to distribute some of the donated meat to the poor?” she asked after a moment of thought, already worrying about what would happen if another batch arrived the next day. The domus simply did not have the manpower to process so much meat. The students lacked the strength, and she could not pull them away from their craftwork when they were so motivated.
“He has,” Josh said with a nod. “But there’s still more, and the fragments are too small to give out. So he asked Sister Geenia to hire some of the farm women – using these meatballs as wages – to help pound the into paste.”
He continued with a bright smile, “Sensei, your idea was brilliant! Pounding the meat with rolling pins on a flat top is much easier than mincing it. It doesn’t require skill and knives, and anyone can mix flour and water into a dough. The only difficult part is shaping the balls, but Sister Miriam came up with a method inspired by our piping technique.”
He gestured animatedly as he explained, “She uses her palm like a piping tip, squeezing out a portion and scooping it off with a spoon, then it drops straight into boiling water. Not all farm ladies can manage it, though.”
The young pupil continued his report after swallowing another spoonful. “Brother James has gone to get us another stove and pot. We can set it up beside our chips stall. Sensei, you said a penny for a skewer of five, right?”
“Yeah. With a skewer, customers can eat while walking, and we won’t need packaging.” Jade nodded. “Though, we could also sell them in bowls if customers bring their own. We could give them some of the boiling water as soup. The meatballs release flavour into the water when we boil them, so it becomes a light broth. You can season it a bit to improve the taste. Ask Sister Geenia if she has any ideas.”
Sister Geenia and Sister Lucy were not in the dining hall as usual. They must have been busy in the kitchen.
“Good suggestion!” Josh noted it down in his palm-sized notebook. “Also, Brother James has hired the husbands of the farm ladies to make skewers, so we should have plenty by tomorrow when we set up the stall.”
Jade ran through the numbers in her head and spoke with some hesitation. “They don’t have proper storage for the meat, right? I don’t think paying them with meat would be suitable in the long term; it would put them at risk of eating spoiled food. If our sales last only a couple of days, paying them with meat is fine, but if the abundance of donations lasts the entire season, we shouldn’t continue with those kinds of wages.”
“And Sensei suggest?”
“Pay them in meat for the first two days. If we continue into the third, we should pay them standard wages. Six pence, twelve pence, or something along those lines. Let Brother James decide on the specifics,” Jade said, tapping her fingers lightly against the table. “Now, the cost of flour, starch, water, coal… oh, we need to thank Mr. Davidson for the space. Remember to give him a bowl of these as extra rent and a token of our appreciation. What else…”
Josh nodded as he jotted everything down. “Oh, and Sister Geenia doesn’t think this is a proper meatball.”
“??” Jade turned to him, then immediately understood. “She thinks it’s a dumpling?”
“Exactly.” Josh looked equally puzzled. “It’s shaped like a ball, so Sister Lucy thinks ‘meatball’ is fine. But Sister Geenia insists that meat mixed with flour should be called a dumpling. Since you called it a meatball, shouldn’t we go with that, Sensei?”
Sensei felt reluctant to call this thing a meatball. Jade mused wryly offered her opinion, “Why don’t we give it a new name? I don’t think it’s quite a meatball, or a dumpling.”
Josh noted that down as well. He quickly finished his meal while engaging in light conversation with Jade, then hurried out of the dining hall, clearly heading back to the kitchen to deal with the points Jade had raised.
Jade had no idea what time the kitchen finally put out their fires that night. Clara had sought her out afterward, asking for advice on how to become a better teacher in the tuition class. Well, Clara did not phrase it that way. Becoming a ragged school teacher seemed beneath her formal status as the daughter of a genteel family; she insisted on calling herself an “instructor”. Jade did not pry, and simply shared what experience she had in guiding students.
It was only the next morning that she learned the new name for the round food.
“...‘Penny skewer’? Seriously?” Jade looked at her pupil with a flat, unimpressed stare. He responded with a shrug and a cheeky grin.
“Well, it’s simple and easy to remember.” Josh quickly handed his master a bowl of seasoned broth. “Here, try this. Sister Geenia went through the storeroom last night to find suitable seasonings that we had in abundance.”
Jade eyed the bow sceptically before taking a sip. Her expression shifted slightly. “Pepper… and vinegar?”
Josh nodded eagerly. “Isn’t it good? Spicy and warming for winter!”
“Might as well add some egg drop…” And with a bit of starch, it would look exactly like some kind of cheaply made Chinese soup. Jade thought, and raised her gaze to find Josh’s eyes lit up.
“Sensei,” Jade heard her pupil ask, “why don’t we go to the kitchen and try adding egg drop? That sounds like something nice!”
“...” Sometimes, Jade just hated herself for letting words slip out without thinking.